The 2012 winter session is officially back on PCC’s calendar, President Mark Rocha told the College Council on March 23.”The Enrollment Management Committee had made a very good proposal to do away with the winter session.and there were compelling reasons to do that,” Rocha explained.
He said those reasons were still legitimate. “[But] it’s not on the table for the academic year ’11-’12. I’ve made the decision that next year will look exactly like this year.”
Although the change will be popular with many students and faculty, Associated Student President Jamie Hammond felt the change pointed to a larger problem.
“As happy as I am about the prospect of students having the opportunity to take classes next winter,” Hammond said, “I think this entire situation speaks to the way decisions are being made [at PCC].”
Hammond hopes the back-and-forth decision making will encourage students to pay more attention to campus issues.
Technically, Rocha said, the EMC’s original winter [session] proposal was not to cut winter session, but to “re-calendar” it.
“What we never got [around] to was the discussion of adding sections to Summer One,” said Rocha, referring to the EMC’s proposal to have some winter session sections moved to the proposed dual summer sessions.
Rocha said he chose to delay the decision-making regarding cutting winter session to next year for two reasons.
“The administration is going do its required consultation with the faculty union,” he said, because previously it had been “less clear” that the union had a contractual requirement that administration must negotiate calendar changes with it.
Rocha said there were more pressing issues that had to be reckoned with before the administration would have time to follow proper negotiation requirements.
While the 2012 winter session is back on, so are the section cuts that were announced two weeks ago. Rocha said each department’s dean will carefully choose the cuts and that they shouldn’t have an impact on currently enrolled students.
“Students who are currently enrolled will notice no change [next academic year],” said Rocha. He said that – although there were still decisions to be made in regards to changes in the programs – enrollment would be “just as easy or just as hard as it was this year.”
Rocha said that the changes caused by section cuts “will come from around the edges.” In other words, courses not required for transfer and those with lower enrollment will likely be cut.
He said the people who will share the brunt of the budget cutting actions would be students attempting to enroll at PCC next year.
Sections will also get adjusted by creating clearer registration priorities for incoming students, Rocha said.
“Some students not [enrolled at PCC] yet may very have a very low priority,” he said.
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