Barstow Community College below state averages in course completion

BARSTOW — A recent study found that Barstow Community College is below average compared to similar institutions on five out of six measures of student success.

A state-mandated accountability report presented at Thursday’s meeting of the college’s board of trustees stated that fewer students at BCC complete their courses and continue to be enrolled in college compared to other schools, according to five performance indicators in the report.

The five indicators are:

• Percent of students who earned at least 30 units

• Persistence rate, a measure of student’s continued enrollment

• Annual successful course completion rate for credit vocational courses

• Annual successful course completion rate for credit basic skills courses

• Improvement rate for credit basic skills courses

The report also stated that BCC leads its peers in a sixth indicator, student progress and achievement rate, which measures how well the college prepares students to earn degrees and transfer on to other schools.

Course completion rates for the college’s basic skills and vocational programs have declined since 2003. At the same time enrollment at the college has decreased by 300 students since the 2003 to 2004 school year, a trend which concerns administrators because state funding is tied to enrollment.

BCC’s President Cliff Brock said that the board and administration are dissatisfied with the study’s results and are working on improving student success, but it will take time.

“When you’re not only not at the top but you’re below average, than that’s a problem,” he said. “They aren’t one-line types of problems, they aren’t the types of problems that were caused in six months or a year, and they won’t be solved in six months or a year.”

He said that the college has recently started a new initiative to improve students’ basic math and reading skills and has introduced several new vocational programs in recent years to help counter declining enrollment. He said that Barstow’s ranking below other schools could in part be explained by the city’s relatively lower income levels and high prevalence of residents receiving economic assistance.

“You’ve got a lot of stuff stacked against you when you’re poor,” he said.

BCC’s institutional researcher and part-time anthropology instructor Eva Bagg said that that she’s worried what the study results say about the college but said that faculty and staff are working to increase success rates. She also said that colleges at the state and national level are undergoing similar trends and lag behind other countries in preparing students for the global marketplace. Still, she said that she can’t be sure of the extent of the problem at the college or possible solutions because the college lacks a dedicated research department.

She said that while the college is in the process of changing the way it evaluates itself— by introducing a system to measure exactly what students gain from their courses — she fears that many of the college’s administrators aren’t paying enough attention to the below average performance rates.

“The president’s mind is on the NASA museum. He’s the president of the (Chamber of Commerce). He’s concerned with community stuff, but he’s not concerned with these types of things,” she said.

Bagg, a five-year BCC employee, will leave the college in January to take a job with Long Beach City College due to what she called a good opportunity and dissatisfaction with college administration.

Brock denied the allegations that the administration isn’t concerned with improving students’ performance.

“Cheap shots are easy to make,” he said. “The question is, is the college moving forward? Yes, although I’m not happy with the numbers, yes we are.”

Recently some faculty and staff members have disputed the idea that the college is moving in the right direction. In September, the board of trustees voted to approve a controversial administrative reorganization at the college over the objections of faculty and staff unions. The unions issued votes of no-confidence of Brock in response to the approval of the plan.

The college board of trustees expressed their confidence in Brock’s leadership on Thursday when they voted 4-1 in closed session to extend his contract to March 16, 2009. Board member Tim Heiden voted against the extension.

Despite the concerns about the long-term future of the college, some students say they’re happy at the college. Will Dunham, who is in his third year at the school studying for two associates degrees in computer science, said that it’s not the college but students who are responsible for their own success.

“You get out of it what you put into it,” he said. “I think that if students do (continue on with their studies), it’s by their own choice and not the college’s.”

When asked if he planned to finish his degree, Dunham replied confidently.

“I know I will. I’m going all the way to Ph.D.,” he said.

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