The University of Waterloo Senate has voted in favour of implementing a full-week Fall Reading Week pilot.

Federation of Students president Richard Wu took the results of the recent Fall Break Referendum, where students voted to implement a full reading week pilot, to the University of Waterloo Senate meeting on October 15, 2018. Wu advocated to the Senate to carry out the direction students indicated in the referendum. Following the Senate’s vote today, the full-week pilot will begin October 2019 and run for three years.

“This decision is a great advocacy achievement for students,” said Vice President Education Matthew Gerrits. “I am happy to see that the University has seen undergraduates as partners in this decision, representing the time spent by past Executive teams to build strong working relationships with our partners. As we hoped, the University Senate has listened to the results of the undergraduate referendum, and will be implementing a Fall Reading Week pilot.”

Similar to the two-day Fall Break pilot that ran from 2016 to 2018, the full-week Fall Reading Week pilot would come up for review after three years.

The University must maintain 60 days of instruction each term, so the additional days that will be used for the week-long break will come from the following: