NNY colleges sharing courses

This spring, engineers can learn Chinese and music students will be able to take digital photography.

For the first time, students at each of the four associated colleges of the north country will be able to take classes on other campuses with relative ease. Though cross registration has been available among the four colleges for at least 30 years, it has never caught on.

"We've had relatively low participation across the four colleges and of course geography is part of it, but one of the other serious impediments was that our calendars don't meet up," Clarkson University Provost Thomas C. Young said. "We're hoping we'll get every seat full that's being made available across the consortium."

Now, each of the four colleges will offer one class during the 10-week period when all of them are in session so students will have a simpler time managing their schedules. Transportation will be provided so students can get back and forth, even without a car.

"There is a little public transportation, but not that is really helpful for students," Associated Colleges Executive Director Anneke J. Larrance said. "So the 10 miles or even the two miles between St. Lawrence University, Canton, and SUNY Canton can be a real obstacle for students."

The four classes also all will be offered at night, when there are fewer classes being taught and less pressure to get back to campus by a certain time.

In the past, students have had to search each of the other course catalogs to find something they were interested in that would fit in their schedules. They then had to get their academic adviser to sign off on it.

For the spring, students are being told about the four courses through e-mail, as well as on Facebook and Twitter, Ms. Larrance said.

Each of the schools picked a course to offer that could not be found at any of the other three.

"St. Lawrence is offering Chinese, so I imagine for our students that that will be a draw; for languages, we currently have Spanish and French, so that is really a new thing for our students," SUNY Canton interim Provost Linda D. Pellett said. "At SUNY Potsdam, they're doing cultural anthropology and we currently only offer that online."

Clarkson University, Potsdam, will offer global business strategies, and digital photography will be at SUNY Canton.

Each of the schools will reserve five seats for students from each of the other campuses, Ms. Pellett said.

Though these courses may make life easier for the students, it also may make educating less expensive for the colleges in the future.

"Down the line, when we get more courses to offer, there'll be a particular campus that won't have to offer cultural anthropology because they know it'll be offered somewhere else," Ms. Larrance said.

There is no additional cost for students to take a class on another campus.

The spring courses are only a pilot, but, if they are successful, the program will continue and expand, St. Lawrence University Academic Dean Valerie D. Lehr said.

"I can't look into the crystal ball until we have evaluated," Ms. Larrance said. "But the intention is that it will grow and grow.