Renee McEwen said a summer at UC Davis taking classes was one of the smartest things she did in college.

Back in the summer of 2003, McEwen took two sociology classes and picked up enough credits to graduate a quarter early.

"I took the summer classes so I could graduate in December rather than in June," said McEwen, who majored in sociology and is now a night and weekend supervisor at the Physical Sciences Library.

Like McEwen did two summers ago, a growing number of UC Davis students will hit the books this summer in the university's Summer Session program. The campus expects perhaps as many as 10,000 students to enroll in Summer Sessions.

McEwen found summer coursework more informal and casual than during the regular academic year, mainly due to the smaller class sizes. She says students are warming up to the idea of classes during the hottest time of the year.

"Summer classes are getting more popular among the students I know," said McEwen, adding that graduating early or making up for lost time are common reasons why.

Year-round emphasis

Offered in two different phases, one from June 27 to Aug. 5 and the other from Aug. 8 to Sept. 16, the summer courses typically run six weeks but cover the same amount of material as courses offered during the regular academic year. The idea behind them is to make UC campuses operate more like year-round colleges as the UC system attempts to accommodate the surge in student enrollment.

The university is now in its fourth year of full state funding for summer instruction, which affords students greater opportunities to enroll in hard-to-get courses, concentrate on degree requirements, accelerate graduation dates and participate in special programs.

"UC Davis has made significant progress during the last three years toward year-round instruction," said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw.

"These efforts assist students in completing their degree requirements within four years, while also maintaining the flexible, creative opportunities available during the summer session."

Despite a slight decline last summer, the trend is upward for summer studies at UC Davis.

Since 2001, student enrollment in these classes has increased 48 percent and the total number of credit hours taken has spiked 90 percent. This summer, the campus projects a 6 percent increase over last year in total full-time equivalent students, or FTEs. More courses are being offered -- in summer 2004, the campus offered 627 courses, an increase of 5 percent over the prior year. The campus is currently determining how many classes will be offered this summer.

Reducing class sizes

One advantage to taking summer classes is that students find greater access to key "gateway" courses such as introductory physics, chemistry, organic chemistry and writing composition. This serves to reduce the waiting lists for those high-in-demand courses in the fall, winter and spring.

On one front, the campus would like to close the gap between ladder rank faculty and lecturers teaching summer classes. Last year, ladder rank faculty taught 20 percent of the classes, compared with 61 percent of classes in the regular academic year.

"There is work yet to do," said Hinshaw, "but I surely respect and appreciate the efforts of the campus as a whole in providing high quality, year-round learning opportunities for our students."

Some students put a global spin on their summer studies.

UC Davis offers Summer Abroad programs that include courses designed for 22 majors and classes taught by UC Davis professors on six continents around the world.

UC Davis students need not take their courses in Davis for the credits to apply to their degree program. For instance, a UC Davis student in Los Angeles for the summer could take classes at UCLA -- all units transfer within the UC system unless the course duplicates work previously completed.

Financial picture

The state has historically provided funding for students enrolling in the fall, winter and spring terms. This changed in 2001 when the state Legislature, in a bid to absorb student enrollment increases statewide, began funding UC summer studies. Since then, UC Davis has begun converting summer instruction from a self-supporting to a state-supporting program.

Along the way, however, the state experienced a budget shortfall and the UC system had to raise student fees as one of several measures to balance the books.

As a result, last year's total UC Davis student headcount for summer sessions dipped 2 percent to 9,684, according to a report from the Office of Resource Management and Planning. The main reasons for this decline, noted the report, were the elimination of the campus policy to limit course fees to the first six units taken and the increase in the per-unit fee from $85 to $126.

Fees are up a smidgen this summer, too, to $136 per unit for both graduate and undergraduate students. This rate is roughly equivalent to fees charged during the regular academic year and is 8 percent higher than those levied in summer 2004. The campus will continue its policy of not charging out-of-state tuition for summer programs.

To lessen the impact of recent fee increases and enrollment growth, UC Davis will authorize financial aid funding up to $3.9 million, an increase of about $300,000 over summer 2004.

Funding for the UC Summer Sessions will come from the 2005-06 state budget.

Currently, four campuses -- Berkeley, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Davis -- have received full funding for summer sessions. Other campuses -- San Diego, Irvine, Riverside and Santa Cruz -- are expected to receive state funding for summer over the next two years, 2005-06 and 2006-07.

For more information about summer sessions, call (530) 757-3305 or visit http://summer-sessions.ucdavis.edu.