The Role of Academic Senates in
Enrollment Management
Fall
1999
1999
- 00 Educational Policies Committee
Hoke Simpson, Chair, Grossmont College
Lacy Barnes-Mileham, Reedley College
Elton Hall, Moorpark College
Kate Clark, Irvine Valley College
Mary Rider, Grossmont College
Ian Walton, Mission College
Robert Porter, Saddleback College, Student Representative
1998
- 99 Educational Policies Committee Janis Perry, Chair, Santiago Canyon College
Linda Collins, Los Medanos College
Eva Conrad, Moorpark College, CIO Representative
Elton Hall, Moorpark College
Mary Rider, Grossmont College
Hoke Simpson, Grossmont College
Kathy Sproles, Hartnell College
Ian Walton, Mission College
Table
of Contents
Abstract
Introduction
Background and Scope
Current Regulation and Statute
Enrollment Management and Emerging Themes in Higher
Education
Enrollment Trends in California
Enrollment Management Considerations
Enrollment Management Strategies
Role of the Local Academic Senate
Recommendations for Developing and Evaluating
Enrollment Management Plans
Summary
Glossary of Enrollment Management Key Terms
Bibliography
ABSTRACT
This
position paper of the Academic Senate provides
the background and scope of enrollment management
as it is defined and practiced by educational
institutions. Emerging themes in higher education,
and enrollment trends in California, are used
to frame enrollment management considerations.
A variety of strategies for managing over- and
under-enrollment are presented. The paper concludes
with the role of the academic senate in developing
and evaluating enrollment management plans. A
glossary of enrollment management key terms is
included at the end.
INTRODUCTION
Whether
in times of scarcity or abundance of student demand
for courses, faculty must become involved in the
development of enrollment management decisions
that protect students’ access and nurture their
success in the learning environment. An expanding
student population that is increasingly diverse
must be assured access to college and opportunities
for success. This paper will focus on academic
implications of enrollment management. The paper
seeks to equip faculty with essential terms and
concepts and to clarify the role of academic senates
in enrollment management decision-making.
The
paper reviews relevant regulation and statute,
and provides the background and scope of enrollment
management as it is portrayed and practiced by
educational institutions. Enrollment management
considerations are framed by discussions of emerging
themes in higher education and enrollment trends
in California. A variety of strategies for managing
over- and under-enrollment are presented. The
paper concludes with observations on the role
of the academic senate in developing and evaluating
enrollment management plans. A glossary of enrollment
management key terms is included at the end that
will assist local academic senates in consulting
collegially in enrollment management issues at
the campus and district levels.
Faculty
have long seen the need to shape the critical
discussions that inform enrollment management
decisions. In Spring 1998, the Academic Senate
passed the following resolution:
S98
17.02 Enrollment Management
Whereas
there are many community colleges that are currently
unable to meet their growth targets for enrollment,
and
Whereas
enrollment management and establishment of floors
for class sizes have a serious impact on student
success, and
Whereas
the administration of many community colleges
are developing plans to control enrollment by
such activities as creating contingency plans
for using 4000 and 5000 accounts to pay for enrollment
shortfalls, creating mega-divisions that temporarily
generate increased enrollments and freezing block
grants and new hires,
Therefore
be it resolved that the Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges direct the Executive Committee
to write a position paper that contains guidelines
for local academic senates to assure that they
are thoroughly involved in decision-making involving
enrollment management.
BACKGROUND
AND SCOPE
Two
papers recently adopted by the Academic Senate
for California Community Colleges provide valuable
information and recommendations that can be applied
to the development of effective enrollment management
plans at the local level. In fact, Program
Review: Developing a Faculty Driven Process,
adopted in April 1996, and Program
Discontinuance: A Faculty Perspective,
adopted in April 1998, are essential resources
for informing the discussion about enrollment
strategies. A central theme of both papers is
the need to develop a local academic senate position
regarding issues that are intrinsically curricular,
involving student access and success. While some
faculty may not always recognize it, enrollment
management is also such an issue.
In
A Guide to Enrollment Growth
Management in the California Community Colleges
(1992), the Community
College League of California (CCLC) defined enrollment
growth management as "strategies used to address
the problems created by the enrollment or potential
enrollment of too many students to be served by
the available resources." While CCLC focused on
over enrollment, currently enrollment management
also is used to address declining enrollment.
For colleges that are actively seeking additional
students, the term "enrollment management" is
synonymous with marketing, recruitment, and retention
efforts. Michael G. Dolence, in his book, A
Primer for Campus Administrators (1996),
describes the term as follows:
Strategic
Enrollment Management is a comprehensive process
designed to help an institution achieve and maintain
the optimum recruitment, retention and graduation
rates of students, where optimum is defined within
the academic context of the institution. As such,
SEM is an institution-wide process that embraces
virtually every aspect of an institution’s function
and culture.
The
public universities in California have historically
managed over- and under-enrollment by raising
or lowering the academic standards for admission.
