By: Travis Archie
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but unlike most places classes and jobs will continue on the campus of Gardner-Webb University. Many students have asked, “Why is the university is not taking a day off?”
Dr. Joseph Webb, a professor within the Communications and New Media Department at Gardner-Webb and partaker in the Freedom Summer in 1964 said, “one of the ‘main’ reasons that we do not get a day off is because of the tight school calendar.” Although Gardner-Webb is a private institution it has to abide by federal standards, which includes how many days an accredited university has to have its students in class.
If the university were to allow this one day off, then it would have to take away a day from either Christmas break, Spring break, or Easter break. Although most classes will continue as scheduled, some professors are cancelling class such as Dr. Hobbs who told her American Literature Survey class to “do something in acknowledgement of Dr. King.”
The academic honors group, Sigma Tau Delta, is having a video program from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Tucker Student Center, that will not only commemorate Dr. King, but will show the impact of the Civil Rights Movement.