Student Body President Jake Torres announced during Tuesday’s Student Senate meeting that he plans to introduce legislation to put reading days back into the academic calendar.

“When I first started, we had three reading days at the end of the semester to get ready for finals,” he said. “Last semester we had none. This semester we have one. This spring we’re scheduled for none.”

Torres is looking for a co-author for the bill.

Reading days have brought up concerns that students use them to party instead of studying for final exams, according to Torres. However, Torres said not having any reading days is a bad decision.

Torres said he met with Faculty Senate President Linda Eads to see if reading days could be scheduled in future semesters. Faculty Senate is in charge of setting the academic calendar.

Eads seemed “fairly receptive” to the idea, and faculty members are also willing to add at least one reading day to future semesters, according to Torres.

“From the faculty standpoint, they’re not incredibly excited about it [not having any reading days] either because they go straight from teaching to finals,” Torres said. However, Torres cautioned that reading days were not a top priority for Faculty Senate.

“But I think this is something we should address from our end,” he said. 

Although this semester is set in stone, Torres said there is a chance of getting at least one reading day next semester. If not, he said he definitely wants to add reading days to the 2011-2012 calendar.