For the upcoming spring 2019 semester, Los Angeles City College is implementing guaranteed classes, a new formula to increase enrollment and graduation rates.
A presentation was held at Long Beach City College about this formula, and it may be coming to LBCC in the future.
According to LBCC’s Dean of Academic Services Michelle Grimes-Hillman, who put together the presentation, the formula took three years to form for LACC.
According to LACC’s website, guaranteed classes are classes that cannot be cancelled by anybody during the semester.
Long Beach City College will not know if this formula is successful for LACC until the end of the spring 2019 semester.
According to Grimes-Hillman, there has been many conversations at LBCC about making scheduling for students easier, and this formula may be an option.
“Long Beach City College is not guaranteeing anybody that this formula will come to LBCC in the future, the success rate of this formula is something we want to see,” said Grimes-Hillman.
LACC is the first college to implement this type of formula for students.
One of the reasons that LACC is doing this, is that they know when students cancel a class, they usually cancel other classes as well.
According to the Vice President of Academic Affairs at LACC Dan Walden, who gave the presentation at LBCC, guaranteed classes will make students regain confidence as well as make their moral to go up because less stress will be involved.
The LBCC Dean of Language Arts and Communication Studies Lee Douglas, who attended the presentation as well, can potentially see this formula implemented at LBCC in the future.
“Long Beach City College is always looking into new ways to improve the college, and enrollment and graduation rates is very important to us,” said Douglas.
According to Douglas, if there is a low enrollment in a guaranteed class, the college would not make any revenue on this formula.
LBCC English professor Jessica Heffner has had a number of classes cancelled due to low enrollment, but also sees low enrollment as an opportunity to be more effective with her students.
“Classes with low enrollment will work from the perspective of the professor. I prefer to have smaller classes because I can spend more time working with students individually which is a much more impactful way to help students improve their writing,” said Heffner.
LBCC is still only looking into implementing guaranteed classes and has yet to come to a decision.