Task Force Report - Summer Session

Summer Session Task Force Report (June 30, 2000)

Links to sections of the report below:

Summary
Introduction and Background
Increased Summer Session Fees
Proposed Incentives and Initiatives

Summer Session Task Force Membership

List of Appendices

This report and its appendices are also available in .pdf format:

Summer Session Task Force Report

Appendix I: Summary of Responses to Department Chair Interviews
Appendix II: Summary of Responses to Questionnaire for Faculty Who Taught in Summer Session, 1998 & 1999
Appendix III: Associate Students - UCSD Summer Session Survey, April 2000 -- Results Summary
Appendix IV: Table 1: UCSD Summer Session Enrollment - Total Undergraduate Enrollment, 1999
Appendix V: Table 2: UCSD Summer Session Course Enrollments and Total Number Courses Taught, 1996-99
Appendix VI: Table 3: UCSD Summer Session 2000 -- Preliminary Faculty and Student Data
Appendix VII: Table 4: Summer Session 1999 -- UCSD/Systemwide Comparisons
Appendix VIII: Table 5: Summer Session Fees -- UC Campuses -- Summer 2000
Appendix IX: Table 6: UCSD Summer Session 2000 -- Summary of Variable Schedule Courses
Appendix X: Table 7: UCSD Summer Session -- Scholarship History, 1987 - 1999

I. Summary (back to top)

After reviewing considerable input from faculty, department chairs, and students, and from UC-wide documents and reports, we find that UCSD's Summer Session is on the whole working well. It is operating at minimum cost because it is able to take advantage of infrastructure developed for the regular academic year. However, this situation is beginning to stress departments and campus support services and will need to be addressed in order to meet the new enrollment targets. We would not recommend an organizational change unless the State proceeds to provide funding for the summer as it currently does for the FWS quarters. In this event, the Summer Session should again become part of Academic Affairs. Regardless, Summer Session needs to become a more integral part of the regular departmental programs and planning if we are to meet the projected growth. We found universal rejection of any possibility that Summer Session evolve to become the equivalent of a full fourth quarter of the regular year. It is unlikely that Departments will substantially increase their participation in Summer Session without significant incentives to them and to their faculty. Further, they express considerable caution about the impact of expanded Summer Session on the quality of instruction throughout the year. While we discuss many ideas which may be useful to meet the need for increased Summer Session enrollments, we recommend that the following specific issues be given serious consideration:

The Summer Session registration fee should be increased from $40 to at least $100, which would still leave the UCSD Summer Session program as the least expensive in the entire UC system. The additional funds are needed for student financial aid, departmental support, incentives for teachers, and for campus support services.
The campus should work with UCOP to seek State support to extend student Cal Grants to a fourth quarter.
The campus should work with UCOP to seek contributions to faculty retirement funds based on summer teaching compensation.
Establish a minimum salary level for teaching which would raise the compensation for the lowest ladder rank faculty, and also raise the salary cap at the full Professor level.
Work with laboratory-based departments to establish compressed three-week ‘turbo’ laboratory courses in late August and early September.
Develop an early admission program for transfer students that begins during the summer.
Evaluate the possibility of an early admission program for entering freshman that begins in the summer.
Increase the incentive funds available to departments and shift the Summer Session revenue allocation methodology from ‘bottleneck’ course TAs to student enrollments in all courses.
Encourage the use of emeriti, visiting professors, postdoctoral scholars, and advanced graduate students to complement the pool of ladder rank faculty. Provide faculty mentors for the graduate students and postdocs.
Work with CEP to encourage pilot programs and innovative teaching, such as on-line instruction and compressed turbo courses, during the Summer Session.

In the following sections we review some of the background for our report, and then expand on our recommendations and discuss incentives for students, faculty, and departments, as well as several new initiatives.

