Marketing Campaign Set for Spring Semester

Attempting to close the low enrollment gap

By Andy Bays and Andrew Munoz/Contributors

Due to low enrollment and impending class cuts, City College administration and faculty seek to improve marketing and advertising campaigns to reel students back in for the spring semester.

Faculty are in strong opposition to the class cuts and have criticized the school for not taking enough steps to advertise open enrollment to the public.

In response to the district’s proposition to cut 26 percent of classes over the next five years, American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 (AFT 2121) voted to create a hardship relief fund in the event of a strike.

“It’s a death spiral,” Social Sciences Department Chair Darlene Alioto said. “You don’t have enough students, so you cut classes. You cut classes, then students don’t come. Then you have to cut again. Decline, decline, decline.”

Administration’s Plan

At the enrollment colloquy on Oct. 16, City College spokesperson Jeff Hamilton said the college will continue the “Future Focused” marketing campaign going into the 2016 spring semester.

City College outsourced to the Wisconsin-based marketing agency Interact last year.

Hamilton hopes to reach out to a pool of 90,000 potential and current students to increase student enrollment.

The college’s marketing team is set to have TV spots, radio ads, bus ads and digital advertising through mobile devices.

Email has been the most commonly used marketing tool, which links to the student enrollment page and course catalog, which are closely tracked by the marketing team.

The college is currently working with the IT department to set up a system to track the number of visits and phone calls that the admissions office receives on a daily basis.

Hamilton said this will give the marketing team a better perspective on student access and what can be improved to assist enrollees.

The administration has focused on promoting open enrollment to the San Francisco Unified School District senior classes. Interim Vice Chancellor of Student Development Samuel Santos said approximately 11,000 SFUSD students enroll at the college each school year, which makes up 10 percent of the overall student enrollment.

The school’s marketing campaign focuses heavily on the SFUSD pipeline and the under 25 age group certificate, degree, transfer (CDT) populace.   

Faculty Steps Up

As of Oct. 23, City College administration and the Board of Trustees passed an Adult Education Block grant, which will fund a new position for an Adult Enrollment Coordinator for the spring semester. Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Anna Davies appointed ESL instructor Susan Lopez to the new position.

Among many other devoted faculty, Lopez has worked to boost enrollment outside the margins of her 25 hour per week class schedule. Lopez, ESL instructor Danny Halford and women’s studies instructor Leslie Simon co-founded the Volunteer Enrollment Campaign (VEC) in 2013 relies on the efforts of 200 volunteer faculty to draw in enrollment from around the city.

As of next spring, Lopez will have a full-time paid position to draw in enrollment.

“The administration and my co-organizers want me to devote my full time in spring to the development of enrollment outside the SFUSD pipeline,” Lopez said. “I don’t want to leave anyone out of the picture.”  

Fall Out

A 25 percent reduction in enrollment since 2008 has caused the state to withhold over $50 million in funding. Sen. Mark Leno’s stabilization bill has voided City College from a total budget collapse, but will only see the college through 2017, after which the school will have to rely on state funds that are based on the number of students enrolled.

The strategy, supported by Lamb and the district, aims to reduce the amount of classes by about five percent each year for the next five years, and after the Leno bill expires, use the college’s reserve funds for four years to buffer the step-downs.

“No one ever likes cutting classes — there’s nothing good about it,” Interim Chancellor Susan Lamb said. “That said … we’re about to hit a huge funding drop and we have to reduce the schedule to try to bring it in line.”

While many science, technology, engineering and math courses (STEM) will be left untouched by the cuts, a greater percentage of humanities and diversity courses are on the chopping block.

“The classes that are most vulnerable are ones such as African-American studies, Asian studies and LGBT studies, because they have lower enrollment,” AFT 2121 president Tim Killikelly said.