Spring break or Easter break? At public schools, there is no concern over whether to align our springtime break with Easter Sunday, but at Biola University and other Christian schools, it becomes a bit trickier.

This year, our spring break was much later than many other colleges. To decide when our second semester break should be, we need to know what its goal is. There are two options: break is to give everyone a chance to recharge and gain the strength to finish the semester strong or to honor Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Timing of break creates problems

If the point is to let students and professors relax for a bit before the rush of the end of the year, it seems obvious that spring break should be positioned at a distance from the end. By putting the break just three weeks before the end of classes, students can either push big projects and papers off until after break, making the end much more stressful, or they must work through break. Both defeat the purpose of having a break.

There are a lot of resources about how to deal with stress in college, including one published by Huffpost College, but there is no substitute for just slowing down without the urgency to study for a few days.

Secondly, many students that wanted to go rest with their families stayed on campus because it seems like a waste of money to fly home when the semester ends just 28 days after break ends.However, if Biola feels that break exists to honor Easter, it is a different story. Then, the convenience of the time in the semester becomes irrelevant.
But Biola’s break this year did not really do that either, since it began with Good Friday.

Many churches have extra services over Easter week, including but not limited to Good Friday. If the goal of our break in second semester is to emphasize Easter, then it makes sense to allow students to get home in time for any worship services that might be that week. We get excited about Easter with dying eggs, going to church, putting together Easter baskets, and doing egg hunts –– but all that happens before the holiday, not after.

Two breaks could provide a solution

There are merits to both ideas. We want to maximize students learning by allowing breathing room before the big final projects. We want to let professors relax before they head into giving finals. Yet, we also want people to have time to fly or drive home so that they can spend such a meaningful holiday with their families.

It seems there is no right answer that will value each persons’ preferences. But spring break and Easter break do not have to be the same thing. One way some other Christian schools have managed this problem is to place spring break at the optimum time in the semester –– so that students and professors can power up to finish the year –– and only giving a long weekend for Easter. This way, students have the opportunity to spend the holiday with their families if they want to.

This isn’t a perfect solution. Many students won’t go home for both breaks, so they will either spend Easter Sunday or spring break here on campus, but this can actually be a good thing. If they go home for the longer break, then students can visit local friend’s families for the holiday and perhaps see how a different church celebrates. Maybe they can even bond with the reduced dorm numbers with an Easter egg hunt. If they choose instead to go home for Easter and spend spring break here, then they can also have that bonding time then.

Unfortunately, Biola tends to shut down for breaks, which would have to change. The Caf couldn’t completely close and perhaps open hours shouldn’t be abolished, but these things would only help grow the community Biola desires so much.

Making sure to take breaks is important to our mental and physical health, especially as people grow more afraid to take time off. By splitting up the two breaks, Biola University would enable students to prepare to finish the semester strong and have the opportunity to be with family or a new church for Easter.