CAMBRIDGE, MA—After realizing that any sizable chunk of time resembling a spring break might offer too significant a relief from an online semester amidst a global pandemic, Harvard has announced that it will be reallocating the week as 7200 “wellness minutes” throughout the spring semester.
FAS Dean Claudine Gay sent an email to faculty and staff outlining the plan. In order to truly simulate a spring break, FAS has bravely asked professors to not assign homework due during a wellness minute. If a wellness minute occurs during class, students are encouraged to celebrate their wellness for a minute in silence before promptly catching up on any material they missed in said minute.
Outside of class, students are encouraged to stop any homework during wellness minutes, which will hopefully automatically minimize homework; that’s how that works. Some suggested activities for the minutes are “one really long, deep breath”, “laugh!”, and “something vaguely Buddhist.”
Despite the plan’s goal of stopping student travel, some students are still determined to have a true collegiate spring break. One senior, Laura Miller, is still trying to plan a group trip, reportedly saying “Has anyone sprinted to Jamaica and back in 60 seconds? No. But has anyone even tried?”
Dean Gay further commented that, for the sake of the student body’s convenience, most of these Wellness Minutes are scheduled between the hours of 1 and 6 AM.