II. Introduction and Background (back to top)

We were charged to look broadly at Summer Session objectives and programmatic and operational issues, as part of the campus commitment to meet the rapid enrollment increases expected during this next decade. Currently the campus projects that Summer Session enrollments may nearly triple from about 700 UC student FTE in 1999 to 2000 UC student FTE by 2010. A FTE student is defined as one student taking 15 units. Since students rarely take a full unit load during the summer, these FTE targets mean that the student headcount must increase substantially during the summers ahead of us. This growth will place an increasing demand on faculty time, and on departmental, campus and student support services. The committee considered its charge with the understanding that we were not being asked to consider a full fourth quarter of instruction and that the funding stream would remain the same, i.e., Summer Session would continue to operate without State funding in a non-profit mode. It appears that this funding stream may change in the near future so that Summer Session can be funded similarly to the normal FWS quarters by the State. If this happens, summer instructional organization would most appropriately be changed so that it becomes an integral part of Academic Affairs and the academic departments. Regardless, some of the incentives and issues we discuss below would still be relevant since it would almost certainly remain at the faculty's discretion to teach or not during the summer, and at the students’ discretion to take courses during the summer.

We have spent considerable time obtaining input from faculty and departments, and have benefited from other reports. A questionnaire was sent to each Department Chair, and personal interviews were subsequently held with each Chair. A separate questionnaire was sent to all faculty who had taught in Summer Session during the past two years. With the help of our student representative, we were also able to take advantage of an AS-UCSD student survey process to obtain answers to a few questions from the undergraduates. Telephone interviews were also conducted with Summer Session directors throughout the UC system. We were also able to discuss many of the student-related issues with Vice Chancellor Watson. The complete responses are lengthy so we have included only the questionnaires and summaries of responses in the appendix. We also benefited from the recent March 2000 UC-wide Report of the Workgroup on Student Incentives for Summer Enrollment. The document is too long to include as a general appendix, but we attach a copy for your interest.

Responses from Chairs and faculty did not reveal any striking concerns about Summer Session. There is substantial variation, depending on discipline and departmental size, regarding the value of Summer Session to their programs, their faculty participation, and their use of non-ladder rank faculty. While most departments appreciate the usefulness of Summer Session to their students, and most believe it has a positive impact on their academic programs, few departments wish to encourage their faculty, especially Assistant Professors, to teach in the summer because of the need for and value of summer research. The use of non-ladder rank faculty to teach is widespread, and departments respect and feel comfortable with their ability to maintain the quality of instruction for their summer offerings. A strong majority supported the use of non-ladder rank faculty, although there was considerable variation regarding which type was appropriate, e.g., graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, lecturers, visitors, and/or emeriti, and for which courses. For example, one department was against any use of graduate students, while others felt that using advanced Ph.D. students is very appropriate, perhaps better than part-time Lecturers, and quite useful for the graduate student. Some felt that graduate students or postdoctoral scholars should only teach in lower division courses, while others felt that upper division instruction is more appropriate, because of the narrower focus of material than in the typical large lower division course. The idea of having faculty mentors for this type of student teaching is seen as valuable. There was much less variability and concern about the use of visiting faculty and emeriti, and this in fact could be seen as an incentive for some departments. It is our feeling that, similar to the academic year, the appropriate use of non-ladder rank faculty should be left as much as possible to the disciplines and departments provided there is a measure of the quality of the teaching and academic performance of the students. As enrollments grow, departments will need to assess the balance of non-ladder rank faculty throughout the entire year.

The strong majority perception among departments and faculty is that academic standards are maintained during the summer and that student academic performance is about the same as the regular year. Several faculty felt the summer instructional experience was even better because of the smaller classes and motivated students, while others were concerned about the numbers of students who repeat courses in the summer, and the need to decrease the amount of material. Current campus support resources and TA support do not seem to be a significant problem, except in isolated cases and specialized laboratory courses. Despite the current process that requires Chairs to approve Summer Session courses, we found that many departments did not feel that Summer Session was an integral part of their academic planning and that it is left primarily to individual faculty to propose courses. Many departments felt participation would increase if Summer Session was better integrated with the departmental program planning, although it was difficult to extract specific suggestions for accomplishing this goal. Because of the course content, some departments felt they could participate more if the length of course time could be made flexible. There was universal rejection of any possibility that Summer Session evolve into a fourth quarter.

