Forget the summer break.
Towson University wants to become the first in Maryland to operate on a trimester schedule so students may attend classes year-round.
“In summer, our resources sit more idle than desirable,” Provost James Clements said.
“With 20,000 students, we?re packed in labs, and classrooms are used to full capacity. Classes where we can?t squeeze them in, they can take during the summer.”
In addition to the regular offering of summer classes this year, Towson, the fastest-growing public college in the state, plans to roll out a pilot trimester with more students, classes and variety in subjects.
High-demand classes in nursing, occupational therapy, education and homeland security will be offered during this summer?s pilot project.
The change, however, won?t come without growing pains. The school will have to pay an additional $7 million for increased services in food, maintenance, police, financial aid and registration. But increased tuition and state revenues will offset much of the cost, according to a summary of the proposal.
Professors are already grumbling about the new schedule eating into their summers.
But some professors, including Nordulf Debye, who teaches chemistry, said the summer semester will give him the flexibility to travel overseas to conduct his molecular research during the fall or spring.
“Life slows down in the summer in Europe, so before I would have to take a sabbatical to do research,” he said.
Students expressed concern about the lost opportunity to work summer jobs but also welcomed the new choices of building a more personalized academic calendar and graduating sooner.
“I?m pretty excited about the idea,” said Jenny Haley, president of the Student Government Association.
“It will give people more options about whether they want to continue to go to school year-round. The summer schedule right now is weak.”
Other colleges across the nation have made a similar switch to trimesters to boost efficiency and graduate students more quickly, including California?s state universities.
Still, the trimester remains the rarest among all academic schedules.
