Search

Help Strengthen Enrollment. Submit Your Ideas Today!

  • 2 Comments

By Dr. Ric Baser
President, Northwest Vista College

Thank you for your enthusiasm and flexibility in our return to your work areas and classrooms this fall semester. I appreciate your grace throughout this bumpy road. As we enter this recovery phase, we need to ensure that we engage with our students and community to remind them that NVC is here to serve.

As you can see from the table below, our enrollment has decreased. The Cabinet Leaders Council and teams across the college have been engaged in countless conversations regarding enrollment. There is also outstanding work currently underway on the long-term Strategic Enrollment Planning and Management (SEM) process. There is a college-wide SEM Zoom gathering Oct. 15 from 9 am-10:30 am. Please make every effort to attend.

You may be wondering “What can I or my team do to help enrollment?” I am reaching out to you to gather every idea to strengthen enrollment for Flex II, which starts Oct. 18, and NVC’s future enrollment growth.

In order to strengthen our enrollment initiatives, it is imperative that everyone contributes to this process. Please let me know what you and your team are doing to help boost NVC enrollment. Record your feedback at this link: Enrollment Boost Ideas.

 

Registered Students 

Date NLC NVC PAC SAC SPC
9/20/2020 6,752 18,500 11,006 18,924 12,992
9/20/2021 6,637 16,311 10,499 17,405 12,541
Difference -115 -2,189 -507 -1,519 -451

 

Paid Enrollment

Date NLC NVC PAC SAC SPC
9/20/2020 6,159 17,174 10,106 16,892 11,958
9/20/2021 6,177 15,315 9,705 15,878 11,828
Difference 18 -1,859 -401 -1,014 -130

 

 

2 Comments

  1. Richard Chamblin

    Reply

    1) Don’t wait until the last minute to make decisions about the semester, I know it’s hard to predict the future with COVID, but be pro-active, not re-active. Make a plan and stick to it, but make that plan have some fluidity (make more face-to-face classes with the caveat that they may have to be changed to a hybrid or entirely online course depending on unforseen circumstances). Don’t put your feet in cement with only online and only remote, because you can’t change them to face-to-face down the line (that really messes with students).
    2) Use data to decide what courses to offer (those that fill first and filled all sections should have Flex II courses added or more sections added for the subsequent semester, EVEN IF you have to pay overloads to faculty that historically fill sections quickly – stop worrying about “overpaying” your faculty when you’re 2000 students down – at adjunct pay we don’t cost that much and chose the facutly you think can handle the 28-30 hours a semester load.
    3) Keep surveying students to assess their “current” trends in wanting face-to-face or online courses as the COVID crisis slowly winds down, even with the Delta strain threat. Make sure you ask the right questions on the survey so your data is meaningful. For instance: “Are you willing to return to campus if the only empty spot was in a face-to-face section?” vs “Would you chose another campus if they offered the same course in an online or remote environment?”
    4) Ask the faculty to teach the courses the dept. needs, not the ones they want to teach, we aren’t in that “MODE” right now, we are in survival (enrollment) mode. Faculty will always do what is best for the students, we always have.
    5) Go back and look at the students that are leaving NVC for other campuses and offer the courses they are seeking elsewhere (whether online or not) – we can’t lose our base students to other campuses just because THEY are offering the right type of courses instead of us.

    We will obviously and naturally have more online courses after all this mess is over, but simply find out what students want and offer it.

    Finally, I know we all want to err on the side of caution, but there will never be “0” risk, never. Eventually, like with all diseases, we’ll need to learn to live with this virus as we have with other viruses, bacteria, funguses, etc. Trend that way when you can.

    Thank you for your hard work, all of you. You may have already thought of all these suggestions and the reality may be that some of these suggestions don’t work under the guise of the District, Safety, and so many other factors.

  2. Pingback: Strategic Enrollment Meeting Oct. 15 – My LaRevista

Leave Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram Linkedin

Copyright © 2022 Northwest Vista College - My La Revista