The academic calendar is available to students one semester before the start of the new school year. This year’s calendar had a few extra dates incorporated to make up for the Wednesday classes missed due to the snow days on March 7th and March 21st.

Carla Fraser, Associate Registrar, said, “The faculty were sent two make-up dates for the snow closures, Sat. April 14th and 21st. There has been a positive response to both make-up sessions.The Saturday dates were an option for the faculty if they wanted to make up the course time, but it was not a requirement.”

The Provost’s office approved of adding two optional class days on Saturdays, one of which is taking place the same day as Springfest.

Meaghan McAllister, a sophomore, International Studies and Economics major, is one of the students who will be attending classes on the Saturday of Springfest.

“Personally, I don’t mind it for myself although it is a nuisance to have class on a Saturday for the people who have other responsibilities and therefore have to be penalized by losing vital information in class but at the same time I don’t blame my professors,” said McAllister.

The faculty were also given the option to assign extra work to make up the days missed, such as readings, online work and other activities that require similar amounts of work time to the time lost.

“Two dates were chosen since there were two Wednesday closures. All future Saturdays had other student and faculty obligations, like Mission Month and Senior Reading days,” said Fraser.

Some students like sophomore, civil engineer major Leicy Ortiz-Jupiter, were not pleased with the idea of classes on Saturday.

“I have solid mechanics on Saturday and it was because of the snow day. I feel like it’s annoying especially since the weather is going to be good plus I’m a commuter so it’s a hassle. If they gave us a doodle sheet to sign up days possible while in school that would’ve been good for me personally. Sometimes I’m stuck at school until four, sometimes even more or even skype a lesson or video tape the lesson it would’ve been perfect because coming on a Saturday is the worst because MTA does lots of construction on the weekend,” said Ortiz-Jupiter.

McAllister wants the school to come up with a better solution instead of Saturday classes like having a system in place in future academic calendars.

“I think if we were given more reading days at the end of the semester where we could just take away from one or two of those to catch up on our work would have worked better for everyone,” said McAllister.

Like Ortiz-Jupiter and McAllister, other students offered suggestions like reverting the Monday schedule on Wednesday April 4th to a normal Wednesday schedule.

“The Monday schedule on Wednesday was a requirement for the semester, not an option for a makeup session. These decisions are made by the Provost office, as the academic calendar, and any changes to it, are approved by the Provost office,” said Fraser.