Since community colleges are committed to open
access, scheduling and course offerings have been
used as the principal mechanisms for controlling
or enhancing growth. It is clear that enrollment
management increasingly is being utilized to address
a broad range of college policy and processes
including matriculation, curriculum development,
instructional delivery and style, and student
services. All of these must be placed within the
proper institutional context.
Local
academic senates are in a position to frame and
articulate the philosophical context of enrollment
management from a faculty perspective. As such,
this paper defines the term as follows:
Enrollment
management is a process by which students enrolled
and class sections offered are coordinated to
achieve maximum access and success for students.
All enrollment management decisions must be made
in the context of the local college mission and
educational master plan in addition to fiscal
and physical considerations.
CURRENT
REGULATION AND STATUTE
When
seeking to make recommendations on or revise local
policy, it is important for local academic senates
to refer to established Education Code statutes
and Title 5 Regulations. While there are no regulations
that address enrollment management per
se, the following statutes and regulations
that govern matriculation, admissions and priority
registration can be informative:
Education
Code §76000, §§78031-32, Admission
to College refers to who can be admitted
to community college in and outside of the established
district and how inter-district recruitment can
take place.
Title
5 §55520 ff: Describes matriculation regulations
which preclude using "any assessment instrument,
method or procedure to exclude any person from
admission to a community college."
Title
5 §56232 ff: Provides for priority registration
for Extended Opportunity Programs and Services
(EOP&S) students.
Title
5 §58106 identifies factors that justify limiting
enrollment. These include: prerequisites, health
and safety considerations, facility limitations,
faculty workload, availability of faculty, funding
limitations, constraints of regional planning
and statutory or contractual requirements.
Title
5 §58108 permits enrollment priorities based on
"special registration assistance" for disabled
and disadvantaged to provide equal educational
opportunity, and a priority system for student
enrollment that is established pursuant to legal
authority of the local board of trustees. Further,
the regulations identify that no registration
procedures shall be used that result in restricting
enrollment to a specialized clientele. Enrollment
priorities may be established pursuant to legal
authority by the local board.
Local
academic senates need to be mindful of the potential
impact of enrollment priorities on different segments
of the community and on students with differing
educational needs and priorities.
ENROLLMENT
MANAGEMENT AND EMERGING THEMES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
The
appearance of enrollment management as an administrative
technique in California community colleges coincides
with an extended period of educational under-funding.
The low level of per student funding, which became
characteristic of the California community colleges
in the last two decades, negatively impacted the
participation rate of California adults in community
colleges and has set in motion difficult choices
relative to educational offerings. The removal
of requirements for district residency in the
early 1980s created a free flow system in which
neighboring districts compete for enrollment.
State mandated caps on enrollment have functioned
to regulate the flow of students through the institutions,
while funding for growth and cost of living increases
have not kept pace with the increasing needs being
experienced at the local level. Enrollment management
should be placed in this context: a set of strategies
to address how to apply often inadequate resources
toward realizing the multiple missions of California
community colleges.
While
state funding of California community colleges
began to rise again in the mid 1990’s, reflecting
the improved state economy, the chronic under-funding
of the California system has left a legacy of
institutional inadequacies. The techniques of
enrollment management have been honed as methods
not only to modulate enrollment but also to manage
institutional priorities.
Two
themes emerge in current California higher education
literature: (1) the continuing importance of student
access and success and (2) the newer mantra, productivity
and efficiency. Faculty must provide a definition
of these terms as they relate to enrollment management.
The mission of the community college system is
to provide an "open door" to anyone who can benefit
from a college education. To assure that the door
is open wide enough to accommodate and support
everyone, community colleges provide a comprehensive
curriculum of transfer, vocational, general education
and basic skills courses.
Recent
demographic projections of a coming "tidal wave"
of new students (estimated by the California Postsecondary
Education Commission at nearly one-half a million
in the next decade) have led to predictions that
California institutions will be overwhelmed. According
to this argument, the state simply will not be
able to accommodate all of these students with
the same traditional approaches. Faculty (both
in California and nationally) have been encouraged
to modify programs and offerings in order to compete
effectively with private proprietary schools or
distance education consortia which are cited as
threats to the continued survival of community
colleges. Fears of a "market share war" are sparked
as a means to convince faculty that their future
is uncertain unless they are more "market driven."
These
contradictory injunctions—we will be overwhelmed
by demand as the new tidal wave hits, versus we
are losing students and will be left in history’s
dustbin—are both cited in support of turning to
increasingly business-minded approaches for the
management and rationing of educational opportunities.
The concern for compressed calendars, year-round
schooling, increased reliance on technology mediated
instruction to reduce the need for "bricks and
mortar," are all examples. While these can be
critical and appropriate strategies for ensuring
that working students and their families are accommodated,
faculty must raise the essential question of the
educational needs of students and communities
and not be stampeded into hasty reforms for the
sake of productivity and market share.
Faculty
have been increasingly told they must become more
concerned with expanding the capacity of their
colleges and the number of students "produced."
This is most evident in the output approach utilized
by the Partnership for Excellence originated by
the Chancellor of California Community Colleges.
