news // no. 4

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» Douglas reminds students of late registration option

Atiba Nelson Staff Reporter

We summer graduation ceremonies suspended and a recent announcement by the Minister of Education touting that the province does not have a timeline for reopening classrooms, Douglas pushes ahead with summer registration and a summer semester.

Towards the end of