The loss of spring break is a hardship felt by students and staff alike. It is unprecedented for students to go an entire semester without a break and we have yet to find out the physical, mental, and financial toll it will have on our community, particularly when we have been strained by living through a once-in-a-century pandemic for the last year. At the University of Michigan Dearborn campus, the administration found a way to give students and staff a break. Classes were canceled for Thursday and Friday, February 25 and 26th, asynchronous lessons were halved for the week, and no assignments were due the following Monday.

By giving the community a four-day weekend and lightening the workload students and staff were afforded time to catch up and recuperate. In contrast, on the Ann Arbor campus students are being given two "wellness breaks". They are single days, in the middle of the week, and a month apart. Most students are finding that this does not provide them any break and their recent "wellness break" was spent doing homework for the rest of the week. Without genuine efforts to lighten the workload, it just becomes a work day.

We are demanding equitable treatment for students across all University of Michigan campuses. We encourage the University to follow the Dearborn model to give students at all its campuses a fair chance to rest. In lieu of the upcoming wellness break, we demand a four-day weekend and lightened workload like our Dearborn classmates received. 

In addition to signing this petition, we encourage you to copy and paste this text and email it to:

Anne Curzan, Dean of LSA acurzan@umich.edu
Martino Harmon, Vice President of Student Life harmonma@umich.edu
Susan Collins, Provost, Vice President of Academic Affairs uofmprovost@umich.edu
Laura Blake Jones, Dean of Students, deanofstudents@umich.edu
Mark Schlissel, President, presoff@umich.edu