Thirteen years into her tenure at Sinclair Community College, Allison Rhea, project director in the office for the semester transition, finds herself in charge of one of the biggest institutional transitions in the history of Sinclair.
This coming fall Sinclair will no longer offer classes in the quarter format, marking the end of the $1.8 million transition project. Ohio State University spent $12 million on a similar project, according to Rhea.
For Rhea, there is a touch of irony in this transition.
“I can’t tell you the exact date, but to the best of my knowledge, when the institution started, up until the early 1920s, Sinclair was a semester school,” Rhea said.
Switching back to semesters has been a multiyear process that began in December 2009 after the chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents declared that all public institutions of higher education in Ohio would offer classes in semesters. The switch will make Ohio schools more consistent with national trends. Eighty percent of the universities and community colleges in the country are on semesters, Rhea said.
The $1.8 million Sinclair is spending on the transition is not only funding curriculum changes for the 202 degree programs offered, but is funding efforts to help students navigate the transition. At the heart of the program is My Academic Plan(MAP), which outlines courses a student needs to take currently on the quarter system and on the semester system to reach their degree goals.
“In some ways, the MAP is the documentation that we are telling you as an institution that this is what you have to do to get out of here at your goal and if you stick to this plan you will be fine. So, even if they know what they want to do, they need to go get it in writing,” Rhea said.
The transition will reduce the minimum amount of credit hours each degree requires. Under quarters, students must take a minimum of 90 credit hours. Under semesters, only 60 are required. Each credit hour will cost more, but the annual cost of full-time tuition will remain the same.
Fewer books will be required each year, so overall students should save money from the change.
“We made a pledge to students that said that this would not cost you more or take you longer to graduate,” Rhea said.
“If they haven’t made a MAP, I have no way of knowing what they were told to do.”
Academic advisors have the software to make MAPs so students need to talk to an academic advisor as soon as possible. Advisors also have access to the new curriculum that is not publicly available.
“The most important thing students can do is go talk to their advisors and make sure that they are making a MAP so that they have a plan for going from quarters to semesters and that they are sticking to that plan and then they won’t even know the difference once they are there,” Rhea said.
Rhea is hopeful that all of the work done in identifying the content each course contains benefits students’ in-class experience as well as how Sinclair runs as an organization.
“My goal in this has been that for that 1.8 million we wouldn’t just move to semesters. We have made vast improvements in the way we do things,” Rhea said.
“We are taking this opportunity to improve as much as we can. It is money well spent.”