The Partnership measures are largely capacity
measures (numbers of students completing degrees
and certificates, or the number or rate of students
successfully completing courses and persisting
term-to-term). These speak to the numbers of students
moving through our institutions, rather than the
quality of the education they experience while
there.
Similarly,
we are told that private proprietary institutions
are more "flexible" and able to "deliver" education
more efficiently. They cater to student "demand"
to get through faster and with a minimum of "extra"
requirements. Here the pressure to move students
through—as contrasted with making the most of
their opportunities while there—is based on a
posited competitive shortage rather than an overabundance
of students.
Faculty
should be cautious in responding to such generalized
injunctions toward increased productivity and
capacity in the name of enrollment. While access
must be safeguarded, indeed enlarged, for it to
be meaningful, faculty must insist that it be
access to quality educational experiences.
Curricular
decisions need to be made on the basis of the
best educational interests of the students and
communities we serve. While economics of enrollment
and productivity are central to access, without
a grounding in a core commitment to excellence,
promises of access are potentially bankrupt.
ENROLLMENT
TRENDS IN CALIFORNIA
Enrollment
in California community colleges is affected by
the state’s economic cycles. During good economic
times (such as 1979-82, 1987-1992, and 1995-98),
the colleges received additional funding and were
able to increase enrollments. However, during
the most recent recession (1992-95) the community
colleges’ systemwide cut over 9,000 course sections
and reduced enrollments by about 160,000 students.
As Thomas J. Nussbaum, Chancellor of California
Community Colleges, stated in Important
Historical Data, Trends, and Analysis Relevant
to Full-time/Part-time Issues—A Working Paper
(1999), "…The overall historical context depicts
a significantly underfunded system that has been
forced to reduce access during times of economic
downturn." In Chapter One of The
Challenge of the Century (CPEC 1998), Recommendation
1.8 indicates that the Governor, Legislature,
and respective governing boards should prioritize
access if rationing is required in the future
because "…the State does not provide sufficient
resources to support access for all who could
benefit from postsecondary education."
According
to The Higher Education Update
(98-5) the California Postsecondary Education
Commission (CPEC) "estimates that demand for higher
education is expected to increase by nearly one-half
million students by the year 2005—a figure that
appears to be beyond the capacity of our higher
education institutions to accommodate through
traditional means."
There
is no argument that the centrality of education—particularly
beyond high school—is the essential component
that will guarantee California’s future success.
There is also no question that faculty have played
the key role in the delivery of the skills and
knowledge that are required. What faculty do in
the classroom has always had a powerful impact
on the making or breaking of students’ college
experience. In the future, what faculty decide
outside the classroom may be as important for
students who otherwise would be denied access.
Community college faculty, like members of other
professions, must take on expanded decision-making
roles and responsibilities to ensure enrollment
opportunities are available to all of California’s
citizens. It will be the decisions made at the
local community college level that will determine
whether the unsettling recommendations made by
CPEC are ever necessary.
ENROLLMENT
MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS
Other
enrollment management considerations include,
but are not necessarily limited to, the following
items:
Enrollment
Cap, Growth and FTES Goals
Enrollment
is also influenced by the state establishment
of an enrollment cap and the funding mechanisms
affected by the cap. An annual cap for community
college growth is set during the state budget
development process. When enrollment caps limit
funded enrollment, enrollment management is practiced
whether or not an enrollment management policy
is in place.
Each
college locally sets a growth target, or FTES
goal, usually on an annual basis. This target
(and actual local growth from previous years)
is often used in multi-college districts to allocate
annual funds from the district to each college.
Within the college, the desired FTES for a given
year will form the backdrop or parameter for expected
course and section offerings. While faculty have
generally not participated in discussions of growth
or FTES goals, these goals are critical to the
level of access at the college. These agreed upon
goals are integral to curriculum and program planning,
as well as tied to budget decisions. As such,
local academic senates should work with local
administrations to establish the process and criteria
by which these larger parameters for enrollment
management are set. This can occur both at the
district and the college level.
Full-time
and Part-time Faculty
Local
academic senates and collective bargaining agents
should note that enrollment management generally
has profound implications for faculty employment.
The reform bill AB1725 noted that the use of part-time
faculty in the community colleges should not be
primarily to effect cost savings, but rather should
be for programmatic reasons, to enhance or bring
special and current expertise to programs which
might otherwise not be available. This tends to
be particularly important in occupational programs
which need to incorporate current business techniques
or technologies on a regular basis.
However,
despite AB1725’s legislative intent that 75% of
course offerings should be taught by full-time
faculty, California community colleges have come
to rely on increasing numbers of part-time faculty.
Part-time faculty generally are the most vulnerable
to contraction and expansion of course sections,
as full-time faculty generally retain rights to
"bump" their part-time colleagues in case of contraction.
