Board of Regents community colleges are looking for ways to minimize the impact of soaring gas prices on students who commute to class.
TBR Chancellor Charles Manning asked community college presidents this month to take a second look at class schedules.
Bruce Scism is the vice president of academic affairs at Volunteer State in Gallatin. He says the school is looking to expand its concentrated weekend and evening classes. A new scheduling model, however, would make it possible to be a full-time student in just one day a week.
“Our working title is “full-time Friday” where a student can come to class one day per week, stay a whole day, and complete four classes a semester.”
Scism says the school is planning a trial-run this fall to see if students can handle the consolidated schedule.
Lori Fernandez, who commutes to Vol-State from White House, says she intentionally crams classes into two days on campus.
“Now if I had to pack all that in on a Friday, once a week, all those classes, all those lectures, then I’ve got all that homework. Mmmmm.”
But some students are realizing that every day they drive to campus takes a direct toll on their gas bill. Carie Decoopman drives from Murfreesboro. She’s starting an associate’s degree in logistics while she works full time.
“Something is going to have to give, whether it be my personal life or my work might have to go down to part time just so I can get it in faster.”
After 17 years away from the classroom, Decoopman originally thought she’d take it slowly…but that was weeks ago, when gas was under 3-dollars a gallon.
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Overall, Nashville State Community College is taking an individual approach to helping students commute less, letting students tailor their schedules to meet individual needs, says Ellen Crane, executive assistant to the president.
Still, to that end, the school is making some adjustments:
– Increasing use of Web classes students can take from home.
– Implementing “hybrid” classes, such as sciences with lab requirements, allowing students to take lectures from home and only traveling to campus for labs.
– Improving visibility of Web classes so students can become more familar and comfortable with online options.
– Making research materials available online, so students can access databases and e-books without having to physically visit the library.
– Scheduling more classes in blocks, so students can streamline their schedules.
– “Trying to take more classes to students,” Crane said – That is, enabling students to study at satellite campuses in Cookeville, Waverly and Dickson, as well as Southeast Nashville.
Crane said administrators had initially thought spiking gas prices would be temporary, but are now “trying to craft more long-term solutions.”
Growing expenses for commuters pose a growing problem for the school’s 7,000 full-time and part-time students.
“All of our students transport here,” Crane said.
At Columbia State, Student Affairs Vice President Cathy McDonald says students have always had difficulty getting to campus.
Several years ago, Columbia moved away from Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes. Now the school has Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday. Classes that meet on Friday run like a night class would.
The summer term which recently started has nearly ¼ of Columbia’s 1600 students enrolled in the Regents Online program.
Daniel Potter contributed to this report.
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