Preparing for Summer/Interim Sessions Update on Policies and Procedures August 2015

So Why Us? After a sharp dip in summer enrollments during summer 2011, the President asked for a reexamination of how we were handling the organization and marketing of summer. Interim Provost Coughlin asked the Institute to gradually take over management of summer, starting with marketing in 2012 and later coordination in Discussions with Deans, and subsequently Provost Poor, lead to the centralization of management in the Institute, but decentralization of curriculum. This approach is fairly common on other campuses that are trying to maintain or grow their summer session enrollments, though is fairly new to Truman.

Summer Trends

What Centralization Aims to Address A more strategic view of what we are offering and when we are offering it (maximize enrollment and revenue). Minimize circumvention of approval processes at the faculty level. Improve the efficiency of the course cancellation, contract production, and approval processes. Make marketing a more deliberate and planned strategy, driven by predictable course offerings and cancellations. It is NOT meant to diminish the importance of the work that was being done previously on the departmental or school level.

Early Start: Polling Done in October, we survey students about desired classes while they are registering for Spring classes. Chairs are asked to submit a list of courses to be included in the poll. This is voluntary. Faculty should be assured that failure to appear in the poll does not preclude their course from being offered in the summer.

Scheduling Department Chairs are to work with their faculty to identify classes they intend to offer. Chairs send their list of offerings to the Dean AND the Institute. Once approved by the Dean, the Institute schedules the classes in Banner, looking for possible conflicts across units (common LSP courses, pre-requisite problems, etc.) Faculty may not later schedule courses by approaching a departmental secretary or chair. Requests to add courses must be approved by the Chair and Dean and entered by the Institute. This includes Internships and Directed Readings.

Simplified Scheduling Template Course name and number, credit hours, instructor, session, time/date, modality, and cap. PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE THE ORDER OF THE SPREADSHEET! Starting in we will return submissions that modify the spreadsheet or send the information as a paragraph by . It’s too prone to transcription errors or misunderstandings

Contracts All contracts for classes (regular courses, online courses, internships, study abroad, directed readings, summer academy assignments) are processed by the Institute. All contracts for administrative or special service assignments (chair duties, portfolio reading, etc.) are processed by Kathy Powell in the Provost’s Office. Secretaries do not need to complete contract initiation forms for these assignments. Simply complete the appropriate Excel sheet and we’ll provide the necessary documentation. Our goal is to have contracts in faculty hands by the end of April for class assignments that begin in May. Study Abroad contracts are produced first.

Streamlined Contract Info Data ForCommunication Banner ID Last Name First Name Position Title Description of Duties Contract Start Date Contract End Date Credit Hours Fund Account Org Program DoeJaneAssistant Professor of SomethingUG Research Mentor for John Smith5/7/20138/14/2013n/a DoeJohnProfessor of EverythingENG 111, Sec. 016/4/20137/27/ No salary calculations! No addresses (contracts will be sent to departmental mailboxes) Just enough information to provide a cross-check against scheduling data. PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE THE ORDER OF THE SPREADSHEET!

Caps and Cancellations The default cap for most courses is 25 unless we are informed otherwise at the time of scheduling. We begin the cancellation process a week after registration opens, sending a weekly e enrollment report to the deans, tracking trends in courses. Courses that seem unlikely to enroll well are cancelled early to afford students the chance to make alternative plans. The goal is to have every course at least enroll 8 students. Deans have the sole discretion to determine whether a course is cancelled for falling below that number – not the Institute! In most cases, the Dean will elect to lower compensation using the Directed Readings Rate. When courses are cancelled we will send an to the students effected so that they can make the necessary adjustments to their schedule.

Internships and Directed Readings Directed readings are now compensated assignments ($150 per credit hour produced). Internships have switched to a $150 per credit hour produced model as well. Internships MUST BE APPROVED before compensation can be granted. We will no longer permit retroactive credit to be assigned or retroactive pay to be granted.

Starting an Internship Make sure the student has the necessary approvals from the chair and/or dean as applicable in your school. If an internship section has not already been created for the credit hours the student requires, contact the Institute to have one created. If an appropriate section already exists, contact the institute with the information to add the student. Use a similar procedure when creating a Directed Readings course.

Classrooms Classrooms are scheduled by the Provost’s Office. We will no longer be collecting information about room preferences. Steve Peterson will contact you for this information. The position of the University is that rooms are not owned by departments. Consequently, we recommend that departments express their preference for specific “real estate” as clearly as possible at the time it is requested. It is the responsibility of each department to review the activities scheduled in their area during the summer and to bring objections to the Provost’s Office as early as possible.

Approvals All courses that have not been taught online before must be approved for teaching online before they can be offered (typically by January). Instructors who have never taught online at Truman before must be certified as having taken a training course in online instruction before they can teach. Interim Courses need to be approved once using the Course Update Form. An interim-specific syllabus must be attached. Submit this form to the Provost’s office. We recommend notifying the Institute of your intentions for tracking purposes. Workshops must be approved annually, even if they have been approved before. This is done by means of the New and Continuing Workshop Approval Form and submitted to the Provost’s Office. We recommend notifying the Institute of your intentions for tracking purposes.

Resources All summer guidelines, forms and schedules are available at: or Summer information for students can be found at