special to The Star
May 12, 2008 12:36 am
—
In an attempt to help students cope with the rising cost of living – especially fuel, Meridian Community College will offer a four-day course schedule in the fall 2008 term, said Dr. Scott Elliott, MCC president.
The college had already determined to implement a four-day schedule for the Summer 2008 term, but Elliott said MCC decided to continue the format in the fall term as fuel costs have continued to escalate. With few exceptions, classes will be conducted Monday through Thursday. Many general education courses will be offered either on a Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday basis.
Elliott said a sprinkling of classes will also be offered on a Friday-only basis in the event some students desired to limit their campus commute to once per week.
“We’re trying to be responsive to our students’ needs,” Elliott said. “Of course, it’s not just the price of gas. Almost any cost related to transporting goods is on the rise. The price of groceries is another glaring example. Most of our students commute to campus from around Lauderdale County and beyond. Therefore, if we can offer a schedule through which students can spend less on commuting, we feel that’s a logical and appropriate thing to do.”
The 10th-year MCC president said the new schedule won’t involve cutting back on faculty and staff hours or the number of courses that will be available to students. Rather, the college’s hours of operation will simply be altered in accordance with the new schedule.
“Faculty will still be available to students the same number of hours per week,” Elliott said. “It’s just that those hours will likely be spread out more over four days than five days. As far as services to students, ranging from library hours to tutorial help to counseling to cafeteria to the Business Office, MCC will not be changing its accessibility to students. We’re only implementing a change in course days and times, not a change in support services to students.”
One of the cornerstones of MCC’s curriculum, Elliott noted, is health occupations. Students come from all over the East Mississippi/Central Alabama region to enroll in such programs, ranging from nursing to radiological technology to dental hygiene.
“Fuel costs and other household costs could preclude students from taking advantage of those great opportunities,” Elliott said. “We don’t want to see that happen, and we hope changing our schedule will be part of the solution. MCC is a community college. Having compassion for our students is inherent in our mission. Our students are not Social Security numbers. They are our family.”
“I stopped twice this week to fill up my gas tank, and the price of a gallon of gas went up markedly inside of just one week,” Elliott continued. “I had to ask myself, if I’m feeling the effects of this situation and I am blessed with a good-paying job, then what must our students, many of whom are working minimum wage jobs at this time in their lives, be feeling? That’s when I determined that MCC had to make a move on this issue to try and help our students. It has caused some of our staff members a lot of extra work in changing the schedule at this point, but they are willing to do it to help our students.”
Elliott speculated that if other costs continue to rise, such as utilities, that colleges everywhere will have to consider a four-day week in all respects. Some already have done so.
“I can see a day coming when colleges might simply have to shut down Friday through Sunday in the interest of saving dollars across the board,” he said. “I hope that doesn’t happen because, at that point, you’d be talking about cutting back on things like library accessibility and tutorial services. That would be a bad thing, in my view.”
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