PITTSBORO — As colleges and universities across North Carolina begin to outline their fall schedules, Central Carolina Community College plans for a mix of face-to-face instruction as well as online instruction for the upcoming academic year.
“In the fall, we are transitioning all of our classes to be some form of blended,” said Mark Hall, the provost for CCCC’s Chatham County campuses. “All of our classes have an online component already, so we are just going to make that official so that we have more flexibility.”
Options for a start date are still being weighed.
“We were planning to start on Aug. 17, whereas the university system has moved almost two weeks earlier,” Hall said. “That’s a week earlier for us, so we are trying to figure out what the unintended consequences would be.”
One of the challenges is that programs are held to a strict number of hours inside the classroom.
“A three-credit hour class has to meet 48 hours,” he said. “That makes us a little different than the universities that don’t have to adhere to those rigid guidelines, but we’re working on it.”
On May 2, the N.C. General Assembly passed and Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill allocating $1.6 billion of the $3.5 billion from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. As a result of this, the community college system will receive $25 million. According to an article from EdNC, the community college system saw a rise in enrollment in the 2018-2019 academic year. About 53 out of the state’s 58 community colleges saw an increase in enrollment. Throughout the state, enrollment at community colleges rised by 4.4%, workforce programs saw a 9.4% increase and curriculum programs saw a 3.8% increase. Community colleges are looking for additional support for these increases.
Hall said the funds are “definitely welcomed.”
“In this particular case, it will go towards student support,” he said. “It will help us get the personal protection equipment that we need, the cleaning equipment that we need and it will help us support the employees who are supporting the students. Indirectly, it will all go toward helping our students and developing the workforce that our communities need.”
Hall said CCCC, a public two-year college with campuses in Chatham, Lee and Harnett counties, has already allowed students who are studying essential skills, such as health sciences and vocational training, back for the summer semester.
“Those classes are meeting, but in restricted groups,” he said. “There’s a digital sign-in, they all have masks, we clean everything before they show up and we clean everything after. We are really taking all the measures that have been given to us from all of our state level agencies. All we can really do is go forward. We’re still recruiting for medical assisting and for other health science programs and short-term training. We’re doing our best to move forward, but we are doing it really safely.”
News Intern Olivia Rojas can be reached at olivia@chathamnr.com.