With a variety of measures and changes in place to accommodate pandemic concerns, fall classes are underway at Glen Oaks Community College.
At a meeting of the college’s Board of Trustees on Thursday, Vice President of Student Services Tonya Howden said enrollment is down but is “not as dire as last month.” At 958 students, enrollment is down 12 percent from the same time last year. Since Career and Technical Education (CTE) students are “not in the system yet,” Howden said the college “will see a little bit of a bump there.” Howden is reaching out to students facing financial aid and testing delays to help enrollments catch up.
Students in the college’s high school programs account for the biggest drop in enrollment, President David Devier said. Enrollment is close to where it was last fall with post-high school students, he said. With the current economy, Devier said, “we would have seen a jump, but we haven’t. We’ve seen a decline.”
Pandemic impacts on logistics have affected a dual-enrollment high school initiative that drove high school attendance at the college in the past. However, Devier said there has been caution around putting high school classes online due to experience during the spring in which “there were students who fell off, partly due to technology, and partly where they just didn’t do the work.”
Howden said late-start courses also don’t work as well for high-school students. However, Director of Institutional Innovation Rob Kuhlman said he is working on Letters of Understanding with two more high schools in Quincy and Cassopolis, which he hopes will bring additional enrollment. As pandemic issues are worked out over the fall, Devier said, “I think by winter we’ll be back where we were.”
Vice President of Academics Dr. Michael Goldin commended staff and faculty at the college for their work and assistance in planning for reopening.
“The plan was to retain enough face-to-face” instruction to avoid internet access issues as much as possible “while reducing the number of students on campus on any given day” through measures like additional typewritten courses, Goldin said. CTE courses require the most face-to-face interaction, as do laboratory classes.
Non-CTE courses and those which earn college credit include 163 class section time slots. Of those, 40 percent are face-to-face, 29 percent are hybrid in-person and online, 28 percent are online, and three percent are synchronous remote classes using Zoom or other conferencing platforms. Classes with traditionally large enrollment have moved into larger spaces, in some cases converted from other uses, like an art studio whose space will fit 30 students spaced at six feet apart in all directions, or a space normally used as an auditorium.
Goldin said despite reduced classroom capacity, not too many students have been turned away from course enrollment. Late-start courses have been added to accommodate students whose enrollments have been delayed by a variety of pandemic-related factors. “We have reached capacity in a number of sections of more popular classes,” Goldin said. The college is also providing mobile internet hotspots at various locations for high school and post-high school students.
Director of Business Outreach Services Paul Aivars said he is working with Morgan Olson, a manufacturer of walk-in delivery vans with a plant in Sturgis, to develop the company’s orientation program for new employees. Aivars recently visited another of the company’s orientation programs in Danville, Virginia, and has been working to prepare facilities at Glen Oaks. Once underway, that program will also boost enrollment numbers.
New and Revised Policies Approved
At Thursday’s meeting, the college adopted a Force Majeure policy and updated its Student Code of Conduct Policy with new revisions in response to changes in federal discrimination law.
Force Majeure is French for “superior force,” and is sometimes also called an “act of God” in legal documents. A Force Majeure policy relieves two parties from obligations under a contract when a situation or event beyond their control affects their ability to carry out the terms. The new policy makes Force Majeure clauses standard in the college’s contracts and agreements, and came about in response to the current global pandemic.
The Student Code of Conduct Policy changes came in response to revisions to Title IX, a Federal law which reads, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
The new rules change how complaints and discrimination cases can be handled by educational institutions like Glen Oaks Community College. Howden said sexual harassment is now an umbrella term, with its definition narrowed. At its August meeting, the board adopted a new Sex/Gender-Based Harassment, Discrimination and Misconduct Policy that is compliant with the new Title IX rules and definitions.
However, some eventualities that previously fell under Title IX rules are no longer covered by the new rules. Therefore, Howden said, investigation of those circumstances would have to be covered instead by the college’s own conduct policy. The conduct policy rules permit investigation of cases of harassing comments that might be sexual or discriminatory in nature but that don’t rise to the level of Tile IX. The rules also permit investigation of student conduct that occurs outside the on-campus jurisdiction as defined by Title IX.
CARES Act Work Under Consideration for Federal Approval
Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services Bruce Zakrzewski said he is working to have an expenditure of funds under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act approved by the Federal government. The proposed expenditure came after a state appropriation was taken away and replaced with the CARES money instead. There are restrictions in place governing what the money can be spent on, and final approval must occur before expenditures can take place.
The money must be spent on COVID-related items, so Zakrzewski said a Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems project appeared to be a good fit, since certain air quality, circulation and filtration measures are highly recommended by agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for controlling the pandemic. Zakrzewski said the Federal guidance on how to spend the funds has been minimal, but “we use it or we’ve got to send it back.”
“This is a project we were going to do all along,” Zakrzewski said, and if the CARES Act funds are not approved for the project, it will still proceed using the college’s own funds. However, if the expenditure is approved, it will also cover other equipment directly related to the pandemic, such as a fogging machine for disinfecting rooms. Equipment like room air purifiers could also qualify, but Zarzewski said such equipment is difficult to purchase right now due to high demand.
Zakrzewski said he is “reasonably confident” that with the documentation he has submitted through intermediaries at the state, the proposed use of the funds will be accepted. He said the project has been under consideration for some time, since it is a vital project. He said existing HVAC units are decades old, with some still operating on long-outdated Disk Operating Systems (DOS) once common during the 1970s and 1980s.
20 Professors Receive Emeritus Status
Devier said several Board of Trustees members who had served for significant lengths of time and had not been recognized formally for their service recently received emeritus status. He said he engaged with faculty to consider conferring the same status to them, in consideration of some cases where professors had served for 30 or more years and had not yet been recognized.
“In the academy, emeritus status is considered to be an honor,” Devier said. “It’s a tough honor to get. It doesn’t come from just sitting in a chair for 30 years.” He said it “put it on the faculty to look at persons who have not been honored and right a wrong” through emeritus recognition. Following a documented review process that considered years of service, a letter of recommendation from a colleague, and other factors, faculty developed a list of names. They included:
- Phyllis Cupp – Physical Education
- Judy DeMink – Spanish
- Susan Deter – Math
- William Furr – Business
- Kevin Gave – English/Communication
- Larry Hass – Business/Accounting
- Charlie Hayes – Automotive
- Dr. Frank Janca – Science
- Denise Martin – Data Processing/Computers
- Ron Miazga (D) – English/Photography
- Wayne Moss – Science
- Susan Reardon – Psychology
- Ellen Stuckey – Information Processing
- Robert Wathen (D) – History
The board approved their recognition Thursday. Board Chair Bruce Gosling said he didn’t “remember the last time we awarded emeritus status,” and Devier said it was unusual for a group approval to occur, but several board members said they felt it was the right thing to do.
Dave Vago is a writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.
