PCC Adopts Academic Calendar to Improve Student Success

The Pasadena Area Community College District Board of Trustees approved an academic schedule at its Aug. 29 meeting that will allow students to better achieve their educational plan. The three-term schedule would be a return to the calendar that was in place before 2003 and reestablish fall, spring, and summer terms that would give Pasadena City College faculty and staff more flexibility in offering classes students need to transfer or complete a degree or certificate.

“The three-term schedule will allow PCC to better serve students and help them with their educational goals,” said Dr. Robert Bell, senior vice president, PCC Academic and Student Affairs. “The return to an earlier spring semester will give the college the ability to offer the classes that students need the most to matriculate.”

Classes will be in session in January 2013, but instead of the beginning of a winter intersession, it will be a spring semester. The spring semester will offer full-term classes as well as accelerated class sections that may be offered in six-, eight- or 12-week sessions.

A longer summer semester will begin in mid-may and would feature a six-week session that would finish at the end of June. Students hoping to transfer to a university will still be able to do so by completing their class in this first accelerated summer session. A second summer session would be offered if there were additional funding from the state, either through the passage of Proposition 30 in November or additional general fund allocation by lawmakers to the California Community College system. All sections that would have been offered during the winter will now be available either in the spring or in the extended summer sessions.

The three-term schedule will improve the continuity of instructional programs, a crucial part of learning, and will help retain the skills and knowledge of previous semesters.

PCC is also grappling with a $6.7 million budget cut from the state that equals more than 1,200 sections. Instead of cutting the corresponding number of classes, PCC is trying to keep the cuts away from the classroom and is looking at increasing revenue through the PCC Foundation, reducing expenditures, and creating efficiencies such as the three-term schedule.

For more information, please go to http://www.pasadena.edu/facts/three-term-schedule.cfm.