Written by Blake Matthews
With final exams looming closer every day, students at some universities are counting on a break from school to give them time to pull all their notes together. Commonly referred to as “Dead Week,” whether it lasts a few days or all week, the break can be the last calm before a fierce academic storm.Harding students observed Dead Week April 27 to May 1, though they may not have realized it. Classes have never been canceled the week before finals, a fact of life at Harding that some are saying might be in students’ best interest.
Dr. Marty Spears, Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs, has worked at Harding for nine years, during which time he has heard Dead Week brought up repeatedly. The week is still dedicated to study and preparation for finals, he said, even if classes are held and projects are due. Though some have suggested giving students extra time to study by canceling classes, the idea has not gathered enough momentum among Harding’s leaders.”I don’t think everybody is convinced that time would be spent studying necessarily, because a lot of times people will wait ‘till the very last minute,” Spears said.Some members of the Academic Leaders Committee, a group of roughly 50 deans, department chairs and key officials on campus, are in favor of giving students a break. Junior Drew Dell said he would not mind a few free days added on to the weekend before finals.”If you plan and manage your time well, you still have to kill yourself during Dead Week,” he said.A nursing major, Dell said he has seven tests during Dead Week.Junior Matt Lewis, an engineering major, had two projects due during Dead Week: he constructed an operable robot and a microprocessor. Neither he nor Dell said they noticed much of a difference between Dead Week and the rest of the semester.”It’s actually busier for me,” sophomore Meg Dalafave said.Dalafave, a music major, had two concerts and a test during Dead Week — with her most difficult final scheduled for Monday.Dean of Student Services David Collins said he recognizes that students are not getting a break before finals, but Dead Week earns its title because it is “dead socially.””It’s a week that we want to focus strictly on wrapping up classes and preparing for finals,” he said.Social club activities, including functions and meetings, are not supposed to be held from April 27 to May 1. No concerts are scheduled on campus, either. Spears reiterated that social club meetings “really shouldn’t take place,” but he said he was not sure how rigidly that rule would be enforced.Lewis said that the extracurricular cancelations do not bother him.”We don’t go to them anyway, pretty much,” he said. “You’ve got to study, got to finish all your projects.”Other schools share Harding’s position on not cutting classes from the schedule, though student workloads may be lighter for that week. A biochemistry major at Pepperdine University, senior Linda Ehlig said her school has always had class during Dead Week, but professors were asked not to give tests.”The professors didn’t really follow it, so we don’t have a dead anything anymore,” she said.Pepperdine eventually decided to remove the restriction on tests right before finals.”The only difference really is that you can’t get mad if you have a test during Dead Week,” Ehlig said.Some Harding students, although admittedly in need of a break, are not upset about working and testing through the week. Lewis said he was wary of losing class days, as “a lot of teachers fall behind as it is, and so they need all the days they can get.” Extra days would likely need to be added to the calendar to compensate, he said, and that would delay his trip home.Lewis and Dell said they both agreed with Spears, saying that many students would not dedicate any new free time to preparing for finals, anyway.”They might even try to go and take a little road trip and come back, and then really try to study after that,” Dell said.Dalafave said she would not mind a day or two off, but that she was not comfortable with the idea of classes being cancelled for all of Dead Week, as is done at some universities.”I think the whole week off might actually be a bad thing, because then you have an entire week between the last day of classes and your test, which is enough time to forget things,” she said.Collins and Spears both acknowledged that procrastination and adding days to the calendar were both reasons to keep students in class until the end, but they mentioned another factor. According to Collins, the end of each semester sees a rise in “mischievous” activity in the dorms and around campus.”That’s also a time where, sometimes … students make some pretty serious mistakes with regard to our code of conduct,” Collins said. “Even without having some days off there seems to be free time that gets used by students in a way that’s not healthy.”Dalafave said she could see Collins’ point, but she believed that it would be against the nature of Harding students to turn destructive in their extra free time.”I think there would be a few more problems, yes,” Dalafave said. “But I don’t think Harding would suddenly explode.”Though Dead Week at many universities sees more classrooms sitting empty, students here take the schedule in stride. They know that, when the work is done, it is done until the fall.”You just get through it and know, after that one week, you’ll be able to go home and rest,” Dell said.
