When I was in college, we came back for 3 weeks of classes, then were sent home for Xmas, and came back for a reading week & finals. Got changed after sophomore year, but not before an old timer on the faculty said exams before Xmas would lead to "intellectually dead Xmas vacations for students."

Meanwhile, teaching is being undermined and devlaued at our institutions in a frankly historically dangerous way, and as an underpaid contract instructor, having to spend more time and emotional energy finding ways to get through to my students for the same low pay is not sustainable. /8

I have had the experience in my personal life of someone going through mental illness and other struggles not remembering conversations we had, and it was frustrating for me because I felt like they weren't listening, but that was not the case -- memory just doesn't work as well under strain. 7/

Financial precarity. Yes university students have always been living on their last 20 bucks, but the number of students I talk to now who have *multiple* jobs in addition to being fulltime students, some of whom are taking care of family members' survival needs as well as their own, is shocking. 5/

One is that teaching university students *well* requires much more work (and frankly, compassion) now than it did when I started nine years ago. 2/