If SGA has its way, fall break may fall by the wayside.

The SGA Senate discussed a Faculty Senate proposal to change both Fall Break and Spring Break during Monday night’s SGA meeting.

The Faculty Senate proposed that in fall 2013, fall break and Thanksgiving break would be combined into a week-long break on the week of Thanksgiving. The SGA was in favor of this proposal.

 “Some of their concerns were class attendance,” said Reginald Merritt, who was at the recent Faculty Senate meeting with fellow senator Desiray Ward. “They feel that when we have two breaks, we might miss more days the day before the break starts and the days after the break ends.”

 Merritt and Ward were asked to report back to the SGA to see what they thought, and there was a lot of feedback from both senators and visitors.

  “I feel that as a student, it is your responsibility to go to class anyway,” De’Miah Greene, a student visitor, said. “You paid to go to these classes.”

Greene added that she was in favor of not changing the breaks.

SGA senator Sam Logan was in favor of the change, however.

 “My parents would always go out of town on Tuesday, and I would still be having class, so I would always miss them going to Mississippi and I would end up having to be alone,” Logan said. “If I had a whole week off, I could have been with my parents.”

Also mentioned was a Faculty Senate proposal to change the date of Spring Break to the beginning of April.

 “The reasoning for this is we have a lot of student teachers at VSU,” Merritt said, “You know, the student teachers can only go on spring break when their school is on spring break, so they pushed it back to the first week of April.”

Merritt also added that Valdosta High and Lowndes High both have their spring break scheduled for that week.

This was not as warmly received as the fall break proposal, and the SGA Senate voted against the proposal.

“I do feel sorry for the student teachers that can’t enjoy Spring Break because of their major,” Logan said. “However, pushing the college spring break to be at the same time as the high school spring break could cause chaos on spring break, because think about it – most colleges have spring break in March for a reason, because most high schools have theirs in April.”

Logan added that he has gone to Panama City for Spring Break as both a high school student and a college student, and the experiences were entirely different.

“They don’t want to mix spring break,” Logan said.

Ryan Baerwalde, SGA President, mentioned that this issue was discussed during the last school year, and that other colleges across Georgia had their spring break scheduled at the same time.

“Typically, you’re going to have friends that you’re going to want to meet up with,” Baerwalde said. “I understand the plight of student teachers, but to benefit a few and have the rest sacrifice going with the rest of their friends, it’s kind of rough looking, and I believe last year, we shot it down, and keep it where it was.”

NOTES:
Jeremiah Wiggins, Isaiah Smart, and Tara Stripling were elected to the Senate. Wiggins has served in the SGA senate in the past.
$450 was appropriated to fund Blazer-A-Thon, an upcoming event coming in November.