photo by: Nick Krug

A Kansas University students makes the trek up to campus past a line of trees near Robinson Gymnasium on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014 as the overnight snowfall blankets the trees and ground.

For students who need to cram in more credit hours more than they need a break, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas has a new option. The college is offering, for the first time, winter-session classes — beginning the day after Christmas.

All 14 courses are online, based on previously existing online courses that will be condensed into four weeks, according to a recent KU announcement. Offerings include, to name a few, intro to African-American studies, intro to American studies, Greek and Roman mythology, Islamic art and architecture, intro to leadership, reason and argument, intro to U.S. politics and intro to women, gender and sexuality studies.

Classes are envisioned to help students catch up on or accelerate their progress to graduation. In particular, students with “differing circumstances” can take advantage of them, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Carl Lejuez said in KU’s announcement.

“This format provides the opportunity for a more intense focus in a shorter period while holding the rigor of the course constant,” Lejuez said.

The last day of finals is Friday, so even winter-break students still get a week off before Christmas. I know the KU School of Journalism (according to a co-worker who took some) and probably some other units have offered winter courses online before, though unless there are in-person winter classes I’m not aware of I expect campus to be deserted as usual for the coming weeks.

In other end-of-semester news:

• No textbook buyback for instructors allowed: Professors who might want to make a buck or two (or a few hundred?) selling textbooks after the end of the semester are not supposed to do that, at least with any free copies they may have been sent, a recent provost memo reminds.

“Several members of the faculty and staff have received emails from book buyers, offering to purchase their textbooks and instructor’s editions,” vice provost for faculty development Mary Lee Hummert wrote to faculty, staff and graduate teaching assistants. “As you know, a ruling of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission states: ‘Accepting as personal property free desk copies of textbooks and newspapers valued at $40 or more is a violation of the State of Kansas conflict of interest laws.'”

Instructors who receive such books from publishers can retain and use them, but they can’t sell or give them away because the books are considered state property, Hummert said, citing the 1997 opinion. If instructors leave the university, they’re supposed to leave the books in their office, boxed up and labeled “Deliver to Exchanges and Gifts, Watson Library” to be properly added to the library’s collection or otherwise disposed of.

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.