Changes needed for Dead Week to be effective

With another Dead Week wrapping up today, UK is once again in the position of needing to rethink the policies concerning the week before finals.

The current policies on Dead Week are ineffective, increasing the burden on students as they prepare for finals.

The Kernel reported Dec. 5 that university rules prohibit final exams and take-home exams from taking place during Dead Week, but such narrow regulations make it too easy for professors to find creative ways of weighing down students with assignments.

Prohibiting only final and take-home exams is simply not enough to ease the tension of students preparing for cumulative exams that will follow next week. Regularly scheduled quizzes, for instance, are allowed under current regulations, as long as they were listed on the course’s syllabus at the beginning of the semester.

Giving quizzes during Dead Week only stress students further. Students have enough on their plate as they spend countless hours in the library preparing for finals, and knowing that they have to take a test only makes the end of the semester more dreadful.

Finals week is a time designated for teachers to test the knowledge of their students; it doesn’t make sense to allow teachers the opportunity to administer quizzes with such difficult exams right around the corner.

If students are required to attend classes during Dead Week — sometimes leaving very little study time for Monday finals — teachers should be prohibited from requiring anything except attendance and make-up work.

We understand that many teachers need the extra class time to cover all the material the course requires and don’t believe it’s necessary to cancel class during Dead Week. However, allowing teachers to give assignments during a week when students already have enough to handle is a practice that needs to be abandoned.

The current Dead Week policies are ineffective and only serve as a way for UK to deflect accusations of not standing up for its students.

It’s time for UK to make Dead Week effective and true to its name by strengthening the polices that govern the end of the semester.