Almost 60 classes canceled in fall term

By  roguebyline
Oct 18 2012

By Jaymie Allen

Byline Staff Writer

Rogue Community College canceled 58 classes at the start of fall term because the minimum number of students didn’t sign up in those sections.

One student who had to deal with a cancellation is MaKenzie Rodriguez. She said it came as a surprise on the second day of term when her water color class was pulled. She said she had to scramble to find a three-credit substitute.

Another student whose class was canceled is Christina Darland. She said she found out in a week’s advance that her yoga class was canceled, so she had time to find a different class.

According to Kirk Gibson, vice president of instruction at RCC, the administration will sometimes wait till after the term starts to cancel a class.

He said administration attempts to keep a class if enrollment is more than 12.

But exceptions are also made. One example of a class being kept with less than 12 enrolled is when students need that particular course in order to graduate.  Another example is when a course is just being started up at the college.

“There’s only so much money, so we try to get the biggest bang for our buck,” Gibson said.

Gibson said last fall the college had 41 cancellations. He said enrollment is down by 5 percent this fall, so the increase in cancellations makes sense.

He said administration also works on predictions of what the enrollment of a class will look like in advance.

“The history of how classes have done in the past, looking at what classes have waitlists, and talking to departments, like the counseling center, to see which classes students are interested in,” Gibson said in response to a question about what goes into the predictions.

Short URL: http://roguebyline.com/?p=2505

Posted by roguebyline on Oct 18 2012. Filed under RCC News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry