When it comes to cutting classes from future catalogues, administrators are now forced to choose between classes that have high enrollment or are essential for certificates and degrees. Or, as Ben Affleck’s character said in “Argo,” “the best of bad choices.”
Proposition 30 will save Southwestern College from drowning, administrators have said, but the institution is still treading water. SWC faculty must come to an agreement on what class sections to keep and what to trim.
Kathy Tyner, vice president of academic affairs, said she hopes this method maintains class viability.
“Scheduling is an art and a science,” she said. “It’s kind of like if you were going to invest in the stock market. Unless you have a crystal ball, you really don’t know what is going to happen.”
Tyner said deciding which courses to offer is becoming increasingly difficult as funding shrinks and enrollment swells.
“How we set up the schedule depends on how much revenue the state is going to provide for us to pay for classes,” she said. “The state has informed us last year that they were going to reduce the amount they paid us by 5.6 percent.”
With more than 320 associate degree and certificate options offered at SWC, Tyner said the task of deciding if a section is more important than another is daunting.
“All you can do is, with the best thought possible, lay out your plan,” she said. “It may not work the way you want it to, but I won’t necessarily call it a backfire. I think it’s a learning experience.”
Dinorah Guadiana-Costa, chair of world languages, said the main campus and the Higher Education Centers need to work together to provide a full range of classes for students.
“Unfortunately, we have not had much dialogue in terms of what classes would be best to be offered here (main campus) versus there (HECs),” she said. “I think that since the students are who we serve we need to make sure, especially during times of (budget) cuts, we coordinate our efforts so that if we are not able to offer some classes here that are full yet we needed to cut them because of budget that they possibly be the ones offered there.”
English, math and science sections have been identified as high priority, said Guadiana-Costa. Transfer has moved to the forefront of the discussion. This may mean more rudimentary skill sections in reading and English compared to foreign language or creative and performing arts, she said.
Sections with high priority are also feeling the pinch. Randy Beach, professor of English, said he sees courses in his department rapidly disappearing.
“In spring 2012, here on the main campus, the English department offered 174 sections,” he said. “In spring 2013 it will be 117 courses.”
SWC’s world languages department has been dealt a huge blow when it comes to course cuts, according to Guadiana-Costa. American Sign Language and Chinese courses have been completely dropped from the main campus and will only be offered at the HECs. Portuguese, Filipino and Japanese have been reduced to one introductory course each for spring 2013.
Guadiana-Costa said she is worried about students’ transfer.
“We sliced and diced our remaining world language programs,” she said. “We have, in fact, already taken away approximately 30 percent of our students’ opportunities to get a career, to earn an associate degree, and to transfer. Since many of these students are at-risk, I’m certain many from that vulnerable group will not return to college.”
Students nearing transfer may have problems completing the final steps of their education at SWC, Guadiana-Costa said. Advanced courses often have lower enrollment than introductory classes, but they are critical transfer students. Tyner agreed, and said the college is mindful of that fact.
“It is not uncommon for that third capstone course to be a lower enrolled class, nothing you can do is going to change that,” she said. “There’s some lack of persistence of students as they move from one to the next and it could be for a variety of reasons. That’s kind of the natural thing that happens.”