MacEwan University considers removing fall reading break in 2025-26
MacEwan students react to a proposal to remove the fall reading week for the 2025-26 academic year.
MacEwan University’s proposal to remove fall reading break for the 2025-26 academic year has many students unhappy
SAMU, MacEwan’s student union, posted the proposal to get rid of reading week for the 2025-26 academic year on their social media. The potential change is to get rid of final exams on Sundays.
“During the past couple of years, I have not had a class or an exam or needed to be at the school on a Sunday,” said Anika Spreen, a bachelor of communication studies student.
“I shudder to think of situations where students do not have opportunities to ‘reset’ and catch their breath. The pressure of postsecondary education, compounded by the elevated costs of living, speaks [of] disaster,” said Darcy Hoogers, Vice-President Academic for SAMU to Edmonton Edge.
MacEwan students took to SAMU’s comment section to voice their criticisms of the proposal.
“This is straight up just terrible,” one student said.
Other students chime in, saying, “I haven’t seen a single positive reaction to this,” and, “Without fall reading break I will genuinely rip my hair off chunk by chunk.”
“If the week off were gone, I would be much more stressed out financially, stressed out academically, and I think I would perform poorer in the next couple weeks leading up to the exam week than I would if the break was there for me to relax,” Spreen said.
Estefania Castro Tatis, a bachelor of commerce student believes fall reading break is important for her academic success.
“I definitely believe that the fall break makes me do better at school, so I don’t think that taking it away will be beneficial for me or any other student,” she said.
In previous years, fall break at MacEwan only lasted three days, including Remembrance Day.
Starting in 2020, MacEwan University extended the fall break to a full week, citing the mental health benefits of extra time away from school. SAMU has yet to release an update on the proposed change, but the student body has made their opinions known. Until the university makes its final decision, MacEwan students will continue hoping that they can catch a break.
