Date:   September 12, 2007

To:       Department Chairs and Program Directors

From:  Matthew S. Santirocco, CAS Dean
            Catharine R. Stimpson, GSAS Dean

Re:      Summer 2008 Web Bulletin

As you know, three summers ago we successfully launched the Summer Web Bulletin, replacing the former printed Summer Bulletin. The Summer Web Bulletin allows searches by school, department and category and enables students to see all offerings in a given area of study. This online bulletin is the heart of our summer campaign, visited by more than 200,000 students. You can view last year’s version of the Summer Web Bulletin at:  http://www.nyu.edu/summer/2007/summerny/courses.html

The Web Bulletin updating process is simplified by the fact that the information you supply on the course Turnarounds, once entered by the Registrar, will automatically update your course listings on the Web Bulletin. However, please note that you will need to send course descriptions to the Arts and Science Office of Summer and Study Abroad for summer courses that are new for 2008.

Please note that the Registrar's Office will send out Turnarounds on September 28th. Please complete your Course Turnarounds and return them to the Registrar by October 15th. Thank you.

As you know, planning for Summer 2008 was included in the APR this year for the first time and summer will be included in the APR going forward.  The Arts and Science Office of Summer and Study Abroad will be using the APR information to plan for summer.  We will also be using ASIS for summer course information.  An email will be sent about this process later on. 

If the courses you are planning to offer for Summer 2008 are different from what you offered in 2007 or from what you listed in the APR submission, please contact Gwynneth Malin, Director of the Arts and Science Summer and Study Abroad Office, at gcm207@nyu.edu. If you proposed a new course for Summer 2008 that was approved in the APR, please submit a course description for this new course to Ann Smith in the Arts and Science Summer and Study Abroad Office at annsmith@nyu.edu.   This office will also contact you about your 2008 course offerings.

We encourage you to think about offering courses with a potential for high enrollment in the summer, noting that our focus groups showed us that many of our excellent undergraduate students are planning to apply to graduate school and would like to be better positioned to do so. Attractive courses might include graduate courses open to undergraduates, or advanced undergraduate courses that we might include under the rubric of "preparation for graduate school."  This year, we encourage departments to also consider offering courses that are three-weeks in duration, as opposed to the traditional six-week model.  Please contact Gwynneth Malin at gcm207@nyu.edu to discuss this option.

As you may know, students with baccalaureate degrees who wish to enter graduate school may need some additional preparation as well. For the past three years, we have offered, through the Draper Program, an increasingly successful program, "Preparation for Graduate School: Writing." This has focused on the writing skills needed for graduate work. Departments might usefully consider offering parallel courses in other disciplines.

Many students choose to study at NYU in order to fulfill requirements and to be in New York, for jobs, internships, and culture. Our intellectual quality should be joined with the resources of New York City to create attractive curricular packages, especially but not exclusively on the undergraduate level. We invite departments to consider an expansion of offerings along these lines, such as credit-bearing internships. We would support such initiatives and would be happy to work with you to realize them.

For each course you propose offering in the summer, we ask that you review your summer enrollments under the Enrollment Trend section of ASIS. In particular, please reconsider giving courses that have had consistently low enrollments.

As we emphasized in the past, Arts and Science summer sessions are integral to our larger educational and research goals. First, CAS's goal of ensuring that every student has a study abroad experience is helped by the expanded number of our programs in the summer (fifteen programs in 2007) and by the intensive language training we offer.

Second, summer is increasingly important for students who need to complete certain CAS and GSAS degree requirements. A key feature of the joint BA/MA degree program, for example, is the accelerated accumulation of undergraduate or graduate credits by summer study. Stand-alone master's programs provide a similar opportunity. If departments offer a sufficient variety of courses during the summer, graduate students can complete their degrees more quickly. Third, summer courses can provide important teaching opportunities for graduate students.

Finally, the summer term generates significant resources for Arts and Science that are used to support our programmatic initiatives such as faculty expansion, graduate financial aid, and computing support. Summer offerings should, then, be those that advance overall educational goals and, at the same time, produce incremental resources for Arts and Science. We are particularly interested in initiatives that will expand enrollments.
We greatly appreciate your time and effort to help make the 2008 summer session successful.

cc:        Joe Juliano, Randall Say, Department Administrator.