Summer Sessions 2015 Management & Policies
Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
2016
Summer session management will center on two primary objectives: 1) increasing summer session
enrollment and 2) promoting student progress to graduation.
Colleges and academic units are encouraged to coordinate in planning strategic offerings that will
present compelling opportunities for acceleration of degree progress. Consideration should be given to
the audience for a course in determining whether it should be fielded as online or on the Flagstaff
campus. Offerings that support high enrollment programs and that enable student progress are
especially recommended. . The Vice Provost’s Office can provide guidance and data support for
planning and enrollment monitoring. Requests for specialized data to support college planning should
be directed to Mikhael Star.
For summer 2016, we will proceed with most of our historical policies and practices regarding course
cancellation and faculty salaries for Flagstaff campus summer sessions. As in 2015, we will offer a late
cancellation date for pre-identified courses that enroll a substantial proportion of students who are
repeating due to grade outcomes. Please send a list of courses for which you are requesting the late
cancellation date to Mikhael Star via email by April 8, 2015. For all other courses, we will proceed with
the April 15 deadline for cancellation. What follows is a statement of the policies and practices for
Summer 2016.
1- The last day to cancel a class offered on Flagstaff Mountain campus for summer 2016 will be
April 15, 2016.
 Courses approved for late cancellation will have a common cancellation deadline of May
20, 2016.
 If there are exceptional circumstances that warrant a different date for a particular
course, a request must be submitted to the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs by April 8,
2016 for advance approval. If a different date is approved notation will be made in the
schedule of classes notifying students of the last possible date of cancellation.
 Deans or their designees should monitor summer session course enrollments and cancel
courses that are not on track to yield sufficient enrollment as early as possible.
2- Planning for summer sessions will be conducted by each college with central facilitation and
support.
 Data, including track record of course cancellations, should inform recommendations
about summer course offerings for each college.
 The 2016 Summer School schedule will be completed and available for students to see
by November 2015.
3- Dynamic dating within a term affords a great deal of flexibility to set course start and end
dates and scheduling patterns to accommodate blended, workshop, or other innovative
course designs or service to special populations (e.g., practicing teachers or high school
students who are not available to start classes until the K-12 AY concludes).
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Colleges are encouraged to take advantage of this flexibility to design courses or
packages of courses that will serve the needs of target student populations.
While there does need to be consideration given to alignment with credit hours, grading
periods and degree award dates set in relation to the fixed summer sessions, variations
within policy that provide improved access and increase enrollment are encouraged.
Colleges considering alternate start/end dates or meeting formats need to review and
understand the information about dynamic dating on the Office of the Registrar
website.
Dynamically dated sessions with start or end dates outside of the regular term
parameters require Registrar approval.
4- Salaries will be set for Summer 2016 per policy recommendations established in 2008, with
some clarification regarding implementation.
 Continuing faculty pay will be 2.53% of base academic year salary for each credit taught.
Deans may set a higher salary as is necessary to support college objectives.
 Faculty salaries for continuing faculty will be computed using a salary scale in
increments of $1,000. The scale to be used for the faculty member is the next highest
$1,000 increment, i.e. an academic year salary of $53,200 will be paid at $54,000.
 Effective Summer 2013, salaries for part time faculty teaching summer sessions will be
based on the part-time faculty salary schedule posted to the Provost’s website
(http://nau.edu/Provost/Resources-Policies/). Note that Deans have discretion to
increase salaries as needed to achieve unit and/or university goals.
 Minimum class sizes may be determined by each Dean’s office with careful
consideration of enrollment required for breakeven revenue. Classes should not be run
with enrollments below the breakeven number. Exceptions to this policy must be
granted by the Dean.
 College-level enrollment minima may be calculated using a profit margin at the
discretion of the Dean.
 Course based variations for enrollment thresholds should be negotiated with the chair
(if applicable) and faculty member, and documented explicitly before a faculty member
is assigned to a course
 A 70% guarantee of full faculty salary will be implemented in conjunction with the
Provost’s standard minimum class sizes of 15 for undergraduate courses, 8 for graduate
courses, and 10 for co-convened graduate/undergraduate courses. Faculty are
guaranteed at least 70% of full pay so long as the class meets the minimum class size.
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SBS 2016 policies take precedence for SBS courses; contact Associate Dean for details.
Faculty will be paid full salary for classes in which enrollment meets or exceeds the
breakeven point (computed using full salary for the specific instructor and 60% of tuition
as the revenue amount).
In the case that enrollment exceeds the 70% guarantee enrollment level (15/8/10 – see
above) but is less than the breakeven enrollment, , faculty pay will be reduced by $239
per student credit hour for undergraduate courses and by $259 per student credit hour
for graduate courses for each student credit hour below breakeven. This translates to
$717 and $956 per student for three and four-credit undergraduate courses and $777
and $1036 per student for three and four-credit graduate courses. For example, if the
breakeven enrollment for a three credit undergraduate course is 20 but the actual
enrollment is 18, faculty pay will be reduced by ($717*2) = $1434.
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