Faculty Council Engages with Dallas College Officials to Address Enrollment and Engagement Concerns, Right-Sizing the Spring 2021 Schedule, Full-Time Faculty Priority

The subject of Spring 2021 semester schedule “right-sizing,” enrollment projections, and canceling or blinding Spring sections, has understandably concerned many faculty in recent weeks.

What We Have Learned from Our Students

Provost Shawnda Floyd’s Nov.11 Faculty Update message and Nov. 17 Faculty Update message both explained that Fall 2020 enrollment had fallen significantly. This information built upon what Chancellor May and Vice Chancellor of Student Success Beatriz Joseph shared with the Board of Trustees Education Workforce Committee on Nov. 10 regarding enrollment patterns and what had been learned from both students who were continuing their studies, as well as those who chose to pause their studies.

In brief, the communities (identified by zip codes) where Dallas College saw the largest enrollment declines, were the same communities with the highest rates and concentrations of poverty, the highest rates of COVID infection, and the highest rates of individuals employed in the service sectors hardest hit by COVID. Moreover, these same communities have the highest concentrations of students who require developmental studies (DMAT and DIRW) and ESOL, and the lowest penetration of access to technology hardware (personal computers, tablets, etc.) and reliable high-speed internet access that are required successfully to complete online courses. Consequently, many of these students reported that they could not learn, or did not believe they could lean, unless they could do so in a face-to-face classroom environment.

Consequently, while enrollment overall has declined – a trend that has affected almost all community colleges throughout the United States (subscription required to read the linked article) – Dallas College has seen the sharpest enrollment declines in Developmental studies, specifically Developmental English, Developmental Math, and ESOL.

Right-Sizing the Spring 2021 Schedule

As a result, the disciplines and faculty most affected by the effort to “right-size” the Spring 2021 schedule, are English/Developmental English, Math/Developmental Math, and ESOL.

Based on enrollment projections developed by the new Office of Schedule Management, numerous sections of courses already built into the Spring 2021 schedule have been “blinded” or “suppressed.” Location-based discipline and program coordinators and deans in the past have used this very tactic to drive enrollment into the remaining open sections until they fill, and then the blinded/suppressed sections are opened in small batches. This tactic has been shown to ensure that fewer sections will have to be canceled due to low enrollment just days or hours before the semester begins.

The Faculty Council shared its concerns with how this information and decisions have been communicated broadly, when it met with the Vice Provosts and Nicole Mabine, Director of Academic Scheduling, on Tuesday, November 17. During this meeting, the Faculty Council also argued for full-time faculty to be prioritized in all scheduling decisions. Specifically, the Faculty Council argues that the order of priority should be:

·       Full-time faculty to make contractual load

·       Full-time faculty for up to the maximum extra service, distributed equitably across all faculty in the discipline/program who desire extra service across all campuses

·       High-performing adjunct faculty

Director Mabine shared that she agreed with the prioritization of full-time faculty, but acknowledged that the vice provosts and deans in the seven Schools were empowered to make decisions about which faculty would teach given sections. The vice provosts said they agreed with prioritizing full-time faculty for load, but some vice provosts said they preferred to balance full-time faculty extra service with high-performing adjuncts. Some vice provosts said that it was exceedingly difficult to find and retain high-performing adjuncts in many of the disciplines and programs in their schools. The Faculty Council replied that if we truly want to retain the high-performing adjuncts, that we should find ways to hire them as full-time faculty.

Faculty Ideas to Improve Enrollment and Engagement

Given that enrollment and engagement are something for which we all take responsibility, the Faculty Council also conducted a survey of Dallas College Faculty, to collect ideas for how to address student concerns and reverse the enrollment decline through meeting student needs and engaging them in the remote learning environment. The results of that survey have been posted to SharePoint and are available for allfaculty to review at this link. These results – which include all ideas directly submitted by 249 faculty respondents through the survey – also have been shared with Provost Floyd today, Thursday, Nov. 19. The Faculty Council thanks all the faculty who participated and contributed their ideas via the survey.