The student questionnaire was appended to an AS-UCSD survey held on library walk during the spring quarter.

Students feel that the primary factors which would increase their participation in Summer Session would be offering more courses and reducing costs. Other factors noted were more financial aid, housing, better time schedules, and better advertising. The decision to carry a full load is directly tied to course availability and economic considerations -- cost, financial aid, and summer employment.

At most of the UC campuses (exceptions are UCB and UCD) Summer Session is housed together with or directly under University Extension. At UCB and UCD Summer Session reports to a Vice Provost. Most summer programs operate like ours, with faculty and departments proposing courses to the Summer Session office. The most significant exception is UCLA, which is in its fourth year of a revenue sharing program. There the curriculum proposals and summer programs are run more autonomously by the departments, which receive a share of the profits based on enrollment.

Student Affairs and Summer Session also provided us with a great deal of useful information. Table 1 provides a profile of headcount enrollment for summer 1999. The data show that Summer Session serves a broad spectrum of students and programs similar to the regular year, and that the performance based on GPA is nearly the same as the regular year, supporting the perception of faculty and departments. Table 2 compares enrollments and courses in the departments and programs from 1996 to 1999. The number of courses offered has seen little change, while the enrollments have increased by about 19% during these four years. Early registration data for this coming summer 2000 (as of 6/2/00) project that enrollments will increase nearly 24% in one year when compared to last summer. Table 2 also shows that about 81% of the students are UC students, and 77% are from UCSD. One of the objectives for future summers should be to increase the course offerings, especially at the upper division level, to help students graduate on time. Table 3 shows preliminary data for this coming 2000 session. Compared to other UC campuses, UCSD tied with UCLA in 1999 for the highest participation rate (30%) of ladder rank faculty teaching in Summer Session, and the UCSD figure for this coming summer will increase to 38%. Assistant Professors do not participate much in the teaching, likely because of the need to do research during the summer and their relatively low stipend. Approximately two-thirds of the students take only one course in one session. Table 4 provides some 1999 comparisons between the UC campuses. Our enrollments are comparable, especially given our FWS enrollments. We have operated at very low cost, and offer fewer courses than most campuses. Table 5 provides a comparison of costs for the coming 2000 session. The average cost to the student for one course is about $500 UC wide, while the cost at UCSD is $360. Because the effect of a substantial cost increase on enrollments is not clear, and because of the student concern over costs, we are recommending that you consider an increase of $60 in the registration fee. Funds generated by a fee increase are necessary to be able to offer the more robust program that will be necessary to meet the enrollment growth projections. Table 6 shows that Summer Session has been able, to a modest degree, to offer some flexibility in the weeks of instruction. As we noted above this may be important to some departments. Table 7 is a history of Summer Session scholarship support, a form of financial aid, over the past 12 years. Based on our other input, we feel the need is greater than presently available.

III. Increased Summer Session Fees (back to top)

It is unlikely that Departments will substantially increase their participation in summer session without significant incentives to them and to their faculty. Most of the incentives and initiatives discussed below will require additional funding. At UCB and UCLA, where costs to students are the highest, formal profit sharing models have been instituted. Departments are provided a financial package, based on substantial profit sharing, to offer robust programs. At UCLA last year $2.7M was returned to departments based on productivity. Not surprisingly, Table 5 indicates that UCLA had the highest cost per course to the students. By comparison, at UCSD $100K was returned to selected departments based on enrollments in ‘bottleneck’ courses. We felt the UCLA type of profit sharing model is too costly for students and could lead to some abuse by motivating departments to make a profit through high enrollment courses with lower cost instruction. However, these models do motivate departments to actively participate in the planning of their Summer Session programs and must be regarded as a positive aspect of revenue sharing.

