College resurrects summer session

By Patrick Makiri
The Guardsman

After a one year hiatus, City College students will again be offered a summer session so they can continue working towards their degrees at the institution they attend during the rest of the year.

Chancellor Don Griffin said $3 million has been set aside from the general budget to reinstate the summer session after the 85 percent cut to the 2010 summer course list, which left many students scrambling to fill their summer schedules and stay on track to graduate.

“I wanted to go to Skyline College in Pacifica, but it was too far,” City College electrical engineering student Steven Ni said. “I was depending on taking summer courses last year to be able to transfer.”

Numerous local institutions reached out to stranded City College students. California Institute of Integral Studies, SF State and Mills College all put out ads last year encouraging City College students to use their classrooms to continue studying through the summer.

Griffin said students will be able choose from more than 50 percent of the course list for a, “robust 2011 summer session.”

But Alice Murillo, the vice chancellor of academic affairs, said it was still unclear how the 2011 summer session would look compared to the previous year.

“The percentage of courses offered will be finalized once we have a 2010/2011 budget, and we assess our fall and spring enrollments and student need,” she said. “Unless things change with the legislature, fees will be $26 per unit,”

Administrators are awaiting the same information to decide which campuses will be operating this summer.

Griffin articulated the need for summer session to keep students on track for a successful tenure at City College. Both retention and graduation rates have been a major point of concern among administrators, and summer courses help students who need to catch up on missed units, or for those who need the summer work to fulfill graduation requirements.