{"id":3896,"date":"2015-07-22T19:00:43","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T23:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2015\/07\/22\/pilot-programs-aim-to-speed-degree-completion-for-ues-students\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T17:27:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T22:27:48","slug":"pilot-programs-aim-to-speed-degree-completion-for-ues-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/pilot-programs-aim-to-speed-degree-completion-for-ues-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilot programs aim to speed degree completion for UES students"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UES_09\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re not adapting, we\u2019re falling behind,\u201d director of Furman\u2019s Undergraduate Evening Studies (UES), Beth Crews, said during a recent discussion about the evolutionary leaps higher education has taken in the last two decades. \u201cAnd the pilots we\u2019ve launched this summer,\u201d she continued, \u201care an effort to propel UES towards the mindful growth and adaptation that\u2019s consistent with the Furman experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Crews became director of UES in September 2013, she analyzed the program\u2019s strengths and weaknesses, sought areas for improvement. It quickly became clear that one of UES\u2019 greatest strengths\u2014offering a Furman education in an affordable, convenient format for adults\u2014was also, in-part, linked to a significant weakness: the length of time it takes a student to graduate.<\/p>\n

Offering a bachelor\u2019s in business administration or accounting, the UES program requires, on average, nearly four\u00a0years of enrollment before its students graduate, despite the fact that over 85% transfer into Furman as sophomores or juniors. The rigorous curriculum, combined with career and family responsibilities, typically limit the average UES student to taking just two courses per semester. \u201cAt that pace,\u201d Crews explained, \u201ca student with no prior college credit could face seven\u00a0years of school before graduating, and that\u2019s seven\u00a0years without a break, with no disruptions. And for adult students,\u201d she continues, \u201cseven years of \u2018smooth sailing\u2019 rarely happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pilot projects are an attempt to address this issue. \u201cAs I looked at comparable institutions with similar non-traditional undergraduate programs,\u201d said Crews, \u201cit was clear there were options out there to explore. What if we could take our current format \u2014each class meeting once a week for 15 weeks each semester\u2014and tweak it into something that could accelerate degree completion, without sacrificing the quality students expect to receive with a Furman education?\u201d<\/p>\n

After benchmarking successful programs nationwide, UES\u2019 director initiated two pilots for the 2015 summer semester: block scheduling and hybrid courses. Block scheduling divides the traditional 13\u201316 week semester into two separate blocks for which courses begin and conclude within each block\u2019s timeframe. Students meet twice weekly to finish the course in half the time. This summer, Block A consisted of 7 courses which ran May 18\u2013June 27, and Block B, with 8 courses offered, began July 6 and will conclude on August 13.<\/p>\n

The second initiative involved the debut of hybrid courses, which blend in-class sessions with online learning. Of the 15 courses UES offered this summer, 11 were hybrid. \u201cWith the hybrid format,\u201d said Crews, \u201cwe were able to include technology as a means of enhancing the learning experience and simultaneously, add scheduling flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jane Love, at Furman\u2019s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), helped prepare instructors, offering them support and guidance with adapting their pedagogy for the blended learning environment. Some instructors chose to upload lectures online and utilize in-class meetings for problem-solving and face-to-face discussions, while others chose the opposite route. Said Crews, \u201cThe class discussions through online forums have been rich and engaging. I think there\u2019s potential in that venue that some may find surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preparing students for the pilots was also key. Before summer registration opened, UES distributed detailed information to students to ensure they were aware of how the initiatives would affect their schedules, course load, and financial aid. UES staff wanted students to understand that the compressed schedule would be especially challenging, and therefore, recommended students take only one course per block of the pilot run. Said UES Student Services Counselor, Jennifer Grissop, \u201cWe always take into account students\u2019 career and family responsibilities before recommending courses, regardless of how the curriculum is delivered. But when launching something so completely new, it\u2019s critical to send the right message. That message boiled down to \u2018caution over cramming\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advisors described the options made possible through the pilots, such as taking one course in each block or taking a course (or two if they must) in one block only, which would free up half of their summer.<\/p>\n

Grissop explained, \u201cWith our traditional summer term, students would finish spring exams on a Thursday and start the summer term the very next Monday. When you have a family, no break through the summer is rough. It means students have to miss class in order to take a family vacation. With the pilot schedule, we were able to offer students a week off in May, before summer courses began and another week off between blocks A and B during the week of July 4th<\/sup>.\u201d This flexible schedule probably explains why UES experienced its highest jump in summer enrollment in more than five\u00a0years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far,\u201d said Jennifer, \u201cthe feedback\u2019s been mostly positive.\u201d The counselor acknowledged that the summer\u2019s diverse range of courses, intentionally chosen to ensure pilot concepts would be well-tested, is revealing certain subjects may be less adaptable for accelerated delivery methods. Also, students who chose to take more than the recommended one course per block have expressed being challenged by the heavy workload.<\/p>\n

Overall, UES director Crews is pleased with the variety of classes offered, the willingness of faculty to experiment with their instruction, and the support the initiative received from the larger academic affairs community at Furman. \u201cThis is our toe in the water,\u201d Crews said in regard to the hybrid and condensed semester formats.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack to your regularly scheduled program,\u201d is in store for students this fall as UES returns to its traditional semester format while staff evaluate the pilot data and then determine the future of the program\u2019s curricular design. \u201cThere are many variations of this type of delivery. We\u2019ve seen them implemented, successfully so, at other institutions,\u201d Crews explains. \u201cFinding the most effective way to deliver the best possible education to our students is the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about Undergraduate Evening Studies<\/a> at Furman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf we\u2019re not adapting, we\u2019re falling behind,\u201d director of Furman\u2019s Undergraduate Evening Studies (UES), Beth Crews, said during a recent discussion about the evolutionary leaps higher education has taken in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-undergraduate-evening-studies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}