Recently, there was discussion about the possibility of changing next year’s academic calendar. The changes would include a one-day fall break, no school the week of Thanksgiving and spring break during the last week of March. The proposal is based on District 51’s school calendar. So why does a university’s school schedule have to match the local elementary, middle and high schools’ schedules?

Much of the discussion was about helping out CMU’s non-traditional students who have children in school. We respect our non-trad students. They work hard. But most of the school’s population are traditional students who don’t have children. Making CMU’s calendar more conveniant for parents is a nice idea, but not if it affects the majority of the population.

The proposal isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, it’s better to have all of Thanksgiving week off because classrooms are always empty during the last two days of class. It’s just the reasoning behind the proposed changes is faulty. Most students will schedule their plans based on the non-trad minority of the school’s population.

The only change that posed a problem for most students is spring break. Most schools in the country have their break one or two weeks before CMU’s spring getaway. One of the better parts of the break is to hang out with friends that go to other colleges around the country, which will be harder to do since our break comes later than most of the other schools.

The proposed changes may or may not help out students. But CMU is not a District 51 school, and we shouldn’t base so much of how this campus runs off of how its schools run. If changes are going to be made, it should benefit the majority of the school.