3.6 Summer Program Guidelines

Governing Policies

Section 6.1.5, Faculty Handbook – Summer Services

SNAPSHOT: SUMMER SCHEDULING

   
Early Fall The Office of Academic Affairs sends memo to Department Heads requesting preliminary summer course offering (excluding Field Sessions).
Early October Department Heads will work with portfolio Deans to determine summer course needs/opportunities and return list of proposed summer offerings to Academic Affairs and the Office of Undergraduate Studies.
Mid-October Dean of Undergraduate Studies will provisionally approve preliminary plans, offer recommendations to portfolio Deans. Portfolio Deans work with Department Heads to determine changes as needed.
Early November Publication of spring and summer schedule.
January-February The Office of Academic Affairs will forward portfolio Deans and Department Heads a formal budget request (both regular and field) during Summer I and Summer II Sessions. Portfolio Deans and Department Heads collaborate on budget needs.
Early March Portfolio Deans return final budget to the Office of Academic Affairs for approval.

Procedure

Within the first three weeks of the Fall semester, the Office of Academic Affairs will send a memo to Department Heads asking for a preliminary plan of summer course offerings excluding field session courses. Department Heads will work with their portfolio Dean to determine summer course needs and opportunities and return a list of proposed summer offerings to the Offices of Academic Affairs and Undergraduate Studies in early October. The Dean of Undergraduate Studies will provisionally approve departmental preliminary plans and offer recommendations to the portfolio Deans as deemed appropriate. The portfolio Deans will work with their Department Heads to determine changes to the proposed plan, if any. The goal is to have the summer schedule published at the same time as the spring schedule in early November.  

Early in the Spring semester, the Office of Academic Affairs will forward to the portfolio Deans and Department Heads a formal budget request for offering courses, both standard and field Summer I and Summer II courses. The portfolio Deans will work with Department Heads to determine budgetary needs for summer course offerings and return anticipated costs to successfully deliver the planned summer offerings back to the Office of Academic Affairs by early March. Exact distribution and return dates are published in the Academic Affairs Annual Calendar of Deadlines as described in Section 2.1 of this Procedures Manual. The portfolio Deans and Provost will review these requests and approve based on the conditions defined below.

Regardless of term of offering (i.e., Summer I or Summer II), standard classroom courses are treated differently – both in terms of requirements for approval and in terms of faculty compensation – than programs understood to be part of the institution’s field requirement. 

Standard Classroom Offerings

Standard classroom offerings will usually only run as planned if enrollment in the course is sufficient to cover the cost (i.e., both direct and indirect) of delivering the course. The Office of Undergraduate Studies will provisionally approve a summer course offering based on enrollment estimates and early registration information. As the start of each Summer term nears, however, the Office of Undergraduate Studies will continue to monitor enrollment and may recommend canceling courses that were provisionally approved based on low student enrollment.

Online Course Offerings

Online course offerings will only run if the course has passed the review of online standards prior to any students enrolling in the course. Until then, the course will be visible on Trailhead as “Online upon Approval” and capped at 0. There will be a waitlist for students and once approved, students on the waitlist will be added to the course. Similar to regular classroom offerings, online courses will usually only run as planned  if enrollment in the course is sufficient to cover the cost (i.e., both direct and indirect) of delivering the course. The Office of Undergraduate Studies will provisionally approve a summer course offering based on enrollment estimates and early registration information. As the start of each Summer term nears, however, the Office of Undergraduate Studies will continue to monitor enrollment and may recommend canceling courses that were provisionally approved based on low student enrollment. 

Faculty Salary

Faculty salary for summer courses is computed based on a faculty member’s academic year salary and the number of credit hours the faculty member teaches. Assuming a full-time teaching load for a faculty member engaged in nothing but teaching during the academic year is 8 (4+4) 3-credit hour courses, a faculty member receives as compensation 4.1667% of their AY salary for every credit hour delivered. During the summer, maintaining this expectation, a faculty member’s summer pay can be computed as

Faculty_Salary = Faculty_AY_Salary * Credit_Hours * 0.041667

A faculty member’s daily rate of pay during the summer may be computed from a faculty member’s daily rate of pay during the academic year (Faculty_AY_Salary / 185 days) as:

Faculty_Salary_Daily = Faculty_AY_Salary_Daily * Credit_Hours * 0.25691 (Summer I)
Faculty_Salary_Daily = Faculty_AY_Salary_Daily * Credit_Hours * 0.1927 (Summer II)

where Summer I is 30 days long, and Summer II is 40 days long. As the summer terms are compressed, however, faculty compensation calculated on a daily basis may not exceed a faculty member’s AY daily rate; unless approved as an overload. During Summer I, the summer daily rate exceeds the AY daily rate at credit hour delivery above 3.5 total credit hours. During Summer II, the summer daily rate exceeds the AY daily rate at credit hour deliver above 5 credit hours.

1

Each credit hour represents 16 contact hours. Based on 8, 3-credit hour courses during the AY, a full-time load during the AY represents 2.0757 contact hours per day (16 * 24 / 185). Thus, during a compressed Summer I term, 16 contact hours in 30 days represents 0.5333 contact hours per day, or 0.5333 / 2.0757 = 0.2569 of a total full-time contact hour load per day. Similarly, for Summer II, 16 contact hours in 40 days represents 0.4 contact hours per day, or 0.4 / 2.0757 = 0.1927 of a total full-time contact hour load per day.

Below credit hour commitments of 4 and 6 credit hours respectively, faculty may also engage in other funded activities (e.g., sponsored research). The number of days available during the Summer for any other sponsored activity when the faculty member is teaching part-time in Summer I or Summer II is calculated using the formulas below:

Days_Available = 30 – Credit_Hours * 7.7083   (Summer I)
Days_Available = 40 – Credit_Hours * 7.7083   (Summer II)

Field Offerings

Unlike the classroom offerings defined above, field offerings are required components of a program’s curriculum that are typically delivered over summer. As such, support for these offerings is formally budgeted and the Office of Academic Affairs does not use the formal criteria defined above to determine whether or not a field course is fiscally viable. The portfolio Dean will, however, work with the Department Head to review and evaluate field program budgets to ensure these offerings are run as efficiently as possible.

Faculty salary derived from a field program offering is computed using the following formula:
Faculty_Salary = 1 / 185 * AY_Salary * Days_in_the_Field * Percent_Effort

Last Revision:

August 2, 2022