
DATE: Monday, August 4, 1997                TAG: 9708040086

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  150 lines

CLASSES WIN OUT OVER VACATION AREA COLLEGES - LED BY OLD DOMINION - SEE INCREASE IN SUMMER ENROLLMENT.

The summertime sounds of college students: ``You want fries with that?'' ``Who's got the suntan lotion?''

Another one rang out Friday: ``Will there be a quiz today?''

That was in John F. Keeling Jr.'s ``Labor-Management Relations'' class at Old Dominion University. Nearly 30 students were there to learn about when companies may fire employees.

Almost every seat in the classroom was occupied.

Although overall enrollments at most local colleges have remained stagnant in recent years, some have seen sharp upturns in the number of students returning for the summer. And Old Dominion University is leading the way.

ODU's summer enrollment has risen 9.4 percent from last year, increasing from 8,891 in 1996 to 9,726 - the equivalent of more than half ODU's total enrollment.

``The only time of the year we don't have anything going on is Christmas vacation,'' ODU President James V. Koch said. ``We're really operating 49 weeks a year.''

Tidewater Community College is also booming this summer, with 9,390 students. That's up nearly 5 percent from last year. And so is Regent University, with enrollment up nearly 20 percent, to 957.

ODU's summer growth is due both to the university's efforts and students' inclinations, Koch said. Old Dominion, he said, has tried to increase its summertime class offerings, including during the weekends.

For students, many financially strapped with the rising costs of college, summer school can speed their path to a diploma. It could chop a year off school, which means one more year with a full-time salary.

Some work part time and go to class part time the rest of the year. So it's natural to continue the cycle over the summer, Koch said.

Brady Shackelford, 25, a business major in Keeling's class, works 20 hours a week as a valet at Princess Anne Country Club. And he's taking six courses this summer.

``I see it as a way of getting out earlier,'' said Shackelford, who hopes to graduate next spring. ``I have career goals I want to pursue.'' His long-range one: to become a corporate executive.

Regina Echols, 31, a full-time business student in Keeling's class, doesn't have a job, but she has another reason: Spreading out her courses over the year gives her a better shot of maintaining a high grade point average and not getting bogged down in coursework.

College officials, including Koch, concede that colleges in urban areas have an edge in attracting summer students, for a number of reasons.

Their students are more likely than those in rural areas, such as Blacksburg and Williamsburg, to stick around over the summer. And urban areas have more summertime jobs to attract students from other colleges, who might drop by an urban college to catch up on a course or two.

That's partly why TCC's numbers have grown, said President Larry Whitworth. ``My sense is that there are more students who are coming home in the summer who need three credits or six credits,'' he said. ``Community college has become a good alternative to taking another semester at their residential (four-year) school.''

Whitworth also said it might reflect the long-awaited increase in high school graduates, which is expected to trigger overall enrollment gains statewide in the next decade.

Statewide figures on summer enrollment have not yet been tallied. Last year, about 107,000 students from state-supported two- and four-year colleges attended summer classes. That was about one-third of total enrollment.

The state has been prodding colleges to enlarge their summer programs - to maximize the use of their facilities and to make sure more students graduate on time.

``My sense is that it's been met with mixed results,'' said J. Michael Mullen, acting director of the State Council of Higher Education. ``Some of the places have done a very credible job of enhancing their schedules . . . only to find their students needed to go home and work.''

Norfolk State University counts itself as one of those schools.

NSU's summer enrollment is under 1,700 - less than one-fifth the total at Old Dominion or TCC.

``Most of our students are happy to get out of here over the summer so they can go to work and earn enough money to come back,'' said Jesse C. Lewis, vice president for academic affairs.

At Regent, a private Christian graduate school, the boom includes growing numbers of foreign students and students taking Internet courses, said John Maher, the university's director of institutional effectiveness.

``This university is moving towards an education anywhere, anytime, and summertime is part of that dynamic,'' Maher said.

Elsewhere, Virginia Tech's summer enrollment rose almost 3 percent, to nearly 6,000. But the numbers mask a 10 percent jump in undergraduate enrollment - and a decline for graduate students.

Lisa Warren, a spokeswoman for enrollment services, said Tech is trying to better coordinate summer courses for undergrads. That means, for instance, that a science student can more easily find companion chemistry and math classes during the summer. Tech has also dropped its insistence that graduate students who are teaching assistants be enrolled over the summer, she said.

Old Dominion has seven sometimes-overlapping sessions during the summer. The last session ends in mid-August.

Keeling's class meets daily, 80 minutes a day, for six weeks.

How does it compare with a class held during the regular session?

``You have to push them harder and faster,'' said Keeling, a senior lecturer and executive-in-residence. ``You have to do more in a shorter period of time.''

The danger, he said, is that with the fast pace, some students might be more inclined to scan textbooks, less likely to read them carefully.

But some in his class say summer courses are, in fact, more stimulating.

``We've covered every chapter in the book,'' said Norman Fortin, 28, a business management major taking the class in hopes of graduating within three years. ``Sometimes, in a regular setting, you don't do that.''

Echols said that, during the summer, ``you retain it a lot better because you get tested a lot sooner.''

That happened again Friday.

Keeling, bombarded with questions at the beginning of a class about whether a quiz would be given, cagily responded: ``That's a possibility.''

Less than 30 minutes later, it was a reality. ILLUSTRATION: SCHOOL'S IN FOR SUMMER

[Color Photos]

NHAT MYER

The Virginian-Pilot

A student at Old Dominion University sits by a fountain on the

Norfolk campus Friday afternoon. ODU has increased its summertime

offerings, hoping to meet student interest in having the option of

year-round study.

Darren Musico, 27, wearing sunglasses, takes notes in John Keeling's