University officials have deemed the trial intersession held this January a success and plan to hold a similar intersession in 2007.
A subcommittee of the university committee on courses and curricula is currently building a recommendation for the intersession in 2007, vice provost Jerry Gilbert said. The committee wants to offer another intersession before the start of the spring or summer semester, he said.
The trial intersession, which ran from Jan. 3 to Jan. 13, went well, Gilbert said. The university enrolled 171 students for the intersession, which had nine courses, three with two sections, he said.
The university will offer more classes during the next intersession, he said. During the intersession, each student is allowed to take one class.
“We felt like this was a good experiment,” Gilbert said. “We will take what we learned from this and improve the intersession next year.”
The program was also cost effective, he said.
“This was not a program where the university could really lose money, but rather break even or possibly make money,” he said.
Instructor Mike Goree taught the most popular class during the intersession, services marketing.
“It was a great outcome,” Goree said. “It was a good way to help a student who needs to come up with an additional three hours before his graduation at the end of the next semester.”
James DelPrince taught floral design during the intersession and was pleased with the outcome.
“The floral design class usually has about 50 students in it, but this time it only had 15,” he said. “This let the class be much more personal and laid back. Instead of a broad class, we had a deep one.”
Since no other classes could interfere with students’ studies, students were able to focus much more on the class they were taking, DelPrince said.
Junior political science major Grant Noblin took introduction to chemistry and thought there was an overload of class work. “I do not think there was enough study time,” he said. “It was way too much material for such a short period.”
Noblin also thought that the specifics of the intersession were not laid out well before it began. “It was very unorganized,” he said. “Some people that registered for a class would find out it was cancelled the day they showed up.”