Many students have displayed dismay at the removal of Dead Day from this semester’s finals week and one student has rallied students towards its reinstatement.

After realizing how crammed his finals week would be, Alexander Hill, sophomore biology major from Abilene, decided to spearhead the creation of petition to bring Dead Day back.

“Right now I am taking Honors Organic Chemistry and Cell Biology and both of those are pretty rough classes,” Hill said. “I started making my finals schedule a couple weeks ago and I found that I have three finals on Monday.”

On the first day of the week, Hill will start with a Speech final followed by cumulative finals in Organic Chemistry and Cell Biology.

“I know I’m not going to be the only one because I have a bunch of friends who are going to be in a similar boat,” Hill said. “I did the petition to show that there are students who have particularly strong views regarding this day.”

Hill has received a large amount of support from the student body.

“Most students really value their study time and overall, students have been really responsive about keeping their study time or even just time to relax before finals. You really can’t take a final on four or five hours of sleep and expect to do well.”

Eric Soulek, sophomore computer science major from San Antonio, understands how no Dead Day will effect him this semester.

“I know it is only one day,” Soulek said, “but it is a little more stress added on to my schedule. Dead Day was a day where I could kind of unwind. It allowed me to sort out everything I had to study and be more prepared. I think it is something that students want back that will help us succeed.”

Some students who do not want to see Dead Day return have also been vocal, including one physics student who protested Hill while he petitioned in the Campus Center.

“I completely respect the differences of opinion,”Hill said, “and I know not everyone did use Dead Day. But I think it is a nice concession for the people who did use it.”

After meeting with Bart Herridge, the registrar, Hill turned in the petition with over 500 signatures from students and a small group of faculty members. He can’t say for sure that a change will be made but he is confident that the administration will hear the students’ voice.

“The administration is going to do what they’re going to do,” Hill said, “but I got the sense that they are willing to listen to students and they are willing to take our views into account.”

One solution that Hill offered was to drop Friday classes during the last week of the semester to allow both a three day weekend for studying and five days for finals.

Students will have an opportunity to voice their opinions and suggestions in a survey that will be sent out during finals week.

After working and petitioning to bring back Dead Day, Hill can offers a piece of advice: “Answer that survey because that is how we are going to make our voices heard.”