APRIL 11 • 2024 | 29

minority that must grapple 
with juggling exam schedules 
and religious observance, from 
the notion of rescheduling 
exams or for finding non-
Jewish faculty or graduate 
students who can step in and 
proctor exams so Jewish faculty 
could take off. 
“
At Oakland University, there 
is now a task force made up 
of faculty and students and 
staff taking a closer look at 
the future academic calendar 
and how it will work out in 
terms of taking off for religious 
holidays,” White assured. “They 
realize there is an issue here 
and they are stepping it up.” 

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
At the University of Michigan, 
Hillel officials have been 
working with the university 
on its DEI 2.0 strategic plan 
to minimize class instruction 
or finals during major Jewish 
holidays. This year, the finals 
schedule at U-M does not 
clash with the first days of 
Passover, but there are exams 
scheduled for the later part of 
the holiday. 
Mike Morland, director 
of communications and 

marketing for U-M’s Office 
of Diversity, Equity and 
Inclusion, said the Office of 
the Provost at the University 
of Michigan regularly 
disseminates a religious 
calendar to all schools and 
colleges each academic 
term. This is accompanied 
by educational messaging 
aimed at fostering awareness 
surrounding religious holidays 
that fall within that term and 
advocating for appropriate 
accommodations and 
flexibility.
“
Although the University 
of Michigan does not observe 
religious holidays, it has 
long been the university’s 
policy that every reasonable 
effort should be made to 
help students avoid negative 
academic consequences when 
their religious obligations 
conflict with academic 
requirements,” Morland said. 
 “This longstanding practice 
predates the implementation 
of the university’s DEI 2.0 
strategic plan. The current plan 
is poised to further bolster and 
amplify such messaging and 
recommended practices across 
all university units.”

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
Wayne State University has 
also scheduled finals during 
the week of Passover, noting on 
its online academic calendar 
that the university is aware of 
the timing of finals with the 
religious holiday, which it listed 
as having “work restrictions.” 
Tania Miller, 23, a WSU 
senior majoring in nursing, 
said there has not been a single 
year when finals were not 
scheduled sometime around 
Passover. Instead of asking 
professors for accommodation 
or to take finals at a different 

time, she has just learned to 
consider it the norm and deal 
with it. A resident of Detroit, 
Miller will be spending one 
seder with her family in 
Franklin and the other seder 
with her boyfriend’s family. 
“This is my fifth year at 
Wayne State and every year 
since I’ve been here, finals 
have fallen out on a few of 
the days of Pesach,” Miller 
said. “The number of classes 
I’ve had during holidays, 
including Rosh Hashanah 
and Yom Kippur, that I’ve had 
to navigate, are many. I have 
had very few situations where 
teachers were not willing to 
accommodate, and they are 
usually good about it. It’s just 
that this year, finals fall across 
the entire eight-day span of the 
holiday.” 
Miller said it bothered her at 
first during her first years, but 
she just got used to navigating 
juggling between classes and 
religious observances. 
“I am Conservative, but I 
understand how this affects 
observant, Orthodox students,” 
Miller said. “I would hope 
that institutions would take 
(the religious observances) 
of all students into account 
when planning their academic 
calendars.” 

Oakland 
University

University of 
Michigan