Convenience bolsters Columbus State enrollment

1/16/2008

The Columbus Dispatch

By Encarnacion Pyle

F.W. Woodley, an adjunct professor at Columbus State, shows students how they should isolate microbes in a culture. The school appears to have increased enrollment in the winter quarter by offering more of the classes students want at more convenient times.

The number of students taking classes at Columbus State Community College usually drops off during the winter quarter.

But, determined to end that trend, the college started giving current and prospective students more of the classes they want when they want them and in the ways they want them — including on the Internet.

The result: Columbus State’s enrollment this quarter might exceed the fall enrollment of 22,913 students.

And this quarter’s figure –22,807 and rising with six days to go before the end of the official count — is more than 6 percent larger than last winter’s. More students than ever are taking more classes.

“Columbus State is increasingly becoming more a place that students can make their own, whether they’re a 50-year-old in need of a career change or a 19-year-old,” said Martin Maliwesky, dean of enrollment services.

Last March, Columbus State officials created a collegewide team to find new ways to increase enrollment and students’ satisfaction. As a result, it increased the number of its most popular classes — primarily business courses and all the prerequisites for people who want to earn their bachelor’s degree — offered at the most popular times: 9 a.m. to noon. This is a switch from the days when the college mostly catered to working adults who had only late afternoons and evenings free, Maliwesky said.

Columbus State also added more online classes and started offering “bundles” of classes that students commonly take together, such as beginning English and math, back-to-back on the same days.

“It worked: A lot of the classes filled up within a day of being offered,” said Brian Seeger, Columbus State’s enrollment-data guru.

Students also are taking 37 percent more online classes, filling 13,369 slots in Web courses.

Officials expect all the enrollment numbers to increase slightly through Jan. 23 — the 14th day of the quarter, which colleges use to mark their official final enrollment figures.

By experimenting with days, times and pairings, Mathematics Department Chairman Jonathan Baker learned that more students were interested in taking longer classes two or three days a week than shorter classes four or five days.

“I also found that students want to come in early, but not too early,” Baker said. New 10 a.m.-to-noon classes filled almost immediately; the 7 a.m. course attracted few students.

Conor Bello, 19, of Worthington, had no trouble getting the classes he wanted even working around his 40-hour-a-week job.

“It takes time to arrange your classes, but there are more than enough possibilities,” Bello said.

Joanna Wojnar, 21, of Pickerington, overcame her anxiety about online classes to sign up for enough credits this quarter to stay on track to transfer to Ohio State in the fall. “They offer every class you want, in every way imaginable,” she said.

epyle@dispatch.com

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