Friday, February 12, 2010

Boycott GW's Lousy Make-Up Schedule?

MadTwomey already wrote a great post about GW's lame make-up schedule (shout-out, by the way, to a fellow Connnecticuter who has never seen snow so poorly handled), but I felt the need to chime in as well because this is really bothering me.

This new schedule completely eliminates our reading days - not only that, but it also goes so far as to steal one of our weekend days, the Saturday before exams start.  The GW administration might think all we do on the weekends is drink, but the weekend before finals, most of us actually study for our exams.  Forcing us to go to class right up until two days before exams start is going to severely affect our performance on said exams.

There's already a Facebook group condemning the decision:
GWU made an executive decision to cancel classes due to the record snowfall. They have a responsibility to their student-customers to rearrange the semester schedule responsibly. Elongate the semester, change the final exam schedule or format - but don't punish your students by taking away their study days or weekends, harming their academic performance. A make-up day is a fine time to hold missed classes, but don't take away our reading days. In protest of this senseless new policy, the members of this group will protest by boycott, and refuse to attend class on reading days or a Saturday. More study days and better final exam grades are worth more than a few missed classes on designated reading days stolen from the student body by a university which refuses to lose a small fraction of their exorbitant profits by adding a few days to the semester.
Facebook groups are an easy way to show disgust with a stupid policy, and boycotts may be fun (especially when they involve not going to class), but will either of these tactics really result in a change to the make-up schedule?

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