University of Wisconsin-Madison students who celebrate Christmas and Easter never have to worry about taking an exam while observing their holidays.
But for students who observe holidays such as Yom Kippur, this is not the case.
Yom Kippur is a Jewish high holiday in which those observing fast and pray to atone and repent, this year from sundown Tuesday to sundown Wednesday.
Although UW-Madison “strongly discourages” professors from having mandatory tests on religious holidays recognized by the university, the policy states the final decision on all exams is left to the discretion of the individual professors, as long as they provide an alternative solution.
Secretary of the Faculty David Musolf said having a policy that is “flexible and asks people to be creative” is better than a policy strictly prohibiting exams, which sometimes leads people to become defensive.
Musolf said the university’s current policy is a “good policy and is working well.”
UW-Madison sophomore Stella Mayerhoff, who is Jewish, said while the policy “is not the worst thing in the world,” she would appreciate if the university banned all tests on holidays.
“I think that anytime you have to change around your schedule for a religious holiday it gets kind of messy,” Mayerhoff said. “It puts you in a position that’s different than everyone else.”
However, junior Adam Meyer, also Jewish, said if the university prohibits exams on Jewish holidays, they would have to look into banning tests on holidays for all religions and it would be virtually impossible to please everyone.
“There are more than just Jews and Christians on campus,” Meyer said. “If you try to make everybody happy by banning all quizzes and exams on all holy days, I feel like that would be incredibly difficult to accommodate everybody.”
Musolf said students should be able to participate in mandatory academic events, and should not have to choose academics over religion.
“We want full participation of students in their academic pursuits,” Musolf said. “We should avail all of the mandatory academic requirements to all students and not have them feel conflicted.”
Overall, students such as Mayeroff said they feel the policy is working for the most part, with only minor issues that are usually easily resolved.
“I think that if there is even an issue it’s from some sort of misunderstanding about the religious holiday itself,” Mayerhoff said. “It’s little things like that and usually once you kind of explain those things to avoid misunderstandings, things work out fine.”
John Hawks, a professor of anthropology, schedules mandatory quizzes every week that students are not allowed to make up. However, in respect to Yom Kippur on Wednesday, Hawks is allowing his students a rare opportunity to make up his quiz.
“You don’t want to draw lines in your class between students with different backgrounds, especially with respect to religious backgrounds or ethnic backgrounds,” Hawks said. “It’s a basic thing that you want to maximize every student’s learning.”
Other universities in the Big Ten, such as Michigan State and Minnesota, also strongly discourage mandatory exams on holidays through policies similar to UW-Madison’s.
