It’s called Dead Week for a reason. Twice a year, students spend the final days of their semester buried in tests, projects and homework, with the impending stress of Finals Week hanging over their heads.

But Student Government hopes to change that, or at least alleviate some of the stress students experience during the final days of Dead Week. 

A new amendment proposed by Student Government would prohibit instructors from giving tests, exams or quizzes during the Thursday and Friday of Dead Week. 

The amendment would also rename Dead Week to something along the lines of “Cyclone Work Week,” a title that Student Government hopes will “adequately describe the time period without detracting by implication from the remaining 14 weeks of the semester.”

The policy gives exceptions to classes that only meet Tuesdays and Thursdays, lab components of courses, half-semester courses and tests that take place in the testing center as long as they open by Wednesday of Dead Week.

Student body Vice President Cody West said he hopes the change will come as a relief to students.

“We heard concerns from the students that they were having their unit exams on Thursday or Friday [of Dead Week] and then turning around and having comprehensive finals on Monday and Tuesday [of Finals Week],” West said. “When you have four classes that happens a couple times, you’re just really swamped that week. It really stresses students out.”

West said reforming Dead Week policies has been a goal of his and student body President Cole Staudt since their campaign last year. During their bid, they presented their ideas to a multitude of student groups. The positive response was overwhelming. 

“Students were pretty fired up about [this policy] last year,” West said. “When we had the campaign we talked a lot about it. We went around to different groups, asked how many groups had this kind of difficulty, and at least 90 percent of hands shot up every time.”

After the election, Staudt and West sent out surveys to the student body. They received about 6,000 responses, with 80 percent confirming that this was an issue for them.

Staudt also said that other resolutions from Student Government have tried and failed to change Dead Week policy in a similar way. But West hopes the overwhelming student input will be enough to make the change.

Some faculty members are far less excited, West said. There are concerns about how the change in policy will affect everyday classroom assessments like attendance quizzes. 

“Another big concern here at Iowa State is because we do use testing centers for a lot of our exams, the way the testing center is set up, it may be very difficult to actually get all those exams on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday [of Dead Week],” West said. “They’re working with us on that, but it looks like as long as the exam opens [by] Wednesday, it won’t violate the policy.”

The amendment will reach the Faculty Senate on Feb. 14. If the Senate votes to approve the new policy, the changes will be made by fall of 2017.