Virginia Commonwealth University will expand Saturday classes and change the types of courses offered in summer school as it attempts to come to terms with steep losses in state revenue.
VCU Provost Stephen D. Gottfredson told the board of visitors yesterday that the summer session will be revamped into what eventually could become a "third semester."
"Bottleneck courses" that quickly fill will be offered during the summer and on Friday night and Saturday to help students get the required courses they need to graduate on time.
Saturday classes now are primarily for graduate students, but pilot testing of undergraduate classes this year has proved successful, said Teresa Atkinson, vice provost for academic finance and administration. More weekend classes are planned for next year, and the revamped summer session would probably begin in 2010.
VCU President Eugene P. Trani said such changes are part of a new paradigm the university must find as it deals with decreasing state revenue.
Not having Saturday classes made sense when VCU was essentially a commuter college, he said.
But students are now on campus through the weekend, and many stay in Richmond year-round because of housing contracts.
Trani said the board will meet in April to discuss tuition increases and "how we're going to survive 2010."
Trani left the meeting a bit early because he was to be honored by the state Senate. Lawmakers gave Trani an ovation and a framed copy of the resolution commending his service at VCU.
VCU faces a loss of $30.3 million under Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's proposed cut of 15 percent for the current budget biennium.
The budget cuts are before the General Assembly. The amount Virginia receives from the federal stimulus package will be a factor in how the state deals with its projected revenue shortfall of $3.2 billion.
John M. Bennett, VCU's senior vice president for finance and administration, gave the board a grim assessment of declining state support.
He said VCU is one of the most leanly funded of state schools.
The amount VCU has received from the state has dropped from $8,812 per full-time student in 2000 to $6,130 in fiscal 2010, which begins July 1. The 2010 figure, which includes Kaine's proposed cut, would be equivalent to $4,243 in 2000 dollars, Bennett said.
VCU's student-faculty ratio has increased from 13-to-1 in 2000 to 18-to-1 last fall.
VCU, the state's largest public university, expects to enroll 3,700 freshmen and 1,747 transfer students in the fall. So far it has received about 17,150 undergraduate applications for freshman and transfer admission.
Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804) 649-6119 or kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com.
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