Students taking evening classes in Northwestern’s School of Continuing Studies will switch from a semester schedule to a quarter system next fall, a move administrators say will give students better access to faculty and resources.
For the students enrolled in SCS night classes on the Evanston and Chicago campuses, the transition means that facilities won’t close before their classes end and degrees can be completed faster. About 1,190 students currently are taking SCS classes, which started in late August and ends in May.
“Because the majority of the college is on the quarter system, (SCS students) would get back and the rooms on the Evanston campus wouldn’t be open,” said SCS registrar Charlene Thomas.
The clash between the night school’s schedule and that of the rest of the university caused a number of other inconveniences. Norris University Center Bookstore was only open a day before the school’s classes started. And during finals week for SCS courses, the University Library continued to close at 11:45 p.m.
Kirsty Montgomery, an SCS student who also took “day-school” classes at NU last year, said the discrepancy between academic calendars threw off her finals schedule.
“I was taking day-school and night-school classes at the same time, and the calendars were completely off,” said Montgomery, a political science and history major in SCS. “Planning trips home to England was hard because the calendars were completely different.”
Administrators also said aligning schedules with the rest of the university will allow for more professors to teach in SCS.
Most SCS professors are adjunct lecturers, while some are full faculty who teach SCS classes at night, said Tim Gordon, associate dean of Student Services and Registration for SCS.
“A lot of teachers wanted to teach courses but couldn’t, so we’re providing access to these folks,” Gordon said.
The school began discussing the change four years ago, but a turnover in deans stalled the transition, said Thomas. It also took two years to reconfigure the budget, course credit and financial aid systems to accommodate the switch.
Montgomery, who is also incoming president of the school’s student advisory board, said most students support the new change because it will allow students to complete their degrees faster. The annoyances of the quarter system ? such as shorter breaks ? aren’t a big deal, she said.
Students at SCS often work full-time and are raising families, so the option to take classes faster is appealing to them, said Tim Lindsey, current president of the student advisory board for SCS.
“For many students, the goal of the School of Continuing Studies is to better their life,” Lindsey said. “Because of the situation they’re involved in, if they’re able to get through the process faster it will be beneficial to them.”
The average student in SCS takes two night classes a semester, said Thomas, the SCS registrar.
SCS students also are allowed to petition and take up to three day-school classes during their tenure, and 57 students currently are enrolled in Spring Quarter classes, Thomas said. Traditional NU students can take SCS classes, but only if there are open spots after SCS students register, she said.
Professors will have to retool their classes and students will have to adjust to accelerated classes that will meet for three hours instead of two-and-a-half hours.
But Montgomery said the transition probably will go smoothly.
“While there will be a few teething problems, I don?t see anything drastic,” she said.
Reach Diana Scholl at [email protected].
