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Fall enrollment figures appear hard to handle
The Advocate
Depending on who you talk to, and what numbers you read, Mt. Hood Community College enrollment for fall quarter is anywhere from up 31 percent to down 17 percent.
Nancy Szofran, vice president of research, planning and institutional effectiveness, printed a full-time enrollment report Sept. 14 using “adjusted week four counts,” stating that actual full-time enrollment was at 83.11 percent of last fall’s numbers. Current numbers from last fall’s final count were down about 500 students, according to the report.
On Sept. 18, new Vice President at the Office of College Advancement Cassie McVeety issued a press release commenting on “enrollment projections increasing by double digits,” which conflicts with Szofran’s numbers.
McVeety, in a Thursday email, said, “The danger with asking for enrollment numbers is that you will get different answers based in different sets of data being measured.
“The figures we reported came from Nancy and were as of last Thursday, Sept 19,” said McVeety. “Those figures represent an increase over last fall of unduplicated headcount up 15.1 percent from last year and total FTE up 20.3 percent from last year. These figures have already changed since last Thursday and will change every day as more students add and drop classes, enroll at different times, etc.”
This also conflicts with Manager of Academic Advising Luis Juarez’s report that he gave in an Aug. 14 email. He wrote that, “On August 10, 2008, the college had enrolled 3,879 students for Fall 2008. By comparison, on August 11, 2009, the college has enrolled 5,092 students for Fall 2009. This is an increase of 1,213 (31.3 percent) students from last year to this year at the same time.”
But McVeety said, “What Luis (Juarez) gave you as of August 10 was a snapshot of how many students had registered as of that date versus the previous date last fall, that was not a projection of actual numbers (headcount or FTE), so you are comparing apples and oranges when you combine those two data points,” said McVeety. “This is why any data you report should always come through Nancy Szofran’s office.”
Szofran said in an email Wednesday she does not have figures “substantially different” from what she gave The Advocate last week.
Szofran’s numbers are similar to the numbers that MHCC President John
Sygielski gave at a speech to all the staff on Sept. 14, the same day Szofran’s report was printed.
“We are currently at 73 percent of last fall’s enrollment,” Sygielski said during that speech.
According to the speech, several specific departments are seeing large increases in enrollment, such as allied health and science, which are up 135 percent and 143 percent, respectively, from last fall’s numbers.
200-level math and writing classes are also “booming,” according to Sygielski. Szofran’s report reflects this, but the overall full-time enrollment in her report is still down.
“These numbers change every day and you are comparing an apple with an orange when you try to use them the same way,” said McVeety.
McVeety said that the final enrollment numbers would not be available until the fourth week of fall term.
The Advocate reserves the right to not publish comments based on their appropriateness.