Monday, January 16, 2017

SMOKE AND MIRRORS? OR APPLES AND ORANGES?

As we watch the cold mist out our windows, this MLK weekend, lets review a few things that happened in 2016 at our favorite subject, John A. Logan College.  The big events were

  • the firing of 55 employees
  • the promise to bring them back
  • the failure to do so
  • the Larry Peterson reorganization plan that was to revitalize enrollment

The focus of this post will be the difficulty of determining the success, or lack thereof, of the last point.  At the March 2016 BOT meeting, the layoffs occurred, including of tenured faculty.  No explanation has ever been given of the criteria used to identify who was to be terminated.  Then Interim President Ron House stated that this was only a budgetary measure and that the intention was to bring these people back.  Months have gone by.  His interim status has changed to permanent.  Some, who have allowed themselves to acquiesce to the new regime, have been promoted to vice presidencies and deanships.  The new regime includes meeker faculty (grateful to have been called back or no longer trusting their tenure) and part time teachers attempting to fill the shoes of long time staff who are putting houses on the market, seeking jobs out of state, starting over in their 50s and those leaving higher education all together.  ...Sorry!  We will return to this subject many times.  It's just important to remind ourselves as the new year starts, that everything is not OK for everybody.  ...On to today's subject:  enrollment counts. 

In the next month, JALC will be reporting Spring 2017 enrollment.  Before that happens, let's review the gibberish that was given the Southern Illinoisan on September 11, 2016, regarding this Fall's enrollment.  Seriously.  Follow the link to see what was provided to the Southern.  The press, public and governing boards are always interested in one thing, each term.  Is enrollment up or down?  The only way to determine this is to compare a given term to the same term of the preceding year or years.  Comparisons must be exact.  Apples to apples.  Inexact, or changing, methods, lead to errors, mistrust and accusations. 

Director of Institutional Research, Eric Pulley, reported to the Board of Trustees, August 30, that Fall 2016 enrollment was up 16.3% (552 students) over Fall 2015.  This includes, for Fall 2016, 3,948 credit seeking students.  For Fall 2015, it includes 3,921 credit seeking students minus a made up number of 784 plus a made up number of 259, for a total of 3,396.  The 3,396 was subtracted from 3,948 to come up with a supposed increase of 552 (or 16.3%). 

Confused?  You should be.  This is an attempt to compare apples to oranges.

JALC apparently did not conduct a purge Fall 2015.  However, to arrive at these numbers, they claim to have taken an average percentage of registrations that are usually purged, arrived at a number (759) and subtracted it from the original 3,921.  They then added back an estimated number of people they thought would have re-registered if they'd been registered in the first place, got purged and then decided they really wanted to come.  This number was 259.  So, 3921 - 784 + 259 = 3396.  This is the number they subtracted from 3,948 to get their 552 student increase.  ...The problem is two fold.  First, they literally made up numbers for Fall 2015 and, second, they failed to subtract real people from the Fall 2016 count that they subtracted by guestimate from the Fall 2015 count. 

This makes a difference two ways.  The lower 2015 numbers appear to be, the better 2016 enrollment will look.  Failing to subtract the purged 2016 students inflates the 2016 number and, again, makes Fall 2016 enrollment look better. 

This may not be nefarious, but it also fails to give the Board, ICCB, the press or the public an accurate picture of the College's enrollment.  Changing procedures makes comparisons difficult.  Deciding not to conduct a traditional procedure, such as the purge, will make longitudinal studies impossible. The institution should accurately report the results, take the one time PR hit that the lower numbers would cause and move on.  Headcounts should be made at the same time, in the same manner, each year, comparing like terms (fall to fall; and spring to spring, not fall to spring).  Some of the confusion may be due to unfamiliarity with new reporting tools.  The term 'Higher Reach students' is used in both the information given to the Southern, and in the report given to the BOT on August 30.  This seems not to be a class of students, but, we suspect, Jenzebar student information system vocabulary. 

Let's review the numbers and then compare apples to apples and see what we get.  We've made a chart, below.  Using Mr. Pulley's numbers to subtract the non-credit courses from each year, we agree with his counts of credit seeking students enrolled in advance of the purge (3948 - 3921 = 27, an increase of 0.7%).  Then we diverge.

