No longer will fall be the “back to school” season for some of the students at the University of Florida. By giving students the option of taking spring and summer classes only, the university is hoping to prevent overcrowding.

But before this new scheduling can become a reality, a state law must be changed. Joseph Glover, the university’s academic administrator, proposed the idea of the new schedule to the Florida Board of Governors at a meeting last week. Glover said the new arrangement would be a productive, effective way to bring in more students to the university to fill demand.

“U.F. is a large institution and, basically, in the fall semester the Gainesville campus is full to capacity,” he said to the board. “We do have extra capacity in spring, after winter graduation, and lots of capacity in the summer. So the thought came to us, what’s so sacred about fall-spring? What if we offered our students the ability to be spring-summer? We see more and more students who are opting for innovative programs. I think there would be a market for students who would be interested in doing this for a variety of reasons.” Read the rest of this entry »