The roughly 2,500 students of Augustana College in Rock Island returned to campus this week to begin their fall trimester. It's the first of Augustana's three academic terms, which each span ten weeks of class—considerably shorter than the 14 to 16 weeks typically spent in the standard semester followed by most colleges and universities twice a year.
Augustana students and staff can count their college among only a handful of others across the U.S. which use this unusual system of scheduling—just 22 institutions follow a similar trimester format, according to the higher education research firm Wintergreen Orchard House.
But Augustana won't find itself in the minority much longer: the college is slated to switch to 14-week semesters beginning in the fall of 2019.
College students may tell you there are many assignments that can be put off until the eleventh hour, but for the Augustana administrators and faculty tasked with restructuring an academic calendar that has been in use for 26 years, this is one assignment they don't intend to tackle by pulling an all-nighter.
In fact, the college is currently in its third and final year of behind-the-scenes work to make the transition happen come Sept. 3, 2019, the first scheduled day of classes for the fall semester. And if you ask Augustana psychology professor Jayne Rose—who also serves as one of the college's two transition coordinators—the school is right on schedule to change its schedule.
Listen above for WVIK's interview with Rose about the process.