By Terri Schwartz

Student Government Association (SGA) officials said they have been working with the provost’s office to create a set of courses that are adapted to what students have said they want and need. This summer, these courses are available to Northeastern students.

“[Summer courses are] a huge priority,” said Susan Powers-Lee, executive vice-provost for undergraduate education. “I know it’s kind of the student sense that they are the leftovers, but it’s not. We’ve worked on [this] as hard, or maybe harder, than the academic terms.”

Last semester, SGA put a survey onto the myNEU portal asking students about what they wanted to see for the summer curriculum.

“It was a great way for students to put their input in,” said Stephen Lavenberg, SGA vice president for academic affairs. “It was nice to show where the interest was.”

Lavenberg said the survey was helpful in deciding what was needed for better class options because the heads of the different colleges were able to find out from students what they wanted and needed.

However, some students, like Keith Vedananda, a senior economics major who will be taking summer courses, doesn’t think there is a difference.

“Oh, I never like the selection. It always sucks. It’s not going to change,” he said. “They offer like, the basic classes I’m already taking.”

Specific areas of study that are being expanded for the summer curriculum offerings are business, philosophy and advanced writing, Lavenberg said. The criminal justice department and computer sciences department are also adding some courses, Powers-Lee said.

Powers-Lee said credit for the new courses should go to the deans of the different colleges. She said they helped make the changes to the summer semesters possible.

“The real challenge is the other students who are going to be here,” Powers-Lee said. “We think it will be primarily middlers and juniors, because that’s who needs to be here.”

For John Zavras, a junior pharmacy major, the decision for summer courses wasn’t up to him. Since the pharmacy requirements are so rigorous, his courses were pre-assigned.

“I have to take what they assign,” Zavras said.

All of the classes he needed to take were available to him during the summer, he said.

Northeastern made the change to semesters in 2003, and then started the shorter two month summer semesters in 2004.

“I think that both groups, the faculty and the students, are buying more into the summer program as they get used to it,” Powers-Lee said. “We tweak this from summer to summer. We’ve gotten quite good at knowing who’s going to be here.”

What students want and need changes every year, which is why student feedback is so important to making the summer semesters a positive and productive experience, Powers-Lee said.

Students showed a lot of interest through the SGA survey and by talking to teachers and counselors in adding courses to the summer semesters for a business minor, she said. Because of this, all the classes a student would need to complete a business minor have been added to the summer options. If all a student took was those business classes, it would be possible to earn a business minor during the summer, Powers-Lee said.

She also said only about one third of the students who would be enrolled during an academic semester take summer courses.

Powers-Lee said a lot of problems students have with scheduling summer courses is not what the actual courses are, but how they fit into the students’ schedules.

Junior communication studies major Christine Walsh had trouble in the past with finding courses that fit in with her major.

“There hasn’t been that many options, no,” she said about past summer courses. “I just had to take classes I didn’t want to take.”

Powers-Lee said they keep looking at the options to get the best outcome.

“We learn from what works and what doesn’t work,” she said.