As the transition from quarters to semesters begins at Sinclair Community College, students are being advised to “Get In, Get Out and Get Done” before the official switch in fall of 2012, according to Allison Rhea, director of Semester Transition.
For the past 6-8 months the semester transition department has been trying to communicate to students to not panic but to transfer or graduate by fall of 2012 to avoid any kind of problems.
“So that’s what we are doing with incoming students now, is encouraging them to be really proactive with their academic advisors, set out a plan to know how they are going to transfer or graduate prior to the conversion,” Rhea said. “Theoretically this set of students that came in fall of 2010 are the last set of students that could be done before the conversion, given that the majority of our programs truly are two year programs.”
The difficulty comes in for students who wish to transfer or continue their education elsewhere and have not finished sequences of classes such as English 111, 112 and 113, according to Rhea. In a quarter system college, series of required classes such as these are broken up into three sections; while in a semester system they are broken up into two, English one and two.
As an example, if a student has taken English 111 and 112 but not 113 and decided to transfer they would have to take English two at another college where they would be going over things they have already learned in English 112, Rhea said.
“So you would be required to repeat information and repeat, in some cases, the cost,” Rhea said.
The concern for people in higher ed and state schools is that each college has the right to determine whether they will make you take the class again, Rhea said. Some schools might accept the English 112 class as fulfilling the requirement and others may not.
“The belief was that if you’re on a state system all schools should be treating students alike,” Rhea said. “You shouldn’t get a better deal by going to Wright State then you would to Ohio State (as an example). So this is really a way of trying to make things more equal on a state level.”
The other constructive belief of switching to semesters is that a longer time in a course allows greater depth of the material and better relationships between students and faculty, according to Rhea.
All colleges’ composition classes are required to follow the same curriculum where students are supposed to learn distinct things. This is also supposed to make it easy to transfer from one college to the next and make sure that all students are receiving the same level of education and outcomes, according to the Ohio Board of Regents website, www.regent.ohio.gov.
The transition to semesters is part of the “Strategic Plan for Higher Education – The University System of Ohio,” started by Gov. Ted Strickland at the behest of Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. The goal of the program is to improve Ohio’s educational attainment by graduating more students, keeping graduates in Ohio and attracting more talent to Ohio. Sinclair is one of 17 colleges and universities in Ohio who will be converting.
“That organization was created to try to make institutions across the state work better together,” Rhea said. “More consistent, more collaborative; those types of things.”
Different departments and committees are working diligently to make sure the transition is a seamless one, according to Rhea. By winter quarter all departments will have their quarter classes curriculum switched to a semester curriculum for students to see.
There will be a more focused campaign launched in January of this year that will encourage students to meet with an academic advisor and make an advising plan that will lay out specifically what they should take during the quarter and semester system. According to Rhea this will allow students to continue on the same path, at the same rate for the same amount of money.
“I keep saying this is an easy project except for that we have to take 26,000 students with us and that makes it a little more difficult,” Rhea said.
For more information contact the Academic Advising Office (Downtown Campus) at 937-512-3700 or contact an advisor at any one or the regional Sinclair locations.
www.sinclair.edu/semesters