ASB President Gregory Alston presents a resolution to create “Reading Days” during an ASB Senate meeting Tuesday.
Photo by Phillip Waller I The Daily Mississippian
Associated Student Body senators voted unanimously Tuesday night to amend a resolution prohibiting professors from giving assignments the week before finals.
Authors of the resolution ASB President Gregory Alston, ASB Cabinet member Jessica Brouckaeart and senators Emerson George, Thor Goodfellow and Austin Powell presented the amendment as part of Alston’s platform.
The resolution previously stated that professors could not give assignments weighing 10 percent or more of a student’s grade three days before finals week each semester.
While the ASB is ensuring that administration enforces the resolution as it stands, Alston wrote the resolution to give students more time to prepare for final exams without having to focus on other assignments.
“I’ve seen the problem with students having exams the week before finals and not having enough time to study for finals,” Alston said.
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Brouckaeart explained that the senators’ vote does not yet put the resolution into effect.
“Basically what’s going to happen is since we passed it here, and then we’re going to try to jointly pass it with the faculty senate,” Brouckaeart said. “Then it has to go to the Undergraduate Council, and if they pass it, then it will be brought to the attention of the Council of Academic Administrators. If they pass it, then it will become a policy.”
Since the resolution has to pass through multiple groups, there is no definite date as to when it could be implemented.
The authors presented the resolution to Provost Morris Stocks before coming before the senate. Brouckaeart said that the authors of the resolution hope that the ASB Senate’s unanimous vote will encourage the Faculty Senate, Undergraduate Council and Council of Academic Administrators to approve the resolution.
George explained that Alston chose to name the five days before exams “Reading Days” in order to make the resolution more reasonable.
“Reading Days really embodies what we want from it,” George said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s an entire week where we get the students to not do anything. It really shows that it’s a number of days for students to study and feel sufficiently prepared for the upcoming exams.”
