MOUNT VERNON — For the past 22 years, Cornell College students could only dream of spring breaks spent on white sandy beaches.
While they still may not be able to make that tropical vacation a reality, they at least have a better shot at it: The college is reviving spring vacation this year.
Until now, Cornell may have been the only college without a spring vacation. Cornell has not had a traditional spring break since the One-Course-At-A-Time calendar was adopted in 1978-1979. On this intense academic calendar, students study a single subject for 3 ½ weeks, take a four-day “block break” and move on to the next course. There are nine terms each year. Spring break week comes before the eighth term, so coupled with the four-day break, Cornell students get an 11-day vacation, March 29 through April 8.
“It is sort of a rite of passage for many students, and I think that it helps to create a complete college experience,” says freshman Andy Martin, 19, from Fort Collins, Colo. He and four Cornell classmates plan to spend four nights at South Padre Island, Texas, and some time in Houston.
“I am very excited and feel that we are going to have fun, even though we are on a tight budget,” he says.
South Padre Island also is the destination for Katie Smith, a 21-year-old senior from Leawood, Kan. She and six Cornell students and two recent alums are making the trip. “I am really excited,” Smith says. “I have missed being able to go on a vacation in the previous years.”
Amber Cooper, a junior from Portland, Ore., will join Cornell’s Mountaineering Club on a trip to Utah. “It should be really fun since I am a backpacking trip leader during the summer at a Girl Scout camp in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. I am excited to do some backpacking in a desert environment for a change,” she says.
Biology and chemistry professor Jeff Cardon was chair of Cornell’s Academic Affairs Committee two years ago when the spring break issue was debated and decided by the faculty after student representatives on his committee lobbied for it. A survey of about 100 students — roughly 10 percent of the student body — showed about 70 percent favored a spring break.
“Being in a rather cold climate, the question arises every spring: ‘Why are we stuck here without a vacation?’ ” Cardon says students, faculty and staff would ask.
He says the issue had been debated many times during his 20 years at the college. Students, however, were not in favor because the college intended to close for the week, leaving non-travelers no place to go. This time, the college will be open, students can remain in residence halls and the dining halls will serve meals. Cornell plans to review spring break over the next two years and decide its future status.
Students who have opposed a spring break worried that ending the school year a week later would hurt their summer job prospects. “That’s still a problem for some students,” Cardon says. Many students plan to start the summer job hunt during spring break.
“We know what it’s been like for 20 years not to have it. Let’s see how it works with it,” Cardon says. “I do think once it’s there, constituencies on campus will begin to look forward to having that week off. People’s view of it right now is very positive.”
Martin says knowing there would be a spring break was one of the reasons he chose Cornell. He’s already thinking about what he will do for next year’s spring break.
“I will probably try to get my friends from Cornell to go back to Colorado with me or else we will go somewhere warm. Maybe Jamaica, if we all save enough money,” he says.