The Southern quotes Matt Berry, of the Illinois Community College Board as saying, " The fall enrollment reporting will include everyone who is enrolled in credit bearing courses...  If a CPR course leads to a certification and provides college credit, the student would be counted in fall numbers.  If the purge occurred before data was reported, but within the reporting time frame and the student was no longer enrolled due to the purge they would not be counted in the enrollment numbers as they are no longer enrolled at the college."  We interpret this to mean that if a student was enrolled Fall 2015, at the time of the count, they should be included.  If there was no purge that year, they were enrolled and should be counted.  Conversely, we interpret it to mean if students were purged, as 249 were in Fall 2016, they may not be included.  For Fall 2016, 3,948 were registered.  Those students minus the 249 purged leaves 3,699 enrolled for Fall 2016.  That 3699 - 3921 registered for Fall 2015 is -222, a loss of 5.7% from the previous year. 

If we use the guestimates for Fall 2015, giving us the 3,396 number, we must subtract the purge for Fall 2016.  Again, that's 3,699.  The difference, 3699 - 3396 = 303, an increase of 8.9% over Fall 2015.  Respectable, but not the 16.3% increase. 

So, there it is.  They are down 222, or up 303, but they are not up 552.  That, even by their methods, would be apples and oranges. 




Fall 2015
Fall 2016
diff.
% diff.









Credit and non credit enrollment
4313
4406
93
2.2%









Non credit (Continuing Ed and Center for Business and Industry
392
458
66
16.8%









Headcount of enrolled credit seeking students prior to purge
3921
3948
27
0.7%









Number of students purged
0
249
249









Actual headcount, after purge
3921
3699
-222
-5.7%









Guestimated FL 15 purge
784
249
-535
-68.2%









Headcount, after guestimated '15 purge
3137
3699
562
17.9%









Guestimated returned after purge
259
0
-259









Headcount, after guestimated '15 purge plus returnees
3396
3699
303
8.9%

14 comments:

  1. The 2016 Audit was completed by a firm called RSM and was 77 pages.
    Previous Audit 2015 was completed by KemperCPA and was 100 pages. Care to even THINK about which 30 pages and information contained that was left out? Of course, auditing firm is always by the lowest bidder.

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  2. I imagine that I speak for most (if not all) RIFed faculty and staff who have not been recalled when I say THANK YOU! for continuing to follow up on this important story. Angela Calcaterra

    ReplyDelete
  3. College of DuPage enrollment growth not all it seems
    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-college-of-dupage-enrollment-20150401-story.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Does Southern Illinois have any Tax Payer's advocates to investigate all the shenanigans at "The College"?
    Golden Parachute to a Former President.
    Fudged Enrollment Numbers
    Contractors paid in full for incompletely executed contracts
    Firing of 51 staff using the budget cuts as a pretext to bust the unions.
    Request a stay on all capital expenditure projects until the states financial situation improves.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You should ask this question at a BoT meeting.

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  6. Waiting for the 10-day numbers. Who wants to bet enrollement is UP? (If they can find yet another new way to count heads, so no real comparisons can be made)

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  7. I know for a fact that they wanted to convert a Continuing Ed. class to a credit course. Of course for the headcount . . . It didn't happen for this course. Why would the instructor want to grade papers, final exams and give grades for a topic that is of personal interest only?

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  8. Who is on the ballot?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Becky Borgsmiller, William Orrill, Bob Ellis and Mandy Little are running for two seats (Don Brewer's and Jackie Hancock's), and Glen Poshard is running unopposed for his seat that was vacated by Bill Alstat.

      Delete
    2. Who is supported by the evil empire?

      Delete
    3. Orill and Ellis

      Delete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. FYI:
    The League of Women Voters is organizing a candidate forum regarding the JALC Board of Trustees on March 7, 5:30 at John A. Logan College, F117 (Conference Center area).

    The event is open to the public. You can submit questions for the candidates by contacting Kathy Fatz- - kathyfatz@sbcglobal.net by February 24th. Dr. Mary Pohlmann is the moderator for the event. Issues are also being identified for Forum questions using Southern Illlinoisan coverage of JALC issues.

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  11. If the Peterson/House/Pecord/Williams/entire BOT plan is working as claimed, where are the 10-day numbers? Were they released on campus? Have not been on the front page, like SIU. Someone hiding something?

    ReplyDelete