We are recommending a less ambitious plan. Using a modest registration fee increase, combined with existing budget surpluses such as funds currently used for the ‘bottleneck’ courses, a new fund should be established to support the incentives and initiatives we are proposing in this report. Currently $100K is distributed to departments who offer ‘bottleneck’ courses, and their share is based on TA allocations. This fund was established by the SVCAA many years ago to provide an incentive to selected departments. We feel it has served its purpose, that the funding algorithm is outdated, that a much larger fund is needed to provide incentives to all departments, and that such profit sharing should be based equitably on enrollment workloads.

The increased funds would be needed to directly support financial aid and campus resources, but we hope that a substantial amount could be allocated equitably to all participating departments. This would permit the departments considerable flexibility in using the funds to help expand their Summer Session programs. For example, some departments may wish to use the revenue return directly to augment special course resources like staffing or laboratory equipment, while others may use the funds to provide special incentive funds to faculty, such as mini-grants or mentoring stipends for training support of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, or to provide funds to offer an upper division course that would not normally be financially viable to Summer Session. While a thorough financial analysis will be necessary to substantiate the preliminary one we were able to do, it seems that the $60 fee increase we propose represents a minimum level necessary to generate incremental funds to support incentives that will help meet the projected enrollment targets. The new fee would leave the cost for four summer units slightly below the pro-rated cost for four units during the academic year. Increasing only the registration fee, and not the course unit cost, would also encourage students to take more than one course in one session. We also recommend a lower registration fee for those students who enroll in both Summer Sessions. It would be worthwhile to have some feedback on the usefulness of the new incremental funds before larger fee and/or course unit increases are phased in during future years. Assessment of the creative use of such additional funds would also be a beneficial prelude to possible future State funding of Summer Session.

Although the incentives and initiatives we discuss briefly below are clearly interrelated, we discuss them in sub-sections based on incentives and initiatives.

IV. Proposed Incentives and Initiatives (back to top)

A. Student Incentives (back to top)

Financial Aid
Students will obviously regard a fee increase as a disincentive. To overcome this, there must be serious consideration of other incentives for them. Financial aid has consistently been raised as the most important issue. As Table 7 shows, less than $30,000 of new incremental funds would double the recent annual expenditures for UCSD Summer Session scholarships, which peaked at $31,255 in 1997 and amounted to $25,523 in 1999. However, to have a significant impact there should also be a serious effort to encourage UCOP to work with the State to extend the Cal Grants to the summer, treating Summer Session as equivalent to a fourth quarter for financial aid eligibility calculations. If Summer Session becomes a more integral part of students’ academic programs, this should generate extra financial aid eligibility credits because students could not be expected to be employed during summer, as current calculations assume.
Support Services
As enrollments grow and financial aid and other student services are impacted more than presently, it will be necessary to extend incremental funding to these areas to provide an adequate learning environment for Summer Session students. As examples, we foresee needs in the Registrar’s Office, student financial aid, academic advising in the Colleges and departments, computing services, and the library. The library estimates that the incremental cost to very modestly expand summer hours by two hours M-F would cost approximately $25,000 unless additional volunteers were found. Such support issues will need to be addressed beyond this committee's ability and then incorporated into the proposed fee increase discussions. It was not clear that housing was a significant issue for most Summer Session students, but this could be examined more closely than we have been able to do.
Expanded Course Offerings
The expansion of course offerings, especially in impacted courses and upper division courses, should be very beneficial to students and their time-to-degree, and should be a clear goal of providing new incentive funding to faculty and departments. We also discussed the impact of increasing student research opportunities during the summer, certainly a valuable experience for our students. To encourage this, there needs to be more widespread departmental acceptance of independent study course credit to fulfill major degree requirements. A reduced registration fee and nominal unit cost for special studies courses during the summer should also be considered.

