CR’s March 6, 2026 Times Standard Article: CR’s Success Is Built on Innovation, Collaboration, and Commitment to Students and the Community
Published on Mar 4 2026CR’s March 6, 2026 Times Standard Article: CR’s Success Is Built on Innovation, Collaboration, and Commitment to Students and the Community
At College of the Redwoods, we are more than coworkers, we are one institution with one purpose: to change lives through education. Together we have made College of the Redwoods into an institution stronger than it has ever been. Every success we have achieved is a shared triumph, built on collaboration and commitment to our students and our community.
Over the past several years, our progress has been grounded in the work, ideas, creativity, and commitment of both current and former faculty and staff. Each milestone, from reaffirming our accreditation through 2031 to restoring fiscal stability and strengthening employee compensation, reflects collaboration across the institution and builds directly on prior conversations and innovations. The development of new transfer, career education, and healthcare degrees, along with strategic decisions that improved enrollment and key student outcomes, did not emerge in isolation. They were the result of iterative innovation and shared governance over time.
This continuity of effort defines our culture: we assess, refine, and improve, always building upon the foundation laid by those who came before us while responding thoughtfully to present challenges.
It is in the spirit of institutional self-reflection that we started exploring the practicality of offering shortened courses, also called accelerated courses or condensed courses, several years ago. Shortened courses are intended to provide the same curricular content and number of credit hours in approximately half the time of a traditional college semester. Typically, they are taught over 7 or 8 weeks rather than our regular sixteen-week semester.
In the past, our discussions about shortened courses reflected both interest and caution. Some questioned whether a compressed course format could maintain the same academic rigor and depth as a full semester, or whether students would be prepared for the pace and expectations of an accelerated schedule. Others raised concerns about preserving strong faculty collaboration and avoiding fragmentation across differing course timelines. These were not objections rooted in resistance to change, but in a shared commitment to academic quality, student preparedness, and collegial engagement.
After reviewing national practices and our own student data we decided to create a thoughtfully faculty-designed shortened course model pilot program that could advance student success, particularly for working adults, caregivers, and many students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. While this pilot represents an intentional and structured approach, the concept itself is not new to us. For many years, we have offered condensed courses during the summer and late-start options within our regular terms. This initiative builds on that existing framework and experience, formalizing and expanding a model that has long been part of our academic schedule while continuing to evaluate its effectiveness alongside our traditional full-semester offerings.
We believe that our shortened course model program will provide students with more entry and exit points and protect our students from losing a full semester of courses if they need to stop out. The shortened course format would also be particularly beneficial to students who are trying to balance schoolwork with employment and family commitments and provide highly motivated students with an opportunity to move through our college curriculum faster, save money, and enter the workforce or transfer sooner.
In our pilot, we will offer a limited number of fully online courses in a seven-to-eight-week format, intentionally situated within programs that already demonstrate strong online design and clear academic pathways. The pilot will focus on courses within the California General Education Transfer Curriculum (Cal-GETC), the statewide lower-division general education pattern that satisfies transfer requirements for both the California State University and University of California systems, as well as within our Liberal Arts in Humanities and Liberal Arts in Social Science degree pathways. Both of these degrees are offered fully online through Redwoods Online, allowing the shortened course model to operate within established, coherent pathways.
To ensure this model serves students well, we are approaching the pilot with clear design standards for course selection and redesign; intentional alignment with advising, financial aid, and registration processes so students can sequence courses without overloading; and careful coordination of schedules so required courses are available when academic plans indicate they should be.
We believe that implementing this pilot program will provide flexible options for our students who have busy lives, contribute to an equitable approach to student completion, and contribute to the transformational collaborative work that College of the Redwoods does so well.