By SHRADDHA R. JAISWAL Special to the Daily Press
Santa Monica College officials are busy attempting to put the pieces back together, trying to bolster the school’s reputation and maintain student enrollment numbers in the wake of sweeping program cuts made one year ago.
The highly publicized cuts were made to combat state funding shortfalls that never fully materialized.
College officials are working to attract more than 5,000 students to the campus by the start of the 2004 school year by providing beefed-up student services and additional classes.
While SMC President Piedad Robertson insists that enrollment numbers are not down overall, the school’s reputation undoubtedly took a hit amid the widespread slashing of programs and negative publicity that accompanied the cuts.
“We’ve started a welcome center, which is a one-stop room for new students where they can get counseling, they can enroll, they can get their financial aid all in a single room and in a single visit,” said SMC’s marketing director, Don Girard. “And that is going terrifically.”
The welcome center, located in the student activities building and said to be very busy by Robertson, joins other efforts to bring students back to the campus. The college’s outreach program to the area high schools takes interested seniors on daily tours of the campus, and the school has also restored their radio and bus advertisements in attempts to draw in more students.
Gov. Gray Davis’ plans to cut the state’s financial offering to SMC by 10 percent never materialized, but the elimination of the programs — such as the popular automotive program — was approved so that the college could avoid years of cutbacks and problems by slimming down their offerings for only one year.
Although there are no specific plans to reinstate the eight vocational programs that were cut, Girard said the number of classes offered will increase. “(Enrollment) didn’t drop last year because we were stupid or
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 26, 2004. Read the original PDF.