Academic Policy  1405.20 

Intersessions

Background & Budget

The University of Arkansas has three intersession periods: August, January, and May. These are held between regular terms to offer students a concentrated experience, allowing them to focus on one subject area for the session. The intention of intersessions is to promote degree completion by offering courses that enable students to accelerate their academic degree path or complete academic degree requirements prior to enrollment in regular terms.

Not all classes and class content are appropriate to teach within the format of intersessions. Maintaining academic rigor and quality is essential and is the responsibility of the department and/or program.

Each fiscal year, the vice provost for academic affairs allocates the budget to all colleges and schools for intersession teaching. Typically, the amount of the allocation reflects the college or school’s average intersession enrollments and expenditure totals in recent years. It also includes a percentage addition that represents the previous year’s average faculty salary increase. Funding is provided for organized, on-campus courses. The only standard exception to this rule is support for study abroad.

Limit on Enrollment During an Intersession

Students may enroll in up to 4 credit hours per intersession—if taking more than 1 course, they must be co-requisites.

Student Financial Aid for Intersessions

The May intersession attaches to the summer term for financial aid purposes, so the Academic Challenge Scholarship (lottery scholarship) is not awarded (just like summer), but financial aid disburses for the summer session once the student takes an appropriate summer load in the regular summer term.

Credit hours taken during the August intersession will count toward fall enrollment eligibility requirements for scholarships, federal financial aid, and Arkansas state aid (including the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship), and credit hours taken during the January intersession will count toward spring enrollment eligibility requirements for scholarships, federal financial aid, and Arkansas state aid (including the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship).

Student Residence Hall Options for Intersessions

Housing requires that students have either a spring or a summer contract to live in the residence hall during the May intersession, a current academic year contract during the August intersession, and either an academic year contract or a spring contract during the January intersession. 

Specific Intersession Dates

See the academic semester calendar - https://registrar.uark.edu/academic-dates/academic-semester-calendar/index.php

Employee Appointments and Payments

Instructors are permitted to teach up to three credit hours per intersession (up to 4 hours when courses are co-requisite).  Faculty or graduate assistants teaching intersession courses must be appointed in an appropriate faculty title or as a graduate assistant with the default position salary distribution set to the regular academic year departmental worktag. Individuals hired temporarily for intersession teaching, including adjunct faculty and appointed University staff members, may be paid by period activity pay.

Intersession salary is calculated based on the following for instructors of record assigned to intersession courses:

1. For 50%-100% appointed faculty in May or August Intersession, salary is based on the instructor’s previous academic year full-time equivalent salary at 2.5% per credit hour. For January intersession, salary is based on the instructor’s current academic year full-time equivalent salary at 2.5% per credit hour.  Appointed faculty teaching an intersession course shall be compensated no less than $5,000 for a three-credit hour course or $1,666.67 per credit hour.
2. For adjunct faculty or University staff appointed to teach a course, salary is calculated on a per-course basis and set by the department based on the instructors’ qualifications, experience, and projected enrollment of the course. Instructors in this category shall be compensated at no less than $4,000 for a three-credit hour course or $1,333.33 per credit hour.
3. For nine-month appointed graduate assistants assigned to teach an intersession course, a different base wage rate formula is detailed below.

Any other special pay situations or variations from the above should be submitted to the Office of the Provost for approval. Approved exceptions are reviewed annually. In all cases, total compensation for intersession employment may not exceed 33 1/3 percent of the previous nine-month salary and is subject to applicable line-item maximum restrictions as per Board Policy 435.1.

Interdisciplinary cross-college efforts should be reported on the workload form by the home college of the instructor. If there are multiple instructors teaching a course, contact the Office of the Provost for guidance on the distribution of instructor pay.

No payments may be made from intersession teaching funds for research, general administrative duties, directing of individual or independent studies/readings courses, low-enrollment practicums, theses or dissertation hours. Payment for internships must be pre-approved by the Office of the Provost annually. There should be no compensation for courses that are normally not compensated during the academic year.

Twelve-Month Appointed Faculty

Twelve-month faculty may teach in an intersession period, but must claim annual leave time for any Monday-Friday scheduled during an intersession period to be eligible for intersession pay.  They should be paid through the period activity pay process just as nine-month faculty are.

Administrators with the title of, chancellor, vice chancellor, or dean are not eligible for intersession  pay transactions. 

Because January intersession falls within the faculty member’s appointment period of mid-August to mid-May, a department may allow, subject to appropriate class size, the faculty member an opportunity to teach during the January intersession for no additional compensation and as part of the individual’s spring course load.

Graduate Assistants in Intersession

January Intersession

Graduate assistants may have the opportunity to teach as an instructor of record during the January intersession for either additional pay processed as period activity pay or a reduced assignment during the spring semester, as approved by both the student and the sponsor (person responsible for the funding and duty expectations for the graduate assistant) of the graduate assistantship, in consultation with the student’s major advisor. The Office of the Provost, in consultation with the Graduate School, will publish guidance each year outlining the details for graduate assistants’ January Intersession pay.