Part-time faculty lost due to layoffs may not
return to the college when opportunities again
appear due to expanded enrollment. Retention of
quality faculty cannot be maintained when poor
decision-making related to enrollment creates
continued unpredictability in program offerings
over time. Thus, poor enrollment management undermines
program quality and adversely impacts part-time
faculty in particular. It is in the interest of
all concerned—faculty, administrators, staff,
but most especially students—to strive for the
most accurate projections and scheduling practices
possible.
Administrative
Productivity
Efficient
and effective administrative structures are critical
to ensuring that taxpayer dollars are directed
to meet the educational needs of the community.
While enrollment management techniques historically
have focused on faculty productivity, local academic
senates also need to raise issues of management
and classified productivity. Containment of administrative
costs is a critical component of enrollment management,
as the relative funds available for instruction,
library and counseling services for students are
inversely related to administrative costs. Faculty
are encouraged to work collegially with administrators
to define and effect appropriate measures of administrative
productivity and outcomes to parallel those for
faculty. Just as instructional cost considerations
must be weighed in educational planning and budget
processes, so must the allocation and effectiveness
of administrative and staff FTE. Without such
consideration, enrollment management approaches
lack the comprehensiveness that allows for a sustainable
college economy.
The
state stipulates that a minimum of 50% of apportionment
funds in a given district must be devoted to direct
instructional costs (including instructors’ salary,
benefits, and instructional aides). While this
minimum acknowledges that indirect costs (such
as registration, administrative overhead, and
plant maintenance) are a necessary component of
college budgets, the Academic Senate has consistently
held that 50% is a low standard. A well-functioning
college would devote proportionately more to instruction.
Alternative
Revenue Resources
It
is also critical to note that enrollment management
techniques historically have been focused on managing
existing resources.
Both administrators and faculty need to consider
additional revenue sources, and academic senates
must assume their responsibility for developing
the processes by which such funds will be allocated
(Title 5, §53200.c.10). In addition to expected
general and categorical funds, colleges increasingly
need to seek bond measures, grants, partnerships
and endowments in order to expand access and maintain
institutional and educational integrity. Administrators
are most well positioned to seek and provide institutional
support to pursue such outside funding. Given
the workloads of faculty, administrative support
is essential if grants and other funding sources
are to be available for faculty initiated projects
to improve student success.
Collective
Bargaining Issues
Enrollment
management plans should include the input of the
two faculty entities that best represent the interests
of all faculty—the local academic senate and the
local bargaining agent. While academic senates
are to be the keepers of the academic missions
of their colleges, unions can protect both the
integrity of the faculty governance system and
protect working conditions of faculty so that
quality education can occur. When unions negotiate
working conditions/due process rights, the welfare
issues of the faculty, they create protections
for academic freedom, curricular improvement,
and a quality learning environment.
To
delineate the functions of unions and academic
senates as they relate to enrollment management,
it is useful to think about the connection between
process (union) and standards/criteria (local
academic senate). For example, consider the arena
of class cancellation during times of financial
exigency. The process
for notifying affected faculty of the class cancellation
or for establishing bumping rights in cases of
faculty reassignment is often the purview of the
union, but developing criteria
to determine which classes will be cut
is often the purview of the local academic senate.
The
following subjects inherent in enrollment management
are generally considered within the scope of collective
bargaining and can have a significant impact on
working conditions:
Timelines
for notification of faculty that classes will
be cancelled.
Class
changes that affect right of assignment.
Changes
that involve seniority in assignment and bumping
rights in cases of class cancellation.
Rights
of refusal to faculty reassignment.
Retraining
of faculty in cases of program discontinuance
or reduction in classes of a certain kind
or in a certain area.
Class-loads/work-load.
Class
size.
Hours
of work during the instructional day.
Clearly,
any enrollment management policy and its process
for implementation may have an impact on working
conditions. A close partnership between local
academic senates and bargaining agents as they
help to develop an enrollment management plan
will assure that faculty working conditions are
neither violated nor undermined, and unions can
continue to underpin the local academic senates’
efforts to preserve quality instruction.
ENROLLMENT
MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Decision-making
in the area of enrollment management must involve
an agreed-upon process, with a clear set of principles
and criteria, and include regular communication,
to avoid unfair enrollment management practices.
The academic senate needs to play a key role in
defining the philosophy, process, and criteria
for enrollment management decisions.
If
faculty are to participate effectively in enrollment
management decision-making, it is necessary that
they recognize the strategies employed in controlling
enrollments. These are manifold, as the following
discussion will indicate. Faculty want to be particularly
sensitive, of course, to those strategies with
curricular implications.
Recruitment
Clearly,
every college has the option of actively recruiting
students, or of simply sitting back and letting
them come. In recent years, growth has been the
name of the game; however, this has not always
been the case, and the anticipated influx of Tidal
Wave II suggests that it may not be in the near
future. Strategies to note in particular here
are:
High
school articulation: The college is actively
engaged with area high schools, keeping counselors
abreast of degree and certificate requirements
and seeking to develop cohorts of students
who will enter the community college upon
graduation.
High
school matriculation: The college provides
on-site assessment and orientation at feeder
high school sites.
