On Monday, Sept. 14, Mercyhurst students received an email from President Michael Victor about Hurst Day. As a student, this event sounded too good to be true. The email promised canceled classes, corn hole, a scavenger hunt and (arguably most importantly), a steak dinner for everyone on campus.

As great as Hurst Day was for the spirit of the school, I do not believe it was in the best interest of the students to cancel a day of classes so last minute.
The professors did not have the day scheduled into their syllabi and therefore risked falling behind in course materials due to this unexpected cancellation.

I was told by numerous professors that I would have to either go over the material on my own or they would have to cut time spent on a different topic to cover the missed material. Neither option is beneficial to me or my peers.

Another issue I came across is that this Hurst Day was meant to be a complete surprise. Why was this a problem? I had a midterm, quizzes and a presentation that particular week and I did not know whether they would be affected by this campus wide shut down.

It turned out that my quizzes and exams were not affected, however, an in-class study day was canceled due to Hurst Day.
Victor claimed that one of the goals of the day was to “de-stress” the students, but I did not see how cancelling an important day of class would cause stress relief, because after Hurst Day, I had to worry about classes the next day.

Despite this, I think Hurst Day is a great new tradition for the school and should be carried on with slight modifications.

One idea is to plan future Hurst Days on weekends, or allow professors to know the day so they can plan their syllabi accordingly. This way, classes are not interrupted and students can de-stress from the week previous and prepare for the week ahead.