Graduate assistants may not be required to teach during the January intersession. Teaching assistants need not be enrolled during the January intersession if they are enrolled in the spring semester.  

May and August Intersessions

Graduate assistantships will be supported during the May and August intersessions consistent with summer teaching policies. See Academic Policy 1405.18 for more information.   

All Intersessions

With approval from the Office of the Provost, non-teaching instructional support (graduate assistants assigned to support a course’s instructor of record) may be compensated from the intersession budget provided the course(s) they are assigned to generate(s) sufficient revenue to cover both instructor costs and instructional support costs.  Graduate assistants assigned as non-teaching instructional support should be compensated at the same monthly base wage rate for the period they are assigned to work during the intersession as they were during the prior academic semester or through a reduced assignment during the spring semester, as approved by both the student and the sponsor (person responsible for funding and duty expectations for the graduate assistant), in consultation with the student’s major advisor.

Workload Spreadsheet

Updated workload spreadsheets with instructions will be distributed to college budget officers and/or HR or related staff before each intersession period. The workload spreadsheet is designed to report all intersession course offerings, instructors of record, estimated course revenues, and instructor pay within each college or school and their respective departments. Each college or school submits their completed workload spreadsheet to the Office of the Provost for review and approval. Period Activity Pay transactions related to intersession teaching are initiated and approved using the data from the workload spreadsheet and, for twelve-month faculty, governed by the extra compensation policy. The first tab will contain updated directions to the college for the current intersession’s entries.

In the case of course cancellations and other changes throughout the intersession period, the workload must be updated according to the directions tab and resubmitted before payroll approvals will be completed.

Course Offerings, Class Sizes, and Course Revenue

Intersession class size should be consistent with the sizes of courses during the academic year within the same department.  Extra sections of a course should not be added for additional payment to instructors. They should only be added if enrollment creates the need and there is no option for increasing the enrollment cap due to pedagogical concerns within the course.

Each course offering should be, at minimum, revenue neutral and should follow the class size standards in Academic Policy 1640.10. Please note, however, that students do not generate tuition in an equal manner. For example, if the student is a staff member, then the tuition is significantly lower. Course revenue estimates populated in the workload are based on standard tuition rates and thus may be higher than actual revenue generated from a course.

Some classes may need to be offered regardless of net/gain loss. The University has a responsibility to offer and staff classes needed for degree progress and completion. The college or school is encouraged to work with programmatic faculty to analyze essential course offerings while also reflecting fiscal responsibility. Revenue negative courses should include documentation of the need for the course to remain open in the workload and must be approved by the Office of the Provost.

Changes to course offerings and/or instructors of record should be submitted as they occur and in the manner found on the workload instructions.

Timeline

Timeline information for each intersession will be distributed to colleges and schools with specific due dates by the Office of the Provost. General guidance is included below:

May Intersession

Mid-March: Intersession workload spreadsheets and instructions distributed.

Mid-April: The first workload submission is due to the Office of the Provost for review.

May: Following workload approval, updates provided as changes occur for immediate review. 

Early-June: Final workload submission showing the end of term enrollments and instructor pay actuals due.

August Intersession

Early-July: Intersession workload spreadsheets and instructions distributed.

Early-August: The first workload submission is due to the Office of the Provost for review.

August: Following workload approval, updates provided as changes occur for immediate review. 

Early-September: Final workload submission showing the end of term enrollments and instructor pay actuals due.

January Intersession

Mid-November: Intersession workload spreadsheets and instructions distributed.

Early-December: The first workload submission is due to the Office of the Provost for review.

December: Following workload approval, updates provided as changes occur for immediate review. 

Early-February: Final workload submission showing the end of term enrollments and instructor pay actuals due.

Payment Worktags

Nine-month and twelve-month appointed employees should receive intersession teaching pay via the Workday Period Activity Pay business process. Training on this business process is available and will be provided.

Worktag numbers for each college or school are located in the INTR budgetary unit, which is managed in the Office of the Provost.

The current worktags are:

Label	Worktags
Intersession Spring Agriculture Teaching	PG002629
Intersession Summer Agriculture Teaching	PG002630
Intersession Fall Agriculture Teaching	PG003975
Intersession Summer Architecture Teaching	PG002632
Intersession Fall Architecture Teaching	PG002631
Intersession Spring Arts and Sciences Teaching	PG002634
Intersession Summer Arts and Sciences Teaching	PG002635
Intersession Fall Arts and Sciences Teaching	PG002633
Intersession Spring Education Teaching	PG002637
Intersession Summer Education Teaching	PG002638
Intersession Fall Education Teaching	PG002636
Intersession Summer Engineering Teaching	PG002640
Intersession Fall Engineering Teaching	PG002639
Intersession Spring Law Teaching	PG002642
Intersession Summer Law Teaching	PG002643
Intersession Fall Law Teaching	PG002641
Intersession Spring Business Teaching	PG002645
Intersession Summer Business Teaching	PG002646
Intersession Fall Business Teaching	PG002644
Intersession Spring Honors Teaching	PG002648
Intersession Summer Honors Teaching	PG002649
Intersession Fall Honors Teaching	PG002647