City will be less occupied this winter as Intersession courses have been slashed. Alongside fewer classes being offered, higher tuition and larger class sizes, intersession joins a growing list of casualties following the state’s decrease in funding for education.
“Intersession’s canceled,” Student affairs director Denise Whisenhunt said “We want to provide academic programs here at City, and that’s a top priority, but with so much money out of the budget there just isn’t enough to keep intersession.”
Intersession filled a special need for students looking to fill gaps in their units before a university transfer or graduating with their associate’s degree. While not all students rely heavily on intersession, those who do are fairly crippled by its demise.
“I’m upset because I have to take 16 units before I can transfer to State and without intersession I’ll have to cram them all into next semester, at several campuses,” City student Michael Horton said.
Whether upset over the budget cuts as a whole, or their affect on certain programs, City’s students aren’t complacent about the changes taking place.
“The DSPS office had drastic cuts, and I’m very upset about that,” Robert Miller said, commenting on the budget cuts’ effect on the college as a whole.
“I didn’t take any (winter courses in the past), but I think they allow people good opportunities,” Eddie Perez said about intersession being cancelled.
In a recent Email, San Diego Community College District Chancellor, Constance Carroll said that cancelling intersession courses was a necessary step in order to avoid cutting the budget in other areas.
“The college presidents in our district felt it would be preferable to make class cuts by eliminating the intersession so that the spring semester would be able to go forward with as many classes as possible, offering the intersession courses would spread the classes too thin,” she said.
Carroll added that “the State has imposed a ‘workload adjustment’ on all community colleges in California. We are ‘downsized’ and restricted in how many classes (the district can) offer and how many students they could serve beyond which the State will not compensate (us).”
“Summer session would have a higher priority than intersession, in my opinion, since it is a discrete session that addresses students’ needs to make-up classes or to get a head-start on classes for transfer or other purposes,” Chancellor Carroll said.
