12 Ideas for Developing &
Promoting Summer Classes That Fill
1. Use a Summer Session template to create a poster highlighting your classes for summer.
Hang these posters throughout your faculty and staff offices, making sure to put one on
every office door. Place an electronic copy of this poster on the front page of your
department’s home page starting in February.
2. Order Summer Session bookmarks from Outreach & Continuing Education. Have faculty
hand out the bookmarks to students in all spring classes, taking five minutes to talk about
summer registration and the classes available.
3. Participate in the Summer Session Information Fair event (Winona) or allow Summer
Session representatives to visit your classroom for a quick 411 Session (Rochester) in midFebruary. Encourage students to participate in these opportunities to learn more about all
available summer classes and to win great prizes.
4. Put a link to the Summer Session Web site on your home page.
5. Announce summer classes in your department’s student newsletter or simply e-mail all
students majoring/minoring in your department’s degree programs starting in February. Ask
students to contact their advisors or course instructors if they have any questions.
6. Review Assessment Day and University Improvement Day data and use the insight to offer
courses that will best meet student needs.
7. Review your program schedule(s) and consider developing an accelerated path that would
allow students to complete your degree programs in less time by taking specific summer
classes.
8. Contact Teaching, Learning & Technology Services (TLT) to learn more about how to convert
your more popular courses into an online format. Online courses allow students to take
credits even when they move home for the summer. Plus, online courses are typically the
first to fill.
9. Create a Qualtrics survey in the fall to ask students what classes they would like to take the
next summer. To learn more about Qualtrics, contact TLT.
10. Create a “Refer-A-Summer-Student” promotion. Allow students to refer their classmates to
take a summer course in your department. Have the student complete a referral form and
verify that the referred student actually enrolled and participated in the course in order to
be entered into a drawing. Offer high-demand prizes like an Apple iPad, iPod Touch, or a flat
screen HDTV.
11. Try to coordinate your department’s offerings so that classes don’t overlap in times or dates
if possible. Consider spreading offerings across May, First, and Second Session to allow
students to take multiple classes without feeling overwhelmed.
12. Consider promoting your courses to professionals in your local community, especially for
those in professions where continuing education is mandatory. Consider renting a list that
would allow you to implement a highly targeted marketing campaign via mail or e-mail.