The school year begins at Moorpark College in 09 with the need for class cuts and consolidation.
At least eight percent of the overall classes have been cut already with that number possibly climbing to 10 percent next semester, according to Vice President of Business Services Ray Di Guilio, which has been both the result of an 18 percent increase in enrollment from last semester as well as the current economic climate and budget concerns.
“There is almost no publicly funded agency that isn’t being affected like we are, and quite honestly, like individual people and businesses everywhere,” said Di Guilio. “Everybody is experiencing a real unknown future in relationship to available resources.”
More students’ means classes with low attendance need to be consolidated with others to improve efficiency, according to Brenda Shubert, executive vice president of Student Learning.
“We will not be cancelling classes that are required for program completion,” said Shubert. “We don’t want to do anything that would interrupt a students progress through the curriculum.”
Instead a class may be offered once a year as opposed to twice, as well as the possibility of instituting more online classes.
Also concerning enrollment is the issue of the college reaching its attendance cap, which means that any more students taken on will be taught without compensation by the district, known as an FTE.
The college currently has 2 thousand FTE’s, and with each one costing around $450, measures are going to have to be taken to improve efficiency, according to Moorpark College President Pam Eddinger.
“The mission of the college is to not always make money or break even,” said Eddinger. “Those 2 thousand FTE’s we’ve gained because we have been efficient. But there is only so much unfunded FTE a college can stand, our district can stand, without everything going upside down.”
Eddinger is also working with sister colleges Ventura and Oxnard, with the hope being that students can take a class at one of the other campuses if it is not offered that semester at Moorpark.
Measures planned to improve efficiently not directly linked to classes include the possibility of closing down the college during the summer on Fridays and the weekend as well as having less maintenance on campus.
