Marcia Ratliff/ Winonan

Students at Winona State University have likely noticed Spring Break Day fell on Good Friday this year.

What many students may not have noticed is that Spring Break Day is not always on Good Friday.

Nancy Jannik, associate vice president for academic affairs, graduate studies and grants and special initiatives, has worked at Winona State for the past 29 years, more than half of them as an administrator.

Jannik said Spring Break Day has been around since Darrell Krueger’s presidency.

The university sets aside one day a month as a non-class day, Jannik said.

Krueger proposed the non-class days as a time for students to catch up on work, have group meetings and enjoy a break in the middle of the week.

“Each month either has a holiday, or one of our declared non-class days,” Jannik said.

Some days, such as University Improvement Day and Assessment Day, are not associated with a holiday. Others, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Veterans Day, are. The calendar committee prefers days in the middle of the week, so students are not tempted to skip class and take a long weekend, Jannik said.

Jannik said the Spring Break Day is determined, like other non-class days, by a calendar committee.

The calendar committee has representation from across campus, including students who are appointed by Student Senate, to be a part of the committee.

For Jannik, it comes down to the logic of it. As a secular university, Winona State cannot declare religious holidays. Spring Break Day is just that—spring break day. Professors and staff members still had to come to work on April 18.

“For us, it was a non-class day. That’s all. Everyone else was on duty,” Jannik said.

So the question for the calendar committee every year is when to hold Spring Break Day—whether students use it to get ahead on homework before finals or go home and celebrate a religious holiday with their families.

Jannik said students requested the day fall on Good Friday.

“The students asked for it. The calendar committee listened to it,” Jannik said.

But Spring Break Day is not always a religious holiday. When Easter falls in March, for example, Spring Break Day stays in April. This has happened three times in the past 13 years.

Winona State student Cara Luebke said she does not mind Good Friday being a non-class day, because religious freedom is part of the Bill of Rights. But she expressed disapproval at the title of the day.

“If we are going to give the day off, call it Good Friday observation, not spring break day. I think a handful of people may feel that way,” Luebke said.

Luebke said she would like other religions’ holidays to be recognized as well.

“If I could design the calendar, I mostly want it to have reminders of the different religions that observe different days and how they observe them,” Luebke said. “The issue is education and the fact that most people don’t know anything about non-majority observed holidays.”

Jannik said students with concerns about Spring Break Day should approach Student Senate about their appointments to the calendar committee.

“Our calendar has been fairly stable,” she said. “It’s the right idea—that it falls near a holiday is fortuitous, but that’s student input.”

Jannik said it has also been proposed that the April non-class day be reserved for the Judith Ramaley Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship.