Students like to have breaks in the winter. But they also like to be done with classes when spring semester is near the end.

University calendar officials need to choose which is more important as they decide the future of academic calendars at Iowa State.

If the Faculty Senate has its way, students will stay a week longer in the spring and have a week more of boredom and cold weather in the winter.

And if the students have it their way, the calendar will stay the same.

For now the decision hasn’t been finalized, but the ISU Faculty Senate has recommended a change to the calendar.

The Senate passed a motion during its April 9 meeting to change the current calendar system, that, if approved by the university, would add an extra week to the end of the school year.

The Senate wants the spring semester to start on the Tuesday following Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This change would add an extra week to the break between fall and spring semesters and push back the end of the spring semester one week.

This is how the university calendar is set at similar universities, such as the University of Iowa.

Faculty members say they need the extra week in the winter for research and personal reasons. But it appears these are the same things they could be doing in the summer months. So why have a week in the winter?

Faculty members would seemingly be able to get their work done with either calendar schedule, while students will suffer if the calendar is changed.

ISU students currently have had an advantage because they can start working a week earlier in the summer. That extra week to prepare for their summer jobs and internships comes in handy.

The schedule change would also cut down the time students have to do their summer internships. Right now, students can barely fit in a complete 12-week internship. And a week less of time in the summer will put more pressure on students to go right from school to work and then back to school in the fall, without any time for preparation and things they need to get done before making moves.

An extra week in the winter does nothing for students. The winter break is already long and uneventful to students; adding a week would only make it more so.

While faculty say they need this extra week during winter break for research, it’s hard to see how the change will affect the amount of research they do. There would still be that time at the end of the year, as it is now.

This proposed change by the Faculty Senate has all the look of another case of faculty research coming before educational preferences of students at Iowa State. And that’s not right.

Keep the calendar the same. It has worked for faculty in the past and it can work in the future. There’s no reason to do this without the support of the student body.

editorialboard: Andrea Hauser, Tim Paluch, Michelle Kann, Charlie Weaver, Omar Tesdell