Spring Break - Life’s a Beach? or Life’s a Bitch?

By Father O’KC

Woo-hoo! Spring Break is almost here. If you are unencumbered by life’s little burdens (and you have saved a little or have an unexhausted credit card), Spring Break means sun, sand, and irresponsible consumption of alcoholic beverages (just kidding). Or perhaps the slopes beckon. You might even get lucky, right?

But for other UNM folks, Spring Break isn’t so much fun, as it is a chance to catch up. This year Spring Break is my chance to get a few things done around the house, clean out the garage, and work a little on my extension course. Weather permitting, I may even go riding once or twice.

The week after Spring Break is a real bummer, right? The sunburn is starting to peel. All those assignments you neglected during break are now coming due. If you were imprudent, you may be having a hard time remembering who or where you are. If you traveled, the credit card bills are going to show up soon.

For me, as for other UNM students, faculty, and staff who have children in Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) or private schools that follow the APS schedule, the week after Spring Break will mainly be full of inconvenience and logistical headaches. Why? Because UNM and APS don’t observe Spring Break at the same time! This is a major pain, and I don’t understand why it has to happen.

It would seem that the two largest public institutions in Albuquerque could check with each other. Do the two administrations even bother to look at each other’s schedules? Wouldn’t it benefit the University’s administration, faculty, staff, and students to coordinate the two schedules? Wouldn’t it benefit the community? Wouldn’t it benefit the kids? Parents and children might even be able to spend some time together, maybe take a trip and spend a little money stimulating our flagging economy, or the kids could just help clean out the garage.

So I did a little Googling, to see if I could find any support for my idea that UNM and APS should, like, cooperate. I went looking on the University website for statements of community support. Surprisingly I had to dig deeper than I expected; usually big institutions link to their guiding principles right on the home page - not UNM. I did find the UNM Faculty Handbook fairly quickly (http://www.unm.edu/~handbook/A20.html) which contains Mission, Vision, and Value Statements approved by the Board of Regents in 2001. Here’s a sample, from the Mission Statement:

"The University will engage students, faculty, and staff in its comprehensive educational, research, and service programs. UNM will provide students the values, habits of mind, knowledge, and skills that they need to be enlightened citizens, to contribute to the state and national economies, and to lead satisfying lives. Faculty, staff, and students create, apply, and disseminate new knowledge and creative works; they provide services that enhance New Mexicans’ quality of life and promote economic development;..."

…and so on.
So let’s do a little deconstructing: “to contribute to the state and local economies” - well, that’s my idea about taking trips and spending money, just like our bachelor student comrades do. “To lead satisfying lives”, well my life would be a lot more satisfying if I had the knowledge that my kids would have my company every year when Spring Break comes up (by the way, the same issues arise around various holidays that UNM and APS have deemed somehow …incompatible). Anyway, let’s continue: “They provide services that enhance New Mexicans’ quality of life…” - this one is easy; do you know how many families need babysitters because one or more parents can’t take off during their kids’ Spring Break? Impoverished university students who like kids could make a bundle meeting the market demand for sitters during the week the kids are off.

So there I’ve supported my idea that UNM and APS should coordinate Spring Break schedules, and I didn’t even have to dust off the Vision or Values Statements. So why hasn’t it happened already? Surely, I’m not the first to propose such a radical concept. Or maybe they are doing it on purpose? Maybe the two institutions get a real power buzz knowing they can inconvenience a significant percentage of the city’s population in one easy step. Maybe they just don’t like their kids, and look for every excuse to not spend quality time with them. Maybe it just never occurred to them.

Honestly, this is the kind of thing I have come to expect from APS (ask me about the parking lot at my kid’s school some time), and it doesn’t surprise me coming from UNM either. So where do we go from here? Are there any ombuds-persons in either organization whose job it is to take suggestions from the little people, evaluate them for merit, and then implement them if found worthy? Is there anyone out there who understands why the status quo deserves to be perpetuated? If so, please share your understanding with me by posting your comments, so that the week after next, when I’m spending half my valuable time and all of my valuable money driving my kids to daycare instead of the zoo, I’ll know it’s all part of a larger plan.

By the way, all you bachelor students, party responsibly - OK?