B. Faculty Incentives (back to top)

Salary
It will be a challenge to induce additional ladder rank faculty (LRF) to teach in Summer Session. In view of the commitment to the research, their primary motivation for summer teaching is additional salary. It is likely that most faculty who are willing and interested in teaching summer session are already doing so. The trade-off between research time and augmented income is most serious for the Assistant Professor. The departments and the faculty are well aware of this conflict. Regardless, we strongly feel that there should be a higher level minimum base salary for faculty who teach. The current scale at UCSD is tied to 8.5% of the academic year salary and could result in an Assistant Professor being paid less than a TA, based on the proposed TA salary increases. We would propose that the minimum salary for faculty be set at the Associate Professor--Step I rate, or approximately $5000 for one course. Given the low numbers of Assistant Professors who wish to teach Summer Session, this increase should not have a large effect on costs. At the other extreme, there is presently a locally imposed salary cap of $7500 per course, which currently affects all full Professors at or above Step V. Since 45% of all campus faculty are at or above Step V, and 42% of the General Campus faculty, this cap affects a significant portion of potential Summer Session faculty. We propose that the cap be raised to at least $8000, and that the basis for imposing it be re-examined. We understand that senior professors teaching small classes is a serious budget issue, but perhaps some combination of step and class enrollments should be used to trigger a cap. We should also note that the 8.5% policy is not held uniformly at every campus and, because of the potential change to State funding, there are discussions at UCOP about possible use of other summer teaching salary factors, such as units and weeks, or basing the salary on 1/9^th (11%) of the academic year salary per course, based on the 9-course full teaching load. The campus needs to remain informed of these discussions because of the budget ramifications and possible cost to the students if instituted without additional State funding.
Retirement Credit
A significant incentive for faculty to teach in summer would be for UC to include summer teaching compensation in the retirement contributions. We understand that such discussions are underway at the systemwide level, and we recommend that UCSD support this initiative.
Non-salary Grants and Research Funds
Another incentive which might be useful in some disciplines or faculty situations would be to augment the teaching salary with small non-salary grants, or permit faculty to take the equivalent of the teaching salary as non-salaried (and non-taxed) funds for their research.
Exchange of Teaching in FWS
There was also considerable discussion about departments permitting faculty to teach in summer in lieu of one quarter’s teaching during FWS -- a straightforward trade in time of teaching with no added compensation. For example, a faculty member agrees to teach a course in the Summer Session in order to be relieved of a course in the winter quarter; this would affect neither sabbatical leave credit nor release of the faculty from other departmental responsibilities. The trade off to some faculty would be the opportunity to pursue a particular research project more heavily for 10 weeks during the winter quarter in exchange for contributing to the department's teaching program for five weeks in the summer. Then, rather than hiring a Lecturer for the summer, the department could use the equivalent Summer Session funding to hire a winter quarter Lecturer. Without some additional type of compensation, it is unlikely that many faculty would be enthusiastic about extending their teaching efforts and associated departmental responsibilities into the summer. However, we see nothing wrong with the proposal, provided it does not result in added pressure on faculty to teach in summer, and the department can balance the quality of teaching using a similar mix of ladder rank faculty and non-ladder rank faculty between the regular year and the summer. Because of the rapid enrollment growth on campus and the necessary interim use of more non-ladder rank faculty throughout the year, this concern about the balance between quality and cost is not limited to the Summer Session.

C. Departmental Incentives (back to top)

Increased Support for Staffing and Operational Costs
The recent decision to include Summer Session workload credit in the General Campus budget allocation process has removed a significant disincentive for departmental participation in Summer Session. However, additional incentives to departments are required if Summer Session is to be significantly expanded. There are needs for increased support in staffing and operational costs. Because of existing vacation and maintenance schedules, departments must be able to hire additional staff and technicians and pay for additional supplies and expenses. As we mentioned above, departments have been accommodating the Summer Session by using infrastructure maintained with academic year-based State funds.
Increased Autonomy in Curriculum Planning
Chairs of several departments mentioned a desire to have more autonomy in curriculum planning than is permitted under the current system. If departments are to become more involved in the summer planning process, they will require flexible discretionary funds to attract teachers and possibly augment Summer Session funding for special courses. A significant portion of any new funds will be necessary in these departmental expenditure areas, especially for laboratory courses or departments with large enrollments. Another use of additional discretionary Summer Session funds by departments could be to permit them to augment a capped salary or otherwise low salary established by Summer Session in order to permit selected academically desirable courses to be offered. For example, when a department teaches a large service course that generates incremental discretionary funding, they could then also offer a small upper division course at their discretion.
More Flexible Scheduling
A more flexible Summer Session schedule, beyond the usual five-week session, may encourage departments to teach specific courses. There seems to be some desirability in isolated cases to offer both longer and shorter schedules, and to consider weekends. The drawback is staff cost in the Registrar's Office to generate the schedule and classroom assignments. There would likely be a need to support investment in additional software and programming time. It is not clear how flexibility would impact the students’ summer scheduling, but it may not be serious until more enroll in several courses.

