Pre-nursing major Cyrene Ronquillo, 18, said she is not concerned with her program being discontinued.
She said career-specific programs, such as STEM, should be kept from being discontinued.
“It depends on the programs, but STEM courses, like chemistry, shouldn’t be discontinued,” Ronquillo said.
While STEM courses at El Camino College are unlikely to be discontinued, other programs facing low enrollment, retention, and success rates could be cut, following Academic Senate’s review of the criteria for a program at El Camino to be discontinued on Tuesday.
The program discontinuance policy states several conditions that must be considered before furthering the process of discontinuing a program such as enrollment, retention and success rates and the job market.
A determining factor is enrollment, which funds the programs.
“If a program isn’t enrolling well to its capacity, then that’s really telling us that program isn’t necessarily viable and additional resources from other areas of the college have to support it,” Carlos Lopez, the vice president of Academic Affairs said.
Enrollment numbers must be considered before reviewing a program to be discontinued.
Darcie McClelland, the vice president of Educational Policies said variables that include not meeting education standards or not serving a need in the community are highly accounted for.
Additionally, a program will be brought under review for discontinuation if its curriculum no longer aligns with university transfer, industry standards, or labor market needs.
“In some cases, the job market for that course has completely disappeared,” Lopez added. “There were colleges in California that used to teach upholstery and that job market has just gone away and almost nobody teaches it anymore.”
Discontinuing a program will most likely have very little effect on college-wide enrollment due to the low enrollment nature of the courses.
“Programs that are discontinued are usually low-enrolled to begin with, so a lot of times it might be a situation where the enrollment will not be drastically impacted campus-wide,” McClelland said.
In the event a program is canceled while students are enrolled, the college has a plan to assist those students in obtaining their educational requirements for their specific area of study.
“Every student that is in that program will be able to either finish their degree here somehow or at a nearby college like they would set up for that student a plan to finish their requirements at a nearby college,” McClelland added.
However, discontinuing a program is a rare occasion, according to Lopez. A program will be supported and aided to be kept at the college before being considered for discontinuance.
“It’s really as much about program revitalization as about potentially discontinuing a program, even though that’s one of the outcomes, ” Lopez said.
