Summer school rules to be evaluated
By Carmen Castro
Staff Reporter

A more detailed evaluation of summer school enrollment policies has been prompted since the firing of former radio-TV-film chairman Roger Cooper in September, said Nadia Lahutsky, Faculty Senate chair.

Cooper was dismissed following an investigation of enrollment discrepancies for two summer school Video I courses. Some students enrolled temporarily to avoid cancellation of the courses and to try to avoid a pay cut for the instructors.

Leo Munson, assistant vice chancellor for academic support, said the Faculty Senate Executive Committee is considering other models to try and make summer school more personable to both students and faculty.

“We want an analysis that’s more subjective than objective,” Munson said.

Chris Baran, coordinator of operations and marketing for Extended Education, is handling the management model evaluation, Munson said.

Baran said he is comparing schools like Baylor University that have a decentralized system in which each department funds summer school, to schools with a centralized system where the university pays out of its budget. Baran said the departments would have more freedom with the decentralized model.

“We want so see if there’s a better way to administer summer school,” Baran said, “if there is another way out there.”

TCU currently has a centralized system, Baran said. Southern Methodist University and Tulane University are other schools with the centralized system.

This fall, Baran has previewed each department’s list of summer courses, Munson said.

“Each department used to bypass the academic dean and send their list of offered summer courses straight to the registrar,” Munson said. “The academic dean never saw the list.”

Munson said this new procedure will bring information to the dean about the courses being offered and help ensure there are no duplications of similar courses across departments.

The minimum number of students needed to keep a course open is also being evaluated, Munson said. Currently, freshmen and sophomore courses require 15 students, junior and senior courses must have 13 students, and graduate level classes require eight students.

David Bedford, a Spanish professor who has taught a summer course each of the past six years, said some of his courses have fallen below minimum numbers but have never been canceled.

“The ideal number of students in beginning language, in my opinion, is a minimum of seven and maximum of 12,” Bedford said. “It would help me if the minimum number required for summer courses to make was lowered a little.”

Munson said the discussion now is how to improve the early notification to both the instructor and student of any possible class cancellations.

Under the current procedure, a class’s enrollment is checked the week prior to the first day of class and the instructor can appeal to keep a class under special circumstances, Munson said.

Sometimes a student that is trying to graduate on time or graduating in the summer needs that single course, Munson said.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, the class will go so those students can graduate in the summer,” Munson said.

The university is looking for the most efficient model so that university resources are not wasted, Munson said.

“People don’t realize that one in three students at this university are enrolled in some type of summer school course,” Munson said. “There has to be a better way to make all the identities work cohesively.”