Although not an incentive per se, several departments indicated that they wanted better and more timely feedback on teaching evaluations for the Summer Session. After reviewing the current system used by the Summer Session office, it is not clear where the problem lies, but better communication of the effort and the results is desirable and would make departments more involved in the overall process.

D. New Initiatives (back to top)

There are several new initiatives that we feel are worthy of further consideration. We will discuss them succinctly and hope that they can be brought forward for wider discussion in the appropriate faculty, department, and administrative venues. Not all of these ideas will work for every component of the campus, but each may contribute to helping the campus meet the enrollment challenges we will face. By and large they are based on making optimal use of the resources that are already available to us.

Compressed Turbo Courses
Many schools offer compressed intercession courses between semesters that have proven popular. Given our Summer Session scheduling and late start of the academic year in September, we feel departments could consider offering a variety of short 3-4 week summer ‘turbo’ courses in early September. In particular this may be appropriate for some laboratory courses, improving the efficient use of limited resources. Summer jobs are winding down for students, and many students could see this opportunity as a means to focus on and eliminate a time-consuming course or a scheduling problem. Faculty and staff, especially those with children, are often back from vacations and meetings after Labor Day. Labs are not in use for outreach activities and may already be geared up for the new academic year. Postdoctoral scholars and advanced graduate students could participate without compromising their research activities for as long a time as required during the regular 10-week academic year. Because of the intensity in contact time and preparation of such courses, we recommend that faculty be compensated the same as for a regular Summer Session course. Student laboratory fees should not exceed those imposed for the same course during the regular year, or Summer Session, and any requisite incremental support funds should be subsidized by new funding. Again, scheduling is an issue to resolve with such courses, especially for transfer students whose orientations often occur in early September. There could also be an issue of overlap with the second Summer Session.
Transfer Student Early Admission
Our ability to accommodate more transfer students is an essential component of enrollment growth. Transfer students often have lower division courses to take in specific majors, and they have difficulty with the transition to the intensity of the quarter system. We suggest that a good use of existing facilities and courses would be an early admission program for transfer students. Since many community colleges end in May, it might be possible to attract transfer students for both Summer Sessions, so that they could complete up to 12 units during the summer. They could live on campus, at least for the summer months, to become better integrated at UCSD. They would be able to assess their potential for success at UCSD, and it would improve their overall time-to-degree. Such a program should be discussed by the Academic Senate Admissions Committee, together with Student Affairs and the Colleges. It might be particularly useful in selected majors in which courses equivalent to prerequisites for the upper division major are not available at the community colleges. Such an early admission program could require that transfer students apply in the fall for this program. The program would require special advising at both the College and departmental levels to coordinate an effective program for each student. It would also place a burden on the Colleges because of existing orientation schedules which currently end just at the beginning of Summer Session.
Freshman Early Admission
A longer-range concept to take advantage of the Summer Session would be an early freshman admissions program. The target group in this instance is the students who just miss our admissions cut-off and who then typically go to other UC campuses, a community college, or out of state. They would be granted admission to UCSD on the condition that they agree to come early and start their freshman level courses in the summer. These added freshman students should help reduce our need to accept more students from a later referral pool who are often less qualified. They would also off-set the normal enrollment attrition which occurs in winter and spring, maintaining a higher average FTE enrollment level throughout the year.

