Northwestern will not declare an academic holiday to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day next year, University President Henry Bienen said Tuesday, calling harsh criticism of the university’s stance “counterproductive and silly.”
NU will continue to give students a three-hour break from class and will schedule several events over the days leading up to MLK Day, Bienen said.
“I think we have found a very good balance,” he said. “Everybody doesn’t have to agree. That’s a judgment and they’re entitled to their opinions, but stop putting the thing down. I’ve run out of patience with this sort of quibbling.”
This year’s MLK Day celebration marks the second time the university has canceled some classes to honor the occasion.
Associated Student Government members began to push for an academic holiday during the 1998-99 academic year. Administrators eventually agreed to cancel three hours of class on the condition that attendance remains high.
About 1,400 people turned out last week to hear a keynote address by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, attend panel discussions and visit a multicultural exhibit.
Last year students packed Pick-Staiger Concert Hall to hear Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, Music Lecturer William Warfield and Eva Jefferson Paterson, NU’s first black female Associated Student Government president.
“(MLK Day) is not just a day, ” Bienen said. “I just get annoyed when people say we’re only doing some three-hour thing. There’s a whole set of events. It goes on for days.”
Jazmin Portis, a member of the MLK Day committee and ASG External Relations Chairwoman, said the high turnout proves that students care enough about the issue to merit an academic holiday.
Although she said she is glad MLK Day festivities have been rescheduled for next year, she said she will continue to ask Bienen to cancel all classes on that day.
“It’s a slight disappointment, but at least we’re not moving backward,” said Portis, a Weinberg senior. “We’re leaping forward. We are going to be working toward a full day. It’s a worthy goal. It’s a federal holiday.”
But Bienen said canceling all classes would not be a “wise” decision — at least not next year.
“The university spent lots of money laying this on, and people stand up and complain that we don’t do enough and that it’s some kind of disrespect,” he said. “What would three more hours bring?”
Bienen said the decision to keep the MLK Day celebration at three hours was purely logistical. He said he faces three options in planning the commemoration: closing the university altogether, canceling classes but keeping the university open or canceling some classes.
If he chooses the first option, Bienen said, NU cannot sponsor programming or guest speakers because no faculty or staff would be working.
But he said he fears that canceling classes altogether — the second option — might reduce student turnout.
All public and many private colleges cancel a full day of class for MLK Day, including every other college in the Big Ten.
But Assoc. Provost Stephen Fisher, a member of the MLK Day committee, said canceling a full day of class would encourage students and faculty to take a “three-day weekend” instead of attending the scheduled programs.
“We’ve done quite well with the three hours off,” he said. “The temptations of a three-day weekend would be very great. If there were no classes, I’d find it hard to come in.”
