Every March, thousands of Binghamton University students pack the streets of Downtown for Parade Day. In 2017, this might not be the case.

The University released the academic calendar for spring 2017, in which an early mid-semester break is scheduled from March 3-8. Parade Day will be on March 4, but because BU has a break, all residence halls will be closed, meaning that students living on campus will not have a place to stay if they choose to remain in Binghamton for Parade Day. Although many students living on campus are under drinking age, this will inconvenience all those who live on University grounds and wish to attend.

One BU junior, who requested anonymity because he feared being directly associated with the petition, started a petition on the website Change.org that calls for BU president Harvey Stenger and the University administration to keep residence halls open over that weekend. Over 45 people had signed the petition as of Thursday night.

“President Stenger, with all [due] respect we as a student body strongly protest you closing campus during the weekend of 3/3/17-3/5/17, and hereby request that you allow students the choice to decide how and what they do with their personal lives,” the petition reads.

Donald Nieman, the BU provost, chaired the committee responsible for the calendar. According to him, breaks were added in order to ease student workloads throughout the semester, but he did not clarify whether Parade Day was considered.

“For years, we have heard from both students and parents that the academic calendar interferes with holidays and that spring break falls too late in the semester to provide the break from academic pressures that students — and faculty — need,” Nieman wrote in an email. “The new calendar will remedy that and help students succeed academically — the overriding goal of the committee.”

The petition states that students do believe the dates of Parade Day were taken into account. According to the student who wrote the petition, students will be missing out on a signature aspect of BU culture.

“I think Parade Day is a huge part of the Binghamton community,” the student said. “Part of the appeal is that everybody is everywhere, you walk down the street, you see hundreds of people you know; it would be really unfortunate I think if something was done that stopped that.”

Larry Shea, the owner of State Street bar Tom and Marty’s, said that while the University may have good reason for closing residence halls during Parade Day, it is an unfortunate occurrence.

“If the school had concerns about the growth of the parade, or concerns about problems in other areas with their own festivities, that is certainly understandable,” Shea said. “But we haven’t had any problems, so it’s disappointing that they acted without any discussion. The parade is without question a great selling point for the area to BU students. I can’t think of any single event that draws the two separate communities together than Parade Day.”

Jason Chacho, a junior majoring in economics, signed the petition. According to him, the break is poorly timed, and the short length complicates transportation plans.

“I signed the petition because there’s not a good reason to close campus over a long weekend, forcing many students to make a long commute home for no apparent reason other than it being a ‘winter break,’” Chacho said, “even though we have never had a break that early in the semester.”

Even though Parade Day falls in the middle of break next year, Nieman said that students are free to participate.

“This is one of many traditions,” Nieman wrote. “The break won’t always fall at the same time, so there will be some years when we will be in session when Parade Day takes place. At the same time, students are more than welcome to attend the parade if they so choose.”

While the petition may not achieve its goal, there is a hope that it will start a conversation between the student body and the administration.

“My hope is that the petition can show that a large enough amount of the student body is against it,” the student said. “I think it would be something that the University would consider changing.”