by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
UNM is offering 17 classes during Winter Break for the first time this year.
The classes will help students get into classes that fill up quickly during normal semesters, said Wynn Goering, associate provost of Academic Affairs.
"The idea of the intersession classes is to make the best use we can of the time and the space we've got," he said.
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Goering said another reason for the courses stem from UNM's bad reputation in the past for popular classes filling up too fast.
"We've got widely publicized challenges getting students to take the classes they want," he said.
About 244 people had registered for the classes as of Monday, he said. He said two of the classes - Technical Writing and Intro to Race/Class/Ethnicity - were full as of Tuesday. All classes are worth three credit hours.
Other classes that are usually in high demand are Intro to Signed Language, Marketing Management and Abnormal Psychology, which are all offered over break.
He said about half the classes offered are on the schedule because they are in high demand.
"But the other half are classes that we thought might be in demand during this time period," he said.
For example, Enrique Lamadrid will teach a class about holiday traditions in New Mexico.
Student Clarissa Silva said the session is a good idea.
"It's a good way to get some classes out of the way in just a couple of weeks," she said.
However, she did not want to take any of the classes offered, she said.
"It's my first semester, so I kind of want to go home over break," she said.
Student Audra Maestas agreed.
"I would take some, but it's not any of the classes I need to take," she said.
In the future, Maestas said she would like to see more entry-level math and English classes in the program.
The intersession courses do not include entry-level courses because it is a test program, Goering said.
Goering said UNM is the only school in New Mexico with such a program, to the best of his knowledge. He said that is because UNM has such high enrollment.
"We sort of thought there would be other schools in New Mexico that had similar programs or had tried them, but as far as we know, there aren't," he said. "It depends on the relationship between the capacity you have to serve students and how many students you have enrolled - we have more students than some of our departments have the capacity to teach."
The program faces some challenges, he said.
"One is that when you offer a class during the regular term, there's a certain level of institutional support that goes along with the class," he said. "All the tutorial services are available, and all the tech support services are available."
CIRT often does maintenance on computers during academic breaks, so students in the winter classes will not have as many technological resources available as they are used to, he said. The Center for Academic Program Support is closed during Winter Break.
Credits students earn will be added onto credits for their fall semester, he said. That means that if the total number of credits earned during the fall and winter semesters is 18 or less, there will be no additional charge.
Goering's office is paying teachers for their additional work, which will cost about $35,000, he said.
"This is something we're willing to put an investment into to see if it works," he said. "But if it stands up over the long term, we're going to have to find some sustainable way to support it."
The last day to register for the classes is Dec. 22. Some classes run from Dec. 19 to Jan. 3, some from Jan. 3 to Jan. 13, and some from Dec. 19 to Jan. 13.
To view course listings, go to unm.edu/~unmreg/IntersessionFall2005.pdf.
