With enrollment down 29%, San Francisco North Bay community colleges ramp up course, degree options

Local community college enrollment drops

The pandemic’s impact on California’s community colleges has resulted in enrollment drops, including in the North Bay.

The following percentages between fall 2019 and fall 2020 are measured by headcount.

Santa Rosa Junior College: down 21.4%

Napa Valley College: down 27.7%

College of Marin: down 30.3%

Mendocino Community College: down 37.5%

Source: EdSource.org

After pandemic-driven enrollment drops over more than a year, the state’s community colleges are ramping back up as California continues to reopen, boosted by over $100 million in stimulus aid as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $7.6 billion stimulus package that he signed in February.

Like the rest of the state, the North Bay has seen a decline in enrollment in its community colleges. Between fall 2019 and fall 2020, average enrollment dropped by 29.2% at four colleges — Santa Rosa Junior College, Napa Valley College, College of Marin and Mendocino Community College, according to Oakland-based EdSource, a not-for-profit information, research and analysis organization.

To recover, colleges are increasing marketing efforts, adding new courses and degrees, and offering students a variety of in-person, online or hybrid courses.

Santa Rosa Junior College

All the community colleges in the North Bay suffered under shelter-in-place orders, especially in enrollments for hands-on courses, such as welding, automotive, medical and culinary.

At Santa Rosa Junior College, Dr. Pedro Avilla, vice president, student services, said of its 21.4% drop in enrollment — the smallest drop among the four community colleges profiled in this story — about 15% of the decline came in those types of courses.

Other factors for lowered enrollment at SRJC include students who worked in the hospitality industry and lost their jobs because they could no longer afford college, as well as the difficulty for some students to comfortably transition to studying in an online-only environment, said Frank Chong, president of SRJC.

Throughout the pandemic, however, SRJC has continued to offer at least 200 live classes for professions that are considered essential, including police, fire and EMTs, nursing, dental and radiology, Chong said. And there have continued to be graduating classes.

“As the fall approaches, we will be opening even more live classes, and we are very excited about gradually reopening our campus,” Chong said. Online classes, which he said were most popular pre-pandemic, will continue along with hybrid courses, where lectures are given online and experiential work conducted in person.

SRJC also got a publicity boost in the spring when Derek Corsino, adjunct faculty member in the culinary arts, appeared on the Food Network’s Spring Baking Championship, said Benjamin Goldstein, dean, agriculture, natural resources and culinary arts.

“And several of our other faculty have published pretty major cookbooks,” Goldstein said. “So our faculty really are at the vanguard of the culinary industry, and it's great for them to bring that knowledge and skill back to the classroom for our students.”

Napa Valley College

Napa Valley College plans to expand its hospitality, culinary and tourism management programs in fall of 2022 to offer an associate of arts degree in culinary arts.

Elena Sirignano, program coordinator and chef, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. She also helped open the French Laundry after Thomas Keller took it over in 1994.

The last year has been tough, she said.

“We still had students that wanted to take courses, but we had to cap classes at six people to keep them socially distanced in the design of the kitchen,” she said. "I've had students that were gung ho-headed and then dropped away, (saying) ‘I can't handle this. I can't do this. This is just too mind-blowing’ and they just vanished.”

The students currently in the program have remained employed, and there will be more opportunities going forward as the program expands.

“I’ve got students who are working in the field and want to upgrade themselves to management-level positions,” Sirignano said. “And I have people that are in second and third careers” who want to fill their bucket list. She also taught a successful restauranteur who wanted to pursue a culinary arts program.

Dr. Sara Parker, assistant superintendent/vice president, academic affairs, said the fall schedule will be out this week and NVC will be offering slightly more than 30% of its total courses on campus.

“We are committed to increasing our number of in-person offerings,” Parker said, “but still working from the existing guidance on higher education, which has pretty strict capacity limits.”

Parker said the challenges over the last year also have resulted in opportunities. The college about three weeks ago held a virtual job fair that she said was “extremely well attended.”

“Sometimes these online virtual experiences open up the ability for new people to participate that wouldn’t otherwise have been able to if they had to travel or the timing didn't quite work for them,” she said. “I think that that's actually something kind of cool that's come out of this experience of the last year.”

The college also has increased its marketing outreach, focused around digital and social media, said Holly Dawson, director, public affairs and communications. That work includes creating a number of student success stories and profiles, which so far have been effective, she said.

College of Marin

Most summer-term courses at the College of Marin will be offered exclusively online as preparations are underway to increase in-person instruction for the fall semester, said Nicole Cruz, director of marketing and communications. Fully online courses and hybrid offerings also will continue.

And the college is boosting its offerings for those already in the working world.

“The Career Education Department heard the community’s call for retraining and skill building for high-demand careers,” Cruz said. “To address the need to prepare for a post-pandemic economy, COM created new short-term, accelerated skills certificates that lead to pandemic-resilient jobs and pay at least a living wage in Marin.”

The goal was to enroll 210 students in nine online trainings that began March 1 and run through May 28. To date, there are 241 students enrolled, she said.

COM will offer the social media marketing and e-commerce specialist skills certificate this summer. Short-term skills certificates offered this fall include business office technology specialist, data specialist, small business management specialist, social media marketing and e-commerce specialist, as well as a certificate in gig economy/entrepreneurship, Cruz said.

“To create these certificates, COM administrators analyzed the current labor market, met with several local business and industry partners, and researched the needs of local community-based organizations that work with businesses and unemployed or underemployed clients in Marin,” she said. “After identifying the skills needed for current jobs, COM faculty stepped in to design a customized bundling of courses that could be accelerated and meet the needs of employers.”

Mendocino Community College

Summer enrollment at Mendocino Community College is on an upward trajectory: 22% higher than summer 2020 and 33% higher than summer 2019, according to Janelle Meyers Bird, director of community relations and communication.

To keep the push going, registration campaigns are underway in multiple platforms, including email marketing, digital and social media, local radio stations and billboards, and direct-to-home mailers, Bird said.

“In the fall, we have scheduled more (on-campus) classes, with reduced class sizes in line with COVID regulations,” she said, adding that masks and social distancing will be enforced at all times while on campus. “We also will still have many online and hybrid courses available to offer flexibility to the busy schedules of our students.” Some classes will combine students face-to-face in a classroom with another cohort of students Zoom-ing in at the same time, she added.

And a collaboration announced earlier this year will launch in the fall.

“We have partnered with Sonoma State University to offer students at our Lake Center (Lakeport) an hybrid Bachelor of Science, business administration-degree completion program,” Bird said.

The program has been designed for adults who need schedule flexibility, and students are eligible for financial aid, according to a press release that in January announced the partnership between Mendocino College, Woodland Community College in Lake County and SSU.

Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care and education. She previously worked for a Gannett daily newspaper in New Jersey and NJBIZ, the state’s business journal. Cheryl has freelanced for business journals in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.

Local community college enrollment drops

The pandemic’s impact on California’s community colleges has resulted in enrollment drops, including in the North Bay.

The following percentages between fall 2019 and fall 2020 are measured by headcount.

Santa Rosa Junior College: down 21.4%

Napa Valley College: down 27.7%

College of Marin: down 30.3%

Mendocino Community College: down 37.5%

Source: EdSource.org

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