A more comprehensive offering of classes and lower course fees will be available to students taking classes at UC Davis this summer. With the expanded schedule, university administrators expect more students to choose a summer on campus - bringing with it a host of activity for university departments handling logistics.
The departments with summer changes in store include the Office of the Registrar, the Office of Financial Aid, and the Learning Skills Center, which, for the first time in years, will be open for students seeking help with chemistry, math and writing courses, said Daniel Wick, Summer Sessions director.
These strides mark the first steps for UC Davis' possible expansion to a full summer quarter, pending the approval of an $8 million state budget proposal. The goal is for summer enrollment to reach 40 percent of a typical academic quarter.
The 2002-03 budget, offered last month, will be revised in May and finalized this summer. Last year, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara received $34 million in state money to boost their summer school enrollment and course offerings.
For the upcoming two UC Davis Summer Sessions, students will choose from 379 courses, up 89 from last year. Fees will also be capped at the cost of six units per session, allowing students to take as many units as they can handle for $456. Additionally, each student will pay a registration fee of $111 per session.
As the UC student population booms over the next few years, state officials see increasing summer enrollment as a less expensive alternative to building more university classrooms, or even campuses. For now, UC Davis' increased offerings are being paid for with $650,000 from this year's state budget, along with enrolled students' fees.
"With or without (next year's state) money we have many plans for a different approach to Summer Sessions," said Patricia Turner, vice provost for undergraduate studies and the chair of a committee looking at summer school expansion.
Students should have already gotten the word. In December, they received an e-mail about the new Summer Sessions fee scale and the increased numbers of courses, which are especially focused at the upper division level.
And earlier this week students received a bright holiday-red card in the mail offering "your ticket to early graduation" and noting Summer Sessions dates and contact information, Wick said.
Reducing summer fees is a great idea, said Maria Mercado, a sociology and English major graduating in June. She only wishes the campus had offered the incentive earlier.
"From what I've heard more students are willing to take summer courses now because it will be cheaper," she said. "Most of them prefer summer courses but are unwilling to take them because fees are so expensive."
Her friend Anthony Van Nguyen, however, believes students will be slow to embrace a full summer schedule.
"A lot of students are considering that they can earn lots of money by working, too," he said.
The junior human development major expects to take two classes and work 20 hours a week this summer.
Along with reducing course fees, Summer Sessions has also allocated $400,000 to provide grants for a limited number of students taking summer classes, said Lora Jo Bossio, director of Financial Aid.
Three new Financial Aid employees will be assigned to assist with the March through May crunch as the office processes summer aid applications. The applications will be available starting today and are due by March 30.
"It's a very individualized and labor intensive workload," Bossio said. She explained that some students will choose to take only a couple courses in one session, while others will take several classes over two summer sessions.
Another summer school change in store for students includes a new enrollment procedure. Rather than filling out a Summer Sessions application, continuing UC Davis students can now register for summer classes on the Web or by telephone, as in any other quarter, said Patti Utz, executive assistant in the Registrar's Office.
Summer courses - which range from specialty sessions taught abroad to core lower division classes - have already been set - but they still need teachers.
To entice more faculty members, Provost Virginia Hinshaw and Vice Provost Bill Lacy has removed the previous $8,000 salary cap for teaching a summer course. This summer, faculty members may receive up to 22 percent of their nine-month salary for teaching several classes, depending on credit hours.
The financial incentive should encourage some faculty members to add a summer course, but a change in mindset will be needed for UC Davis to really turn its summer program into a full-fledged academic quarter, said sociology professor James Cramer, who is helping Turner and Lacy study year-round instruction.
"The long-run goal probably can be achieved only by having some faculty teach one or two courses in summer as part of their normal teaching load, instead of teaching all of their courses in fall, winter and spring," Cramer said.
"Clearly this will be a difficult transition to implement - difficult for faculty, difficult for departments and department chairs, and difficult for deans. It will take time and state funding."