The first three weeks of this semester have been nothing short of a crashing roller coaster ride. With the rising COVID-19 clusters, classes moving back online and a mandatory move out, it’s been a stressful time for students and faculty alike. Now that we are back online, there is no need for an expedited schedule, please reinstate fall break so we can all get a break in these unconventional and unprecedented times.

Fall break this year was supposed to be held on October 8 and 9, the semester was shortened to avoid the flu season and an anticipated second wave of the pandemic.  We understand that going back to an entirely normal schedule for the fall would force all the faculty to revise and reschedule their syllabus, which would be extremely inconvenient. However, reinstating fall break will not create more of a time crunch. It would only force a change in the calendar, maybe shaving off a week from this year’s extraordinarily long winter break. 

The syllabi for this semester seem like a couple of crash courses with rushed instruction, and it’s imperative that we have ample time to work on our material with distance education. A lot is covered in the first half of the semester, and midterms are stressful and need time to be graded accurately. Students and professors will appreciate a day or two off. 

The fall semester is the longer of the two semesters, and despite it being very early in the year, it’s already hard to breathe. A lot of out-of-state and international students are adapting to new time zones. Not to mention the students who have tested positive for COVID-19 and genuinely need this time to recuperate. 

As Paul Isom, a journalism professor from the Department of English at NC State, wrote in The News & Observer early this summer, “While administrators may be pressuring me to teach in person, they’re being pressured to keep the university afloat financially, putting them in the same boat as the bar and bowling alley managers who are desperate to reopen, no matter the cost to public health.”

The damage has been done. We returned to NC State to ensure the financial viability of the college and are now leaving to ensure the safety of the campus community. The vast majority of us have been responsible and taken the necessary precautions in this pandemic. Fall break will allow us to focus on our mental health, giving us time to relax and reboot for the next half of the semester.

A task force article published by Technician on June 11 quoted Louis Hunt, senior vice provost for Enrollment Management and Services, as saying, “The University has a little bit of flexibility so that, sometimes, we don’t take the exact same holidays as the state government, but the University itself, HR, sort of sets the official university holidays, and we typically work around those.” 

With reading day cut, all our final exams crammed into a single week and fall commencement dates yet to be announced, use this flexibility to reinstate fall break.

There’s no way to escape the onslaught of work the college experience entails, and fall break is a way to make it more manageable. A fall break is the mental health relief students really need and deserve right now. To the Student Government representatives and NC State administration: Reinstate fall break and return our peace of minds. 

Editor’s Note: Updated byline.