By Chris Parker, sophomore

Aaron Becker will head into his final year of school in the fall and expects to graduate with a degree in computer science next May. One of the things he wished he could have done at Friends University was take summer courses without having to leave Friends.

Becker actually could have taken summer classes at Friends, but he never realized it.

“What? Really? How?” was Becker’s response when he realized that Friends does offer several summer courses for traditional undergraduates, but students have to dig a little to find them.

About three years ago a partnership was formed between the College of Business, Arts, Science and Technology and the College of Adult and Professional Studies. This partnership allowed traditional undergraduates easier access to the College of Adult and Professional Studies’ PACE classes.

This summer PACE – which stands for Program for Adult College Education – will offer more than 30 summer courses that traditional undergraduates are eligible to enroll in. This is a huge improvement over the three summer classes that are advertised on the back of the course handbook given to traditional undergraduates by their advisers.

The process to enroll in the summer courses requires an extra step in the advising process.

“They (the students) have to talk with their advisers and then our (CAPS) advisers will enroll them,” said Michelle Brock, English and humanities coordinator for CAPS.

She acknowledged that there were some difficulties in the process of traditional undergraduates getting into a CAPS class.

“It always has been kind of a sticky situation,” Brock said.

The main hang-up is getting approval for the CAPS class to count in the traditional undergraduate student’s major requirements.

The numbers for the program have been low the last three years, but some of this can be attributed to the university’s lack of advertising of the partnership.

In the last three years the number of traditional students taking summer school has fluctuated, according to figures from the registrar. In 2006, 37 traditional students took summer courses. The next summer that number jumped to 54. Last summer the number fell back to 41.

That is a miniscule number compared the overall student population at Friends during regular sessions. The summer numbers are so insignificant that they are not even kept easily at hand in the registrar’s office. The numbers in this article had to be manually looked up and added together over a period of about 25 minutes.

So the question remains, why does the university not push summer school and advertise the options for traditional students?

PACE program director Jennifer Jay had a simple response.

“I’m not sure,” Jay said in an e-mail.

John Yoder, vice president of academic affairs, had some thoughts on the subject.

“The numbers are not big enough at this point to justify a full fledged summer course,” Yoder said. “We’re not in the business to make money, but we are in the business to cover costs.”

At this point not enough students are interested in taking summer school at Friends for it to be expanded to the levels of a community college that offers full slates of courses during the summer.

“If they (Friends summer classes) are the same cost as the regular ones, then nobody is gonna do that unless they’re rich,” sophomore Peter Gassey said. “That’s the point of the jucos (junior colleges).”

Gassey is taking classes at a junior college over the summer so he can graduate on time. He cited junior colleges as a cheaper alternative to help get through school on time. He recently changed his major from chemistry to general medical, and the only way for him to get through on time is to take summer school.

Yoder agreed that summer school is a viable option for college students looking to increase the pace of their degree program, and he hopes that Friends can expand its offerings.

“It might make sense for students to do it (take summer school) if they could get through in three instead of four years,” Yoder said.

For its part, the College of Adult and Professional Studies wants traditional students to know the option is there to take classes for credit through its programs.

“We welcome all students, and there are no barriers to taking PACE summer school,” Jay said.

Aaron Becker will look to be one of those students that PACE welcomes. He would like to lighten his fall course load by getting his required Introduction to Business course out of the way this summer.