Housing courses for the summer term

General pool classrooms assigned in Banner

Housing in General Pool Classrooms is unique in the summer semester, like many other aspects of scheduling and the student experience. In the summer semester, the optimizer in EMS is not used to house. Instead, classes are assigned rooms manually and directly in banner. The Summer term is published and set up in EMS just like it would in any normal spring or summer semester, but instead of running an optimization scenario, as soon as the term is set up correctly, synch EMS to banner and import the data. I frequently use an active section’s report to help assign classes.

Non-credit summer programs 

Another unique aspect of the summer semester are non-Tulane credit bearing programs that make heavy use of general pool classrooms for their programs. These include New Student Orientation in August and Strategic Summer Programs (run by the Strategic summer Program office, Desiree Packard and Shanna Harper). In December or January of the year, the SSP office will send the Class Scheduling team a spreadsheet of their classroom needs by program and by date. We usually wait until we have received Tulane credit bearing classes first before we assign general pool classrooms to the SSP classes, but make an attempt to keep the classroom assignments for these groups separate. 

SSP programs are usually for middle schoolers and high school students, and the SSP office asks to keep these classes separate from Tulane credit bearing summer classes. For the general pool classrooms, this means that I usually assign Tulane credit bearing classes to the academic quad (Gibson, Tilton, Dinwiddie, Norman Mayer, Hebert, Richardson Bldg, and Boggs) while leaving the Newcomb Quad buildings for SSP (Newcomb, HTML, Jones, Greenbaum Maclaren) as much as possible. While attempts should be made to keep Tulane classes and SSP classes separate, this is usually not 100% possible (especially with the SSP science programs that like a room or two in Boggs).  

Summer construction and renovations

Another unique hurdle in summer semester to housing is the amount of construction and renovation projects that take place on campus. Each summer traditionally 2-4 general pool classrooms receive a full-renovation that takes them offline. Additionally, many facilities services and capitol project projects take place at this time. Before housing for the summer semester, it is important to communicate with Facility Services, IT, Capitol Projects to have a full scope of construction that will be taking place on the Uptown campus over the summer. Avoid entirely putting the SSP programs near construction (little kids and construction is a no-no) and as much as possible avoid putting Tulane students near the construction so classes can take place uninterrupted.  

Event bookings 

After Commencement finished, VEMS can be opened for event bookings, but be mindful of the NSO dates in August (right before the fall semester starts). NSO takes precedent over all event requests and usually requires ALL general pool classrooms for at least a few dates. The NSO office should be able to provide a list of rooms they will need in March. 

GP rooms remain locked unless otherwise indicated

Finally, in the summer semester, general pool classrooms remain locked at all times, unless TUPD/Allied security get notice via an official report from EMS of an academic class or a confirmed event. It is important that NSO dates, SSP programs and all other events are booked and confirmed in EMS to make sure that TUPD and allied security are receiving information on what rooms need to be locked and unlocked.