MacEwan University considering scrapping fall break
CBC
MacEwan University administration is considering discontinuing its week-long fall break, so it doesn't have to schedule final exams on Sundays.
Both the faculty and students' associations stand united against the proposal, which will be voted on during a general faculties council meeting Monday. Most of the voters will be university executives and faculty, along with some student members.
The University isn't expected to comment until the results are in.
In a joint letter to the council, both associations urged voters to keep the break as is.
"We recognize that Fall Reading Break significantly impacts student mental health and general wellness," the letter reads, in part.
"It is a crucial time for many students to do paid work, catch up on schoolwork, take care of themselves and manage the affordability crisis impacting our community."
The letter indicates that the students' association conducted a survey, and that the results suggested an overwhelming majority of students want the fall break to remain.
"The fall reading week is very important," third-year biology student Semoya Branford said Friday.
The week before the break, students have "a lot of midterms, lots of projects that are due." Students have midterm exams the week after, as well, Branford said.
"We use that [break] to disconnect or prep for the school work," Branford said.
The joint letter also posits that pitting Sunday exams against the break creates "a false dichotomy," suggesting they are "not guaranteed to disappear."
"There are alternative solutions that could be explored to maintain a balance of student and faculty well-being, while ensuring there are enough instructional hours to meet program requirements," the letter says.
Darcy Hoogers, vice president academic of the Students' Association of MacEwan University, claims the university consulted minimally with students on the issue.
"That break allows a little bit of pressure to be released," Hoogers said Friday, adding that, without it, the pressure builds.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824, and a couple centuries later, this annual tradition is still going strong.
A congregation in Carman, Man., is coming to grips with the loss of their Anglican Lutheran church, a fixture in the community that was ravaged by a fire on Thursday.
Kayla DeMong fought tears as she described the dire conditions on the front lines, pleading for more help from the province as staff at the harm reduction site she leads try to keep up with the recent spike in overdoses.
A B.C. woman who has been detained by U.S. immigration officials for 11 days, after trying to enter the country, will be released on Friday, according to her father.
Toronto is doubling the number of automated speed cameras on city streets.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is alleging the former CEO of Alberta Health Services was unwilling and unable to implement the government's plan to break up the health authority, became "infatuated" with her internal investigation into private surgical contracts and made "incendiary and inaccurate allegations about political intrigue and impropriety" before she was fired in January.