Boston University students and professors will be heading to class as usual on Monday — but the rest of the city won’t be. In observance of Veteran’s Day, offices and schools across the country will close their doors on Nov. 11 as they do each year. Not BU.
When these discrepancies are brought up, most students argue the most obvious case for getting the day off — based on respect for veterans and the fact that so many other schools do. But we don’t need to shy away from the real reason we want the day off: our sanity.
The sun has started to set early again and it feels like everyone on campus is feeling sluggish. Endless to-do lists and night after night spent studying define this time of year for most of the student body.
Students haven’t had a day off since Columbus Day, which helps explain the collective exhaustion. Thanksgiving break may be coming up, but the four weeks in between then and Columbus Day are increasingly hard to manage with the added stress of midterms, internship applications and — believe it or not — semester finals looming overhead.
In combination with extracurriculars and maintaining good health, the chaos often gets the best of us and a break is exactly what we need to get through the semester.
If not forced to take a day off by the university, many students fall into a routine of working harder and harder each week, never affording themselves a much-needed break. The university cannot claim to address student mental health needs and continue to contribute to the circumstances that cause those struggles.
Nearly every institution in Boston takes the day off on Veteran’s Day each year, allowing time for faculty and students to pay respects but also to recharge and likely catch up on both sleep and work. The University of Massachusetts Boston, Northeastern University, Berklee College of Music, Emerson College and Suffolk University grant the day off to their communities, to name just a few.
All of this is important, but frankly, the observance of the holiday itself should be more than enough to grant us a day off. Not every student or professor is a veteran or even knows one, but the fallen men and women we respect on this day were fighting — for better or for worse — not only on behalf of their loved ones, but rather the country as a whole.
BU students and faculty already receive a day off during the semester on Columbus Day in October each year, which hosts a myriad of problems in and of itself.
Although Columbus Day is a national holiday, many states, organizations and municipalities have decided instead to celebrate the history of indeginous Americans through Indigenous People’s Day, but BU continues to list the holiday as Columbus Day on its academic calendar.
A day for remembrance of indigenous peoples and their struggles, both during colonialism and today, is important and essential to protect, but Veteran’s Day should be of equal importance. The fact that it is not suggests the university’s choice to give Columbus Day off is more about logistics than anything else.
Of course there would be obstacles when implementing Veteran’s Day as a break from class, such as making up the class time for courses that meet that day and attaining a certain number of class days each semester. But these issues could be resolved through extending the semester to begin earlier as many universities do or even shortening study period, if the class days are so essential.
This is not about having one less day of class, but rather getting a deserved break among so much stress as so many students across the country do. By not observing Veteran’s Day, BU is making a choice to ignore the holiday and the needs of its students.
