Winter session is not canceled.
After what seemed as endless discussions, meetings and looking at the
budget, winter session has been restored.
Jeanie Nishime, vice president of student and community advancement
explained that the reason that winter session was initially cut was
because of budgetary reasons and the reason winter session is being
restored is because there appears to be less of a cut.
As to what classes will be restored back into winter session, Nishime
said it is up for academic affairs to decide. However, classes that
are essential to transferring will be included.
” We will use the guidelines that have really been talked about a lot
in the state in terms of maintaining our transfer curriculums and
vocational programs so that students can complete their associate
degrees or a certificate and the less priority would be classes that
don’t lead to a degree,” Nishime, said. “GE classes needed for
transfer will be the primary emphasis.”
In an email sent out to the campus from academic senate president,
Christina Gold said 75 classes were being restored due to improvements
in the budget outlook on the state-wide level.
“Given the high success and retention rates in winter session, it is
in the best interest of our students that we retain winter and
consider expanding the offerings in the future,” Gold said.
The college has also revised the former budget projections for about
more than 18,000 full-time equivelant student enrollment (FTE), which
will then help decide how many courses will be available for winter
session.
“We calculate how much each class costs and how many courses we can
offer,” Nishime said.
Although winter session is said to return, students will have to wait
a bit longer to find out when the decision will be made and what
courses will be available.
” We kind off held of on rolling over winter and spring until we knew
what kind of calender we had, now the academic deans will decide what
classes they want to offer,” Nishime said.
“I’m not sure when they do all that scheduling and when it is
finalized, but probably by the fall there will be some indication.”
More classes are also said to be added into the spring schedule in
order to allow for better persistence between the fall and spring
semesters.
“It is commendable that student success and transfer considerations
have been prioritized in this decision about how to restore planned
cuts in light of the improving (but still gloomy) budget outlook,”
Gold said.