We are smack dab in the middle of Dead Week, so no doubt you are about to drop
dead from exhaustion. What happened to
this week? When did our buffer before finals — perfect for catching up on studying
and sleep — become the favorite week for teachers to dump loads of work and spring important tests?
Many students don’t realize that some of these practices violate the rules governing Dead Week. While teachers are allowed to assign homework, they are not supposed to overload their students with big projects and examinations. Of course, this doesn’t stop them, and enforcement of the rules appears to be nonexistent.
Nevertheless, as a student, it is important that you know your rights. Here are the rules governing Dead Week, as they appear in minutes from the March 10, 1982, meeting of the University Assembly:
1. “No examination worth more than 20 percent of the final grade will be given with the exception of make-up examinations.”
2. “No final examinations will be given under any guise.”
3. “No projects will be due unless they have been clearly specified on the syllabus within the first two weeks of the term.”
4. “Take-home final examinations will
be due no earlier than the day of the formally assigned final examination for the class
in question.”
We are hard-pressed to recall a time when these rules have been followed, even in just the spirit of the law, but an even larger problem is the flawed nature of these rules — the loopholes are so large you could drive a freight train through them.
Does it make it better that a professor gives notice of a Dead Week due date within the first two weeks? Of course, but there is still something wrong with assuming that students should work through the holiday weekend when it is almost assured that few professors will spend the same time preparing for their next week of school.
We can all agree that because of how the quarter system is structured, with Thanksgiving falling on the week before a large mass of projects hit the docket, a week for students to prepare would be a welcome addition.
Additionally, professors seem to think they are doing students a favor by getting them out of finals during the actual Finals Week, but this couldn’t be further from the truth — what we’d really like is to have adequate time to prepare for our finals.
Let us return Dead Week to its original intent. Let’s start by amending the rules: Rather than limiting the size and nature of the work, how about requiring no examinations and no projects whatsoever during Dead Week, period? And how about actually holding teachers accountable for breaking the rules — what recourse do students have for the professor who slips in a large project?
A final note to instructors: Give us a
break already, before Dead Week becomes tragically literal.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]