While they would likely not be given on-campus housing for the regular year, one serious obstacle to admitting more freshman, they could have summer housing on campus, acclimate to the campus and community, and be in a good position to find off-campus housing for the academic year. Since many freshman courses are already offered in Summer Session, and most Colleges offer their core courses in summer, it should be possible to bring these students to UCSD without generating many new courses. The impact, and resource need, would be on College advising. An additional suggestion for such a program would be to make it major specific, or College specific, to help with impacted majors, or to balance student loads across the campus.

This idea of offering early admission to good students who want to attend UCSD and who would not normally be admitted seems better to us than the one used by several other UC campuses of guaranteeing late admission by one or more quarters if students agree to go to a community college to start their college program. The early freshman would take our courses, have better advising, and their transition to a regular program should be much smoother. We feel the idea merits consideration by the Admissions Committee, the Colleges, and Student Affairs. Like the early transfer student program, such a program should help us meet enrollment FTE goals by maximizing the use of existing Summer Session facilities and course offerings. It should also be a positive influence on overall student quality.
Mentoring for Graduate and Post-doctoral Instructors
We mentioned above that the use of non-ladder rank faculty will be a necessary interim measure independent of Summer Session growth. The use of different types of non-ladder rank faculty will vary considerably by discipline and department. However, one concept we would encourage is to provide incremental funds to permit faculty mentors to be associated with the use of advanced graduate students and even post-doctoral scholars. The usefulness of the faculty mentor is being tested in the new Summer Graduate Teaching Fellows program, initiated this summer on a pilot basis. The funding requirements would be small but, at the margin, could have a significant impact on the quality of instruction.
Support for Innovative Teaching
The campus needs to be creative to meet the challenges of enrollment growth if we are to maintain the quality of instruction and attention to undergraduate students. Summer Session often has the advantage of smaller classes and motivated students and would seem to be a good time for departments and faculty to experiment with teaching pedagogy and methodologies. There is a growing interest in using on-line technologies to augment traditional teaching methods, and we would hope that there can be appropriate incentives and support from both the administration and the Senate, with proper oversight by CEP, to encourage pilot programs in this area. Innovation in web-based instruction will require campus resources. Other ideas could include variations of the turbo course concept or flexible scheduling in special courses. Anything learned from the Summer Session will likely be useful during the regular academic year.

Submitted on behalf of the Summer Session Task Force by
David R. Miller, Chair

Summer Session Task Force: (back to top)

Tom Bond (Revelle College)
Jacqueline Hanson (University Libraries)
Daniel Harvey (Chemistry & Biochemistry)
Paul Kube (CSE)
Jennifer Lee (UG student representative)
David Luft (History)
David Miller (Academic Affairs/MAE), Chair
Hans Paar (Physics)
Carol Padden (Communication)
Carlos Waisman (Sociology)
Cynthia Walk (Literature)
Mary Walshok (Extended Studies & Public Service)
Jil Warn (Summer Session)
Gabriele Wienhausen (Biology/CEP Chair)

Summer Session Task Force Report
Appendices (back to top)

Summary of Responses to Department Chair Interviews
Summary of Responses to Questionnaire to Faculty Who Taught in Summer Session, 1998 & 1999
Associated Students-UCSD Summer Session Survey, April 2000 – Results Summary
Table 1: "UCSD Summer Session Enrollment - Total Undergraduate Enrollment, 1999"
Table 2: "UCSD Summer Session Course Enrollments and Total Number Courses Taught, 1996-99"
Table 3: "UCSD Summer Session 2000 -- Faculty and Student Data"
Table 4: "Summer Session 1999 – UCSD / Systemwide Comparisons"
Table 5: "Summer Session Fees – Eight UC Campuses -- Summer 2000"
Table 6: "UCSD Summer Session 2000 -- Summary of Variable Schedule Courses"
Table 7: "UCSD Summer Session – Scholarships History, 1987 - 1999"