UT-Houston is fully closed on national holidays. Skeleton holidays require that the university have on hand enough personnel to carry on public business. According to the Current Appropriations Act, during skeleton holidays each unit and department head must ensure the capability of that unit to respond to inquiries from the public. Department heads must consider whether or not the department must be available to respond to patient needs, student needs, public information queries, fiscal accountability, environmental health and safety, facilities operations and so forth. For further information about skeleton holidays, please refer to HOOP Policy 2.37.
National holidays are the only holidays that the university can be fully closed.
Therefore, those days are designated as skeleton holidays because UT-Houston must be open for public business. Some departments are designated as critical services and are required to be open on these holidays. An employee may work on a skeleton holiday if he or she has the permission of the department head to do so. This may be in lieu of or in addition to other critical staff. Employees in these departments who work skeleton holidays have one year to use this holiday time.