Feedback
to high schools on student performance: The
college provides feedback to the high schools
on the college performance of its graduates
and work with the high schools to develop
programs in areas where performance is weak.
Faculty
in various disciplines engage in outreach
to the high schools.
The
college sponsors campus events for the community
and feeder schools.
The
college offers a college-within-a-college,
such as a middle college, allowing juniors
and seniors to complete their last two years
on the college campus.
The
college offers summer bridge programs, financial
aid, counseling and other support services
to enable a broader range of students to attend
the college.
Registration
Priorities
A
college will sometimes recognize cohorts of students
in its registration process and grant registration
priority on this basis. Such registration incentives
need to be carefully scrutinized to ensure that
they do not violate principles of student equity.
Some typically recognized cohorts are:
Honors
students.
Project
for Adult College Education (PACE) students.
Students
meeting degree and certificate prerequisites.
Students
who are either new or continuing.
Students
who are either full- or part-time.
Registration
Process
A
college can be more or less inclusive through
its use, or lack thereof, of a variety of registration
procedures:
Walk-in
registration.
Telephone
registration.
Online
Web-based registration.
Class
waiting lists: The college can place students
on wait lists for closed classes and automatically
enroll and notify them as space becomes available
during the registration period. The wait lists
can then be used by instructors to determine
priority for crashers.
Bulleted
courses: Offer key courses in high-demand
areas as bulleted in the schedule, indicating
to students that, when enrollment exceeds
a certain level, another section of the course
will be opened at the same day and time.
Numbers
of Sections Offered
Points
to be considered here are:
The
number of sections of a course offered should
conform to the Educational Master Plan.
Sufficient
sections are offered at an appropriate frequency
(especially for sequenced courses) to facilitate
program completion.
There
are enough sections to meet demand in high-demand
areas, such as ESL and basic skills.
Uses
of the Budget
Faculty
need to be alert to spending patterns in the area
of enrollment and to attend to the following points:
The
marginal cost of adding another section of
a class needs to be regularly recognized.
The
college should maintain a "Basic Skills Fund"
from which to draw when expanded offerings
are called for.
Matriculation
monies should be used to facilitate enrollments.
Local academic senate presidents have sign-off
authority on matriculation plans, and should
use this to assure a full discussion of the
college matriculation plan to ensure that
it supports the Educational Master Plan and
sound academic policy.
Class
Size
One
of the most obvious enrollment management strategies
is the setting of class minimum and maximum enrollments,
where a low minimum and a high maximum reflect
an effort to increase enrollments, and a high
minimum/low maximum, an effort to decrease them.
Issues for faculty to consider here are:
The
academic optimum versus the facilities maximum:
Since funding for community colleges is based
on FTES, it will always be financially desirable
to maximize the use of facilities (within
the enrollment cap). This need, however, must
be balanced against considerations of educational
soundness. Even when the facilities permit,
it is clearly folly, for instance, to permit,
much less insist on, high per-section enrollments
in classes such as ESL, foreign languages,
and basic skills, where student learning depends
on high levels of student participation and
individual attention from the instructor.
The standard should be that class size is
determined by discipline faculty based on
the academic needs of students in each course.
Load
factors: This is an area in which local academic
senates need to confer with union representatives
to ensure that loads reflect an "academic
optimum," and, in reference to class size,
that maximums and minimums reflect the nature
of the work being done from discipline to
discipline. For example, many colleges acknowledge
the work load for composition courses by reducing
faculty work load factors for those courses.
Lecture/lab
ratio: Another area for senate/union collaboration
is the determination of appropriate areas
for the support of large lecture/small lab
configurations and the variations thereon.
Curriculum
approval: Local academic senates need to establish
the principle that large classes require instructional
aides and other instructional support strategies,
and to withhold curriculum approval where
this has not been accounted for in advance.
Local academic senates and unions can collaborate
in this area as well, to negotiate appropriate
enrollment triggers that will automatically
entail the use of support mechanisms.
Productivity
goals: Almost all colleges engage in the practice
of setting so-called "productivity goals,"
which are measured in terms of Weekly Student
Contact Hours per Full Time Equivalent Faculty
(WSCH/FTEF). A productivity goal of 500, for
example, requires that an instructor teaching
15 hours per week have an average of 33.3
students present for each hour of instruction
on the roster on census day. A goal of 600
requires that 40 students be present for each
of the 15 hours. In short, higher productivity
goals require larger class sizes and attention
to first-day-to-census-day retention strategies.
Faculty need to insist that the setting of
such goals occurs only in the larger context
of an enrollment management plan (a) that
takes into account the need to offer all classes
necessary for program completion, even when
the more advanced sections will be persistently
low-enrolled, and (b) which involves clear
strategies for teaching those classes whose
content and/or instructional methodology require
smaller class sizes than the average as mandated
by the "productivity goal."
Compressed
Scheduling
Faculty
need to be sensitive to the academic implications
of various approaches to compressed scheduling
and to ensure that practices in this area are
academically sound. Some typical "compression"
techniques and the issues they raise are:
Short-term
classes: Do the subject matter and the instructional
methods fit the term, such that there is adequate
opportunity for learning to occur?
