Thursday is not a day off; the university says it is a day to prepare for finals.
The last day of classes will be Wednesday Dec. 3, and the following day — Reading Day — will be an extra day to study before finals.
Reading Day will be on Thursday, Dec. 4. It was added due to Rule 3357, which states that there is a set amount of time students must be in class for instruction for a course to be three credit hours. READY Day in September took some time away from that, with class starting on a Wednesday this year instead of a Monday. The school is making up the difference created by ending classes on a Wednesday.
David Schneider, the director of institutional research and the university registrar, said that Reading Day "gives us the chance to slow it down a little bit for students to make sure they’re more successful." Schneider also said they had options for meeting the requirement, but settled on Reading Day to make finals a bit more manageable for students and to keep the semester from being too long.
Reading Day at other schools typically has restrictions on assignments not being due. Otterbein has yet to make policies on what is and isn't allowed to be due. Schneider says that they will investigate if issues arise, but the general idea is to "let people do what they do."
READY Day wasn't ready for us
