The Delta College Board of Trustees received a report on enrollment declines on campus from Dr. Lisa Aguilera Lawrenson at its April 21 meeting.
From spring 2020 to spring 2021, Delta College has seen a drop in student enrollment of 10.4 percent. Meanwhile, unit enrollment from spring 2020 to spring 2021 was down 11 percent.
Lawrenson, Delta’s vice president of Instruction, discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted enrollment numbers at nearly all community colleges in California.
Enrollment in California community colleges had largely remained stagnant over the last decade until the pandemic hit. Then, enrollment started drastically decreasing.
“System-wide, enrollment has dropped 16.8 percent between fall 2019 and fall 2020 across the whole California community college system,” said Lawrenson.
The board was also presented with information about how statewide community college enrollment has declined by student ethnicity. Native Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanic students saw the steepest drop in enrollment, at 18 percent, 15 percent, 12 percent respectively.
At Delta College specifically, enrollment of African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian American students has remained consistently positive.
Asian American student enrollment has gone up by 3.79 percent, while enrollment of Native, Hawaiin, and Pacific Islander students has increased by 26.26 percent.
Enrollment breakdowns by gender were also provided by Lawrenson, who showcased how female enrollment at Delta College has actually increased by 2.4 percent. Meanwhile, enrollment of male students has dropped by 8.6 percent.
“Many men are being expected to the breadwinners and they may be working, trying to support their families,” said Lawrenson in an effort to explain the disparities between enrollment.
Lawrenson also gave an update on how classes during the fall ‘21 semester might look like.
This fall, 1,205 classes, or 30 percent, will be offered fully online. A total of 327 classes or 19 percent will be held as hybrid courses. The remaining 11 percent, a total of 191 classes, will be held fully in person.
“This is going to be quite the undertaking,” said Lawrenson.
Drama, English, communications, and ESL courses, among others, can expect to be prioritized for in-person learning.
“We need to dive in and continue doing everything that we can to bring in students through our marketing efforts and our outreach efforts,” Lawrenson said.
Though talk of in-person learning may be exciting for many students who are feeling burned out after three semesters of online learning, the college still aims to maintain online learning for a little longer.
Director of Marketing, Communications, and Outreach Alex Breitler emphasized how online learning has been advantageous for students who might not be able to attend college otherwise.
“We need to start to pivot to talking about the College being both online and in-person,” said Breitler about future marketing campaigns aimed to increase enrollment for the fall.
“In the student Facebook group there’s always this back and forth, there’s a lot of students who talk about how they feel burned out,” said Breitler regarding the three semesters students have had to do via online learning. “But then there was also this post from students talking about how advantageous they thought the online classes were.”
The board also discussed the potential for a north-county campus in the Lodi/Galt area. The board approved a contract with FB2 Solutions for consulting regarding a potential real estate property for this new campus.
In a closing comment, trustee member Dr. Liz Blanchard spoke about members of Delta’s Asian American community reaching out to her with concerns regarding the lack of Asian studies courses at Delta.
Trustee member Ms. C. Bennet Stebbins reinforced calls for including more Asian studies courses at Delta College.
“If we are really going to promote diversity, we have to promote foreign languages on our campus,” said the president of the board, Dr. Charles Jennings, in agreement.