Block
scheduling: Is teaching a class in a 3-hour
block on one day a sound alternative to one
hour on each of three days, given the subject
and optimal instructional methodology?
Weekend
courses: This ultimate form of "course truncation"
requires special vigilance to ensure that
there is genuine opportunity for learning
given the subject and instructional methodology.
Open
entry/open exit classes and labs: The critical
issue here is whether staffing is adequate
to ensure that instruction and learning take
place. Is an open entry/open exit Physical
Education class, for example, truly a "class,"
or simply an effort to build FTES by offering
a low-cost alternative to a health club or
fitness center?
Effective
institutional enrollment decisions must include
the faculty perspective on the factors that influence
students’ decision to enroll and stay in college.
The current preoccupation with scheduling in accelerated,
nontraditional course patterns should not be allowed
to short circuit essential consideration of the
quality or soundness of the educational experience
for students. While courses may be offered in
condensed formats, not all subjects lend themselves
to such "anytime, anywhere" approaches. The opportunity
to fully cover material, to allow for student
development and content learning, as well as extended
time on task and student-faculty interaction are
all keys to student success. Faculty, through
their local academic senate and departments, have
a responsibility to raise and consider the appropriateness
of course delivery formats for given disciplines
and for differing student clientele. Student needs
and best interests should be the determining factors—rather
than efficiency alone.
Scheduling
of Class Hours
Times
when classes are offered can make a significant
difference in student enrollment, as well as contribute
to student success and program completion. Important
considerations here are:
Courses
should be scheduled so as to avoid conflict
with other courses in the same pattern.
High-demand
classes should be scheduled in non-prime-time,
or "off," hours.
The
various aspects of class scheduling are examples
of enrollment management decisions that can unduly
influence the curriculum, as preferences for highly
productive courses and short-term profitability
can disfigure a college’s offerings if such considerations
result in compromises to sound pedagogy. Faculty
must question and assert the right of students
to have time to learn
and synthesize knowledge. They must insist that
the Carnegie Unit be considered in the construction
of any college schedule.
Calendar
Issues
The
changes to the 175-day rule (Title 5 §§55700-55732
and §58120) have opened the door to the institution
of alternative academic calendars, which in turn
has raised issues of both access and academic
integrity:
Start
date of the semester: This should be established
as part of a matriculation plan that is coordinated
(or deliberately uncoordinated) with the schedules
of surrounding high schools and two- and four-year
colleges.
Late-start
courses: The college should schedule a percentage
of late-start basic skills classes to accommodate
students who find themselves in need of developmental
work in the first weeks of the semester, both
at the home college and/or in surrounding
insitutions.
Short
semesters and intersession courses: A calendar
with shortened semesters, which in turn allows
for a longer winter intersession, needs to
strike an appropriate academic balance, such
that more substantive classes can be offered
in intersession without damage to the content
of classes offered in the regular semester.
Class
Cancellation
This,
of course, is the area which faculty most readily
identify with "enrollment management." Faculty
need to seek to influence their college’s class
cancellation policies to be sure that they are
conducive to both access and success. Among the
issues:
Low
enrollment classes are often those needed
for program completion and should be protected
from blanket cancellation policies.
Budgeting
should be sufficiently flexible that money
from cancelled classes can be shifted to other
areas where it is needed. It might be used,
for example, to salvage a low-enrolled class
in another division that is needed for program
completion.
When
a section must be cancelled, students should
be helped to enroll in other sections that
fit within their schedules.
There
needs to be clearly defined strategies to
teach consistently low-enrolled classes.
Class
cancellation policies should be written and
clearly stated as part of a comprehensive
enrollment management plan that comprises
a rational scheduling plan, maximizing student
access and success as well as facility use.
Course
Repetition Policy
Title
5 is very clear on course repetition policy:
The
attendance of students repeating a course
for substandard work may be claimed only once
for state apportionment. (See §58161.b.3.)
The
attendance of students repeating a course
for the development of skills (such as art,
music, or physical education) may be claimed
for state apportionment for not more than
three semesters or five quarters. (See §58161.c.3.)
Faculty
should work with administration to see that the
Title 5 Regulations are strictly applied and that,
where regulations allow for exceptions, the district
has clearly written policies identifying the conditions
under which these may be granted.
Retention
Strategies
Because
state funding for community colleges is based
on FTES measured at the first census, colleges
and instructors will engage in a variety of strategies
to ensure that students, once enrolled, remain
so. These include:
Imposition
of course prerequisites.
Assessment
and placement.
Counseling.
Maintaining
a supportive class climate.
Offering
resources such as reading and writing centers
to which students can be referred for course-specific
assistance when they encounter "sticking points"
in their progress.
Persistence
Strategies
Colleges
and instructors may also engage in a number of
strategies aimed at increasing term-to-term enrollment.
These include:
Schedule
alignment, wherein sequenced courses are taught
at the same times in successive semesters.
Informing
students in an earlier class in a series of
sequenced courses about the next class in
the sequence.
Organizing
students into cohorts based on similar academic
goals (such as UC transfer) so that they might
advise and support one another as they progress.
Offering
a full complement of support services—tutoring,
mentoring, sports and career counseling, etc.—designed
to encourage and facilitate student success.
In
stressing the need for faculty vigilance regarding
the employment of enrollment management strategies,
the Academic Senate by no means intends to suggest
that faculty will necessarily be locked in a perpetual
struggle with administration. To the contrary,
the ideal envisioned by the Academic Senate is
one in which administration and faculty work as
a team to produce a plan that meets both the fiscal
needs of the institution as well as the academic
needs of the students. For this to occur, faculty
need to become more aware of the need for enrollment
management and of the techniques available to
achieve it. Department chairs scheduling for the
coming year often find themselves under pressure
from members of the department wanting to teach
their "pet schedules." For faculty to become aware
of and vigilant regarding matters of enrollment
management is for them to become aware of the
larger institutional issues involved in things
like scheduling, and is thus for them to become
more effective contributors to a plan that promotes
both fiscal and academic integrity, and student
access and success.
Colleges
must be solvent and wisely utilize the public
dollar. Enrollment management done well can be
a partnership in effective college operations
and vibrant educational offerings. Faculty must
work closely with administration to ensure that
the rationale for making decisions is indeed informed
by a commitment to the best education possible
within the limits of funding. An effective enrollment
plan is akin to a set of sustainable practices
in a given ecological community—able to sustain
operations without exhausting resources or compromising
the basic tenets of sound education.
ROLE
OF THE LOCAL ACADEMIC SENATE
It
is essential that local academic senates determine
the rationale, principles and processes for enrollment
management at their colleges. They must be included
in the research, planning, and decision-making
process. Often enrollment management is referred
to as merely an "operational" task, but as defined
above, enrollment management encompasses many
of the academic and professional areas listed
in Title 5 Regulation §53200. Indeed, policies
and processes for student success, educational
program development and program review, and curriculum
are integral components of enrollment management,
and hence are inherently academic matters for
collegial consultation. Similarly, enrollment
management is inextricably connected to educational
planning and budget development processes, and
as such must be subject for consultation with
local academic senates.
The
same rationale given for involving local academic
senates in the program discontinuance process
necessarily applies to the development of an effective
enrollment management plan. The Academic Senate
paper, Program Discontinuance:
A Faculty Perspective (April 1998), stated:
Through
an organized resolution process or the development
of a position paper, the local academic senate
needs to lead in developing a well-defined, educationally
sound program discontinuance policy that can affect
one of the most important processes for defining
the balance of a college curriculum and the future
of students’ educational pursuits.
Since
enrollment management decisions have the potential
to impact an even greater number of students than
program discontinuance, it is imperative that
local academic senates take a leading role in
clarifying the philosophy and guidelines behind
the enrollment management policies of their campuses,
as well as systemwide.
RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR DEVELOPING AND EVALUATING ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT
PLANS
The
criteria for the development and implementation
of an enrollment management process should be
at the local level, determined by the unique needs
and characteristics of a college campus and its
surrounding community. They should:
Ensure
that student access and success are of first
priority.
Utilize
qualitative data—faculty’s commitment to a
comprehensive and balanced curriculum must
be acknowledged. Innovative courses are created
when faculty recognize the need to address
their subject in a new way and when they are
supported in their efforts to improve their
programs. Student experiences and outcomes
are also important factors to consider.
Be
dedicated to ensuring the best educational
experiences possible within the context of
available resources.
Relate
to the college’s mission and goals.
Be
based upon uniform measures.
Be
based upon consistent principles and policies
applied across the curriculum.
Be
based upon trends over time, typically three
to five years.
Utilize
quantitative data–in making enrollment management
decisions, the following quantitative factors
need to be considered: consistently weak or
high enrollments, course retention rates that
are typically below expectations, term-to-term
persistence rates for student achievement,
over-enrollment and long waiting lists, limited
scheduling options, averaging student enrollment
by sections offered, and the variety of ways
to provide instruction (on-line, telecourse,
accelerated, weekend, semester length), the
match or fit between pedagogical design and
delivery modes and student profiles and learning
styles.
SUMMARY
The
mission and goals of California community colleges
are to ensure that every student, regardless of
financial and academic constraints, has access
to an education, and has the opportunity to be
successful in that endeavor. At the beginning
of the Industrial Age, education was a luxury
available primarily to the privileged upper-class.
Then, because of institutions like the California
Community College System, higher education became
an option accessible to anyone who sought specific
training or a college degree. Education is now
recognized as both a right and a necessity for
every citizen who wants to understand, enjoy and
participate in a rapidly changing world. The challenges
that California faces in the next century include
rapid growth, population diversity, economic instability,
job market shifts, and an expanded demand for
higher education from an increasingly under-prepared
student population. In the 1998 paper, The
Challenge of the Century, The CPEC asserts
that "we are not prisoners of that context," as
long as we make choices about how to address those
challenges, " … including the relative importance
(assigned) to developing policies, programs, and
practices that promote equitable opportunities
for all our students in order that they can prepare,
pursue, and succeed in postsecondary education."
As
the acknowledged leaders in the academic environment,
faculty have the obligation to raise their collective
voice when enrollment management decisions are
made regarding the accessibility of a comprehensive
college program that serves all of California’s
citizens.
GLOSSARY
OF ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT KEY TERMS
To
be more proactive and effective in consultation,
faculty must learn the vocabulary and understand
the concepts that drive enrollment management
in times of scarcity and abundance.
ADA ADA
= Average Daily Attendance
This formula for calculating state funding
was replaced by FTES. ADA is no longer a relevant term
for community college funding.
Census
Census = the date enrollment is established
in a class for funding purposes. Census is the
Monday
closest to the point at which 20% of the class
has been completed (Title 5 §58003.1.b). For the
primary
terms, this date is typically the Monday of the
fourth week of a semester based on 20% of 17.5
weeks =
3.5 weeks rounded to four weeks); the number of
students enrolled in a class on that date is the
enrollment number used in the funding formula.
For short term classes, the census date is calculated
individually for each short term pattern.
FTE
FTE = full-time equivalent
This
is used to refer to:
full-time
equivalent faculty, which should more clearly
be abbreviated as FTEF and/or to full-time
faculty load, e.g., a 3-hour lecture class
is listed as .20 FTE or 20% of a 100% load.
FTES
FTES = full-time equivalent students
For
state accounting purposes, a full-time student
who attends 15 hours per week for 35 weeks
(two primary terms). The rule is: 15 hours
x 35 weeks = 525 total WSCH = 1 FTES
Another
common look at FTES on a semester basis
is the number of students enrolled times
the hours per week for 17.5 weeks divided
by 525: 10 students x three hours per week
x 17.5 weeks = 525. 525 divided by 525 =
1 FTES
There
are four specific formulas for FTES depending
on the characteristics of the course and
scheduling pattern: (1) weekly (semester
length), (2) daily (short term), (3) actual
hours (also called positive attendance),
or (4) independent study, work experience,
distance learning methods. The amount of
money paid by the state for each FTES will
differ among Districts.
Primary
Term The fall and spring semesters
are primary terms.
The
terms are between 16 to 18 weeks long including
both instructional and flex days. Courses within
this average 17.5 week period may meet for the
full 17.5 weeks (semester length courses; FTES
calculated by weekly attendance accounting formula)
or may meet for fewer that the full 17.5 weeks
(see short term courses below). Summer is an intersession,
not a primary term.
Short
Term Short term courses meet for less than
the 17.5 weeks of a primary term. These courses
may be scheduled within the primary term period
(e.g., 6-week or 12-week classes) or during an
intersession (e.g., summer). Funding for short-term
classes may be calculated either by the daily
attendance accounting method or by actual hours
attendance accounting method.
WSCH WSCH
= weekly student contact hours
As
a generalization, the formulas for state funding
are a function of weekly student contact hours
(the amount of time faculty and students interact).
This is simply a count of the number of scheduled
hours per week students meet with faculty. This
provides an estimate of the funding to be allocated
during the coming year. However, if a college
schedules a significant number of non-traditional
classes, e.g., 12-week classes, one-day seminars,
etc., an estimate based on WSCH will be a less
accurate estimate.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Academic
Senate for California Community Colleges, "Program
Discontinuance: A Faculty Perspective,"
Position Paper, adopted April 1998.
Academic
Senate for California Community Colleges, "Program
Review: Developing a Faculty Driven Process,"
Position Paper, adopted April 1996.
Academic
Senate for California Community Colleges, "The
Future of the Community College: A Faculty Perspective,"
Position Paper, adopted November 1998.
California
Postsecondary Education Commission, "Toward a
Greater Understanding of the State’s Educational
Equity Policies, Programs, and Practices: The
College Experience," Higher
Education Update, February 1998.
California
Postsecondary Education Commission, "Toward a
Greater Understanding of the State’s Educational
Equity Policies, Programs, and Practices: The
Commission’s Recommendations," Higher
Education Update, June 1998.
California
Postsecondary Education Commission, "The Challenge
of the Century," March 1998.
Chancellor’s
Office of the California Community Colleges, "Important
Historical Data, Trends, and Analysis Relevant
to Full-Time/Part-Time Issues—A Working Paper,"
January 1999.
Community
College League of California, "A Guide to Enrollment
Growth Management in the California Community
Colleges: A ‘How to Do It’ Guide," Commission
on Education Policy Task Force on Enrollment Growth
Management, August 1992.
Dolence,
Michael G., A Primer for Campus
Administrators, American Association of
Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers,
1993, Revised 1996.
McFarland,
John,"Speed-Freaking
in Higher Education," FAACTS:
Journal of the Faculty Association of California
Community Colleges, December 1998.
