Spring semester registration is here once again, and the administration is working to expand on-ground classes and services hoping that the worst of the pandemic is in the past.
With enrollment down since the onset of the pandemic, Cosumnes River College is adapting by balancing demand to return to campus with staff and student safety.
”We think we’ll have about 50% on ground, but that number is going to keep changing right? So, it’s really going to depend on the needs of students,” Associate Vice President of Student Services Tadael Emiru said. “We’re going to let demand drive that in terms of the exact percentage of courses that are going to be offered on ground as opposed to online.”
Emiru also emphasized that the college would do its best to meet students where they were in terms of comfort with coming on campus.
“You know, there are going to be some students who are going to continue to be fully online and we’re prepared to serve those students. For example, in student services, we have almost every service that’s available in person is also available online,” Emiru said. “We feel confident that we’re going to be able to meet the needs of students in whatever modality they choose.”
Communications and Public Information Officer Kristie West said district wide enrollment is down by 15%.
“CRC is down approximately 6% since Fall 2020, we did see a decline in enrollment since we went online only at the start of the pandemic in March of 2020,” West said. “Students withdrew at the start of the pandemic because they either decided they didn’t want to take online classes or because they were in a program that was impossible to convert to an online format.”
When asked how the lower enrollment would impact budgets and services compared to the great recession, Emiru spoke about CRC’s proactive approach to recruitment and retention of new students.
“We’re committed to continue to provide services for students that we are providing proactive services,” Emiru said. “ I think we have a lot more hands-on support being provided to students compared to where we were 10 years ago, and we’re experiencing a huge enrollment coming from new students.”
West also spoke about the goal that increasing on campus classes would close the gap in enrollment.
“We hope so, especially with the programs that we had to shut down because they were not able to be converted to online,” West said. “Construction and automotive classes come to mind. We hope that offering these classes again will bring those students back.”
With a county wide rate of 67.1% partially or fully vaccinated as of Dec. 7, according to the Covidactnow.org tracker for Sacramento County. Cosumnes River College Nurse Michelle Barkley said that the campus vaccination and waiver rate is near 73%.
Barkley emphasized the need to remain socially distant as we return to campus to prevent transmission as well as remaining vigilant about variants.
“For the spring, it does concern me that if we do have more in-person classes, people aren’t distanced enough,” Barkley said. “Who knows what Omicron is going to do? Delta wasn’t nice this past fall and like I said, being vaccinated doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get it, it just means that your symptoms aren’t going to be as severe.”
Emiru is optimistic about the increased population on campus citing how well the college did with COVID over the fall.
“We have measures in place that we feel very comfortable with. In fact, in terms of COVID cases this semester, we really haven’t had an experience, we thought we we’re going to have when the semester first started,” Emiru said. “I think a lot of the credit goes to all the effort that was put in place by our district, in our own employees.”