Alberto Gonzalez, a candidate for a M.S. in Biology, works alongside Department of Biology Assistant Professor Jonathan Kniss (standing) in a science lab during a summer session.
The number of students and the credit hours they earned during Summer Sessions and J-Term (Joining Term) in 2021 have fueled two of the most successful intersessions at SUNY Fredonia.
Both total headcount and semester credit hours for Summer Sessions grew by 10.6 percent from 2020, while J-Term grew by 10.4 in headcount and 31.4 percent in semester credit hours over 2020.
“We had the highest intersession semester credit hour numbers (Summer Sessions and J-Term) in 10 years,” according to Director of Extended Learning Eric Skowronski. “We generated 3,277 Summer Session semester credit hours in 2021 while the next highest we had was 3,235 in 2012,” he said. J-Term 2021 had a similar experience – 1,156 in 2021 and 949 in 2012.
“We were one of the first of the SUNY comprehensives to have a winter session; that was primarily the domain of community colleges,” Skowronski said. “We were kind of bold, even daring then, and now many of the comprehensives are doing it. For the students, it’s really beneficial because it helps them stay on track.” J-Term at Fredonia was launched in 2004.
More significant and impactful for the college during the intersessions than the number of students, according to Mr. Skowronski, is the total semester credit hours. Headcounts measure just students, not the total number of credit hours taken or the revenue generated by them. Moreover, tuition dollars paid during the regular academic year are shared with SUNY, but all intersession dollars stay on the campus.
With its approach to J-Term and Summer Sessions, Fredonia is being responsive to student needs, Skowronski explained.
“We are actively giving the customers – the students – what they want and what they need, particularly with the number of online classes offered. We are steadily increasing the online offerings,” Skowronski said.
“We are actively giving the customers – the students – what they want and what they need, particularly with the number of online classes offered. We are steadily increasing the online offerings,” Skowronski said.
Fredonia students like to return home for the summer, very often to work summer jobs, he explained, thus making online courses more attractive.
Of 167 total class sections held in this past summer, 78 were fully online courses – up from 61 in 2020, 15 were remote modality and the rest were face-to-face classes, internships and independent/directed studies.
Increasing the number of remote modality courses – the instructional method that allows students to do much of the work asynchronously but also requires them to meet virtually at specific days and times – has allowed Fredonia to reach a graduate population that might not be able to come to campus, Skowronski said.
Fredonia also closely monitors transfer-back classes; those courses that Fredonia students attend at other institutions during the intersessions and then transfer those credits back to Fredonia to meet their degree requirements.
“I look at what Fredonia students are taking elsewhere during the intersessions and are transferring back. If I see a significant number of students taking a certain class, I work very hard to get that class on a future schedule,” Skowronski said. “We want them to be able to take it here, not someplace else.”
Microeconomics and macroeconomics are examples of classes that had high transfer back rates until they were added to Fredonia’s Summer Sessions.
