Eman Mousa took a deep breath, veered toward the second-floor balcony of the Advanced Manufacturing Center building on the Pima Community College Downtown campus and looked west at the Tucson Mountains.
She was thoughtful and relieved last week as she waited to celebrate the completion of her semester-long computer design project, she said.
The Pima student will graduate next fall with an associate degree. As an international student from Yemen, she is grateful to learn, she says, and reflective about her time here.
Mousa is one of more than 30,000 full and part-time students at Pima, which is exploring the idea of moving most classes to an eight-week format in the next couple of years with a program called Acceler8.
Mousa has questions about the potential of shorter classes. She liked the idea of general education courses offered over that duration. But for the classes in her field of study, computer design, she was skeptical.
“As an academic student, that idea will be so difficult. Because we have to learn the process for each design. We learn new software,” she said. “Maybe it just takes three or four weeks to be good, to be proficient. So then in the other four weeks you have to finish all your projects and all assignments, it would be so hard. It would be hard for project-based work for sure.”
But she likes the idea of shorter classes for general education courses. Mousa’s ambivalence is amplified by other Pima students and faculty as the institution examines the possibility of dividing a regular, 16- week semester into two parts.
About 30% to 40% of current Pima classes are available as eight-week courses, said Ian Roark, Pima provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and workforce development.
Pending more research, input from faculty, staff and students — and Governing Board approval — the 2028-29 school year may mark the start of most courses being offered over eight weeks, Roark said.
That change would make about 90% of Pima courses available in the eight-week format, Roark said.
The goal? Create more graduates and attract more students. Pima’s graduation rate was 28% — within three years for a two-year degree — in the 2024-25 school year. About 16% of students transferred to a four-year school.
Changing the semester structure from 16 weeks to two, eight-week sessions can give students “more flexibility and more continuous on-ramps,” says Achieve the Dream, a national nonprofit dedicated to improving success rates for community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color.
“The framework is guided pathways and student success. And community colleges all across the country have really struggled with increasing student persistence and retention and ultimately completion of their stated certificate or degree that they want to earn,” he said.
“And like many urban community colleges, the vast majority of our students are part-time. So the idea that has been implemented in other colleges successfully across the country is a majority eight-week schedule for part-time learners to focus more intently on one or two classes in an eight-week term rather than two or three — or three over a 16-week period.”
The format could allow Pima students, many of whom work full time and have families and other responsibilities, the opportunity to focus on fewer courses at a time.
It’s about looking at the content and outcomes without sacrificing rigor and redesigning courses so activities and assessments are there, Roark said, adding sometimes that means a course would be more hybrid — meaning in-person plus online learning.
“I am personally supportive of it. I think it’s potentially a great product for students,” said Alex Greengaard, an instructor and lecturer of Building and Construction in the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation and Reentry program, which provides educational programs and career training to incarcerated people. Greengaard is already among those teaching in the eight-week format.
But some staff members, who did not want to speak out because the Acceler8 program is still in the exploratory phase, are unconvinced of its merits for students and teachers. Concern around basic writing courses is real — as those require an integration of skills and time for teachers to monitor in-class writing assignments and filter for AI-produced work.
Originally, the Acceler8 plan aimed for an earlier timeline, but has been moved back because “the biggest factor is professional development and time for course redesign, as well as compensation for course redesign for faculty,” Roark said.
Pima’s committees are investigating, including touring other campuses to see how the format works and is implemented. Staff has connected with its counterparts at Amarillo College, which has about 10,000 students and offers about 80% of its classes in eight-week blocks.
At El Paso Community College, which has about 25,000 students, the Mission Del Paso campus offers an eight-week college and is in Year 3 of its transition. Pima faculty toured the college last month learning about the mostly hybrid format and its effect on student burnout.
“Change is hard. Our faculty are wonderful and I think this will require them to do what they’ve been doing differently and that’s not easy. I have confidence that they can navigate it, but I also understand that that’s stressful,” said Greg Taylor, Pima board chairman.
Pima’s enrollment was more than 33,000 full and part-time students in fall 2024, the latest data available according to an Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System report. A full-time in-state student taking 30 credit hours during the academic year paid about $3,000 in tuition, according to Pima’s 2024 financial report.
With no dedicated state operating funding, Pima voted last month to raise tuition and put a bond question on the November ballot. The first bond since 1995, Pima wants to renovate, expand and refinance existing debt.
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