Academic Poll: Labor Day

Today is Labor Day in the US, which is the traditional end-of-summer holiday. The top link in today’s Links Dump is a survey of the history via Slate, headlined “Why Do We Get Labor Day Off?“

Of course, my reaction to that is “What do you mean, ‘we’?” Today is also the first day of classes of the 2010-2011 academic year here at Union. Actually, it’s the first half-day of classes, as we don’t start until 1:50 today, but it doesn’t make much difference to the poll question of the day:


This is particularly annoying, because SteelyKid’s day care is closed for the holiday, meaning Kate is spending her day off doing solo Toddler Duty. Labor Day is usually the one federal holiday we get off, so most years I could be home to give her a break, or else we could all go to a playground or other Fun Place together, and watch SteelyKid being cute. But no…

3 comments

  1. This year is the first year Cornell has it off — it was decided to start classes on Wednesday rather than Thursday* so that we could have Labor Day off instead of the weird situation where the staff gets it off, but professors and students didn’t.

    Granted, as a grad student who isn’t teaching or taking classes, I could probably work anyway. But I didn’t have a group meeting or lunch seminar today, so it’s kind of like a day off.

    * Yes, fall semester starts in the middle of the week.

  2. I am extremely disappointed that more people have not chosen your very clever 4th option.

    I missed the option that said “HALF day? What a waste of a week.” If a class has labs all week that include one on Monday before lunch, you can’t use any of those first-week lab days to deal with necessary admin duties like safety.

    PS –
    We get some of those other days off and it really messes up our schedules for some courses.

    PPS –
    We often have a semester start on a Wednesday, and that isn’t so bad because it means all drop-add is over with before we start the first full week of classes (and labs).

  3. I missed the option that said “HALF day? What a waste of a week.” If a class has labs all week that include one on Monday before lunch, you can’t use any of those first-week lab days to deal with necessary admin duties like safety.

    Oh, no. We’re not losing a day– it’s dumber than that.

    The first day of classes is a half-day on Labor Day. The last day of classes is a half-day on a Monday in November.

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