Call for Course Proposals – Summer Session 2026

Dear Colleagues,

Student interest in Summer Session continues to hold strong, with approximately 14,600 students and more than 33,000 enrollments in 2025. Thank you to everyone who offered courses in 2025 and previous summers!

UC San Diego continues to face a tight budget environment, and we are still working on the incentive structure for 2026. I plan to share those details in a second call letter to you by the end of October or very early November, so that you can finalize your summer courses accordingly.

In the meantime, I am requesting your partnership to ensure that we have a robust Summer Session 2026 program. Summer enrollments benefit our students, departments and colleges, and the campus overall: they help students make academic progress, bring additional tuition revenue, and generate student FTE that count towards our total enrollment targets from UCOP.

Starting in summer 2026, all courses with 50% or more remote student-instructor interaction time must have an official R-course designation. Students welcome the remote option in summer to help reduce expenses and allow for other commitments/opportunities while advancing degree progress. It is important to note that in summer 2025, 53% of our enrollments were in remote courses that do not have an official R-course approval. Please submit courses that were taught remotely in summer 2025 for approval as R-courses. The Academic Senate has streamlined the process, and we have developed resources to help you:
1. Submitting R-course approvals is now incorporated into the standard CourseLeaf submission process. Review the specific questions for R-courses that you will need to answer in CourseLeaf.
2. Refer to the new CourseLeaf training modules on Blink for general instructions on how to submit and review course approvals.
3. Digital Learning is now offering workshops and individual consultations to support faculty and department staff with the R-course development and submission process.
As you plan your course offerings for Summer Session, please offer courses that will maximize opportunities for student success:
1. Teach courses that have a history of strong student demand in summer. Please review the Five-Year Enrollment History report to strategically plan your summer 2026 program.
2. Consider offering courses in summer that have large waitlists during the academic year.
3. Plan to offer courses that have high DFW rates in the academic year.
4. A list of “high impact” courses (courses that have high DFW, waitlist, and/or are on critical graduation paths for many students) can be found here.
Finally, to increase your teaching capacity, remember that graduate students who have advanced to candidacy are eligible to teach summer courses as Associate Instructors. The Summer Graduate Teaching Scholars (SGTS) program provides training and support, and this experience can be transformative for a graduate student’s career. The SGTS 2026 call letter was sent out in a separate email. Note that the deadline for SGTS nominations is Friday, November 21, 2025.

Summer Session 2026
Session 1: June 29 - August 1
Session 2: August 3 – September 5
Special Sessions: Three, eight, and ten-weeks from June 15 - September 19

The deadline for departments to submit course proposals is Wednesday, December 3, 2025. The Summer Session team will email departments when the ISA is open for course submissions. If you have questions about the Summer Session program, please contact Associate Director Lisa Bargabus (lbargabus@ucsd.edu).

I thank you in advance for your help in achieving wide participation in Summer Session 2026.

Christine Alvarado
Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Educational Innovation

University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093