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ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT MELT DOWN

Faculty, students push back against steep cuts in classes, winter and summer intersessions

Photo Courtesy of Pexels

By Alexa Lima

Senior administrators promised to pivot away from a controversial plan that would have eliminated winter and summer intersession classes and deeply cut spring 2025 offerings, but faculty continue to express anger that class selections remain in flux and what they describe as a lack of transparency in the process.

President Dr. Mark Sanchez, Vice President of Academic Affairs Sam Agdasi and interim Vice President of Fiscal Services Omar Gutierrez endured withering questioning from faculty and a student about what faculty described as “a crisis” during a contentious town hall meeting organized by Agdasi.

Faculty and many of the deans blamed the situation on overspending Southwestern’s state allotment for funding classes during the fall 2024 semester, leaving the college short of cash to staff intersessions and spring classes. Sanchez said the problem is that “Southwestern has outgrown its state FTES allotment (funding for classes based on enrollment).” He also blamed the failure to reestablish the college Enrollment Management Committee, a group comprised of faculty and administrators that advises on the formation and staffing of classes. The committee was dissolved during the pandemic and not reconstituted.

BLAMING THE FACULTY

Professor of Communication Eric Maag was not having it. He criticized Sanchez for blaming the situation on events that happened prior to his hiring in 2022 and not paying attention to one of the college’s most important administrative functions.

“Dr. Sanchez, your acknowledgment that this was based on a mistake, that this happened previously,” said Maag. “This was enrollment mismanagement and we’re dealing with the consequences of that. We haven’t really gotten into how or why, and I know it’s much deeper than a defunct Enrollment Management Committee. That is not the group responsible for this.”

Faculty union president Candice Taffolla-Schreiber, a professor of communication, said she was upset that faculty and deans are being blamed by Agdasi for the chaos and the poor communication surrounding the controversy. Maag agreed.

“I think the thing that I am most disturbed about is the continual assessment that communication is supposed to flow downhill and once it hits the bottom (the faculty) it is supposed to be announced far and wide. The problem with that, as Candice said, is that it is not her job or the faculty leader’s job to send global emails to make sure everyone knows the problems we’re in (with enrollment management) and what’s happening.”

For more than an hour faculty spoke in person or over Zoom about the damage the cutbacks would have on students and adjunct instructors who were suddenly having classes pulled away. They also castigated administration for not heeding early faculty warning about fraudulent bots gobbling up spaces in classes and squeezing out students. Bots are computer generated “robots” used to steal federal FAFSA by signing up fake students and using stolen social security numbers to apply for financial aid money. Faculty claim that as many as 5,000 “inauthentic students” were counted in the announced fall enrollment of about 22,000. Administrators have said the number was just over 400.

Political science professor Phil Sainz has spent months trying to draw attention to the bots issue.

“We have a serious situation with bots and false enrollment,” he said. “I haven’t really heard what’s the game plan moving forward because this last semester was a disaster and it definitely impacts enrollment. We have fake students taking away real students’ opportunities.”

TRICKLE DOWN INCLUSIVITY

Agdasi defended his trickle down communication strategies as “inclusive.”

“My intent was to bring more voice of the faculty and faculty leaders as the representative of the faculty into this process,” he said. “This is why I invited them…I wanted to see your faces, those who are here…I am not avoiding sending an email. I want it to be very transparent, that’s what I am offering.”

Southwestern, like other California community colleges, receives funding based on an enrollment formula. One Full-Time Equivalent Student is based on the statistical full-time student taking 15 units. Body count and the actual number of units students take during a semester are tabulated and divided by 15. For example, a student taking nine units and a student taking six equal one Full-Time Equivalent Student under the formula. Southwestern’s FTES for the year 2023-2024 was 15,658.

Agdasi said his plan was to release 93 percent of the intersession and spring class sections, a total of 2,167 sections and hold 156 (7 percent) for Spring 2025. He said cutting classes in summer would have less issues and it would be easier to add classes in the fall semester than to cut. Faculty argue that the college should not cut intersessions and should release all possible spring classes as they schedule is already cut by FTES issues.

WE ARE HUMANS

Journalism major Dira Wong said she was distressed by the conversations because they treated students like data and assembly line productions rather than young people working to earn certificates and degrees.

“I rely on winter intersessions and summer classes (to make progress toward my degree) because I have two jobs,” she said. “So I don’t have time to be in classes for eight-nine hours a day. I have to go to classes in the summer and the winter.”

Wong said she was not happy about the way administrators were talking about students as data points.

“From what I am hearing there is a lot of data, a lot of numbers, there are so many statistics up on that board,” she said. “But students aren’t statistics, we’re humans. We are doing our best and coming here every day and hearing that our classes are being cut is so…angering.”

Wong’s comments drew lengthy applause and praise from subsequent speakers, including business professor Elisabeth Shapiro.

“Those are very powerful words from a student, and we really need to keep their perspective in mind,” she said. “Many of our students schedule their lives to pursue their educational goals during the summer just like this student stated. They work and that’s very important to them.”

Shapiro said the college has made this mistake before and paid a price both financially and with lost enrollment.

“When the summer session is cut too severely, as we found out in the past, some of the students will go elsewhere to pursue what they need and some of those students will complete their programs elsewhere, which costs us within the student-centered formula funding,” she said. “That is what happened in the summer of 2012. Within 18-24 months we were spending considerable money advertising to bring in more students who presumably had gone to other (colleges) due to our anemic summer schedule. That’s not a very efficient use of funds to have this herky-jerky semesters, cut it and then spend money later bring students back.”

Diane Palmer, chair of philosophy and humanities, said she came to the meeting to hear some accountability from the college president and vice presidents.

“Faculty and staff have spent countless hours (on enrollment management issues), including this meeting,” she said. We have devoted time and energy trying to fix a problem we are not responsible for. I am hearing no accountability from leadership.”

Sanchez responded by reminding listeners that the enrollment management committee was defunct and that Southwestern had “significantly outgrown” FTES funding from the state.

“Yes, you can blame the president,” he said. “But we’re all trying to make these decisions that are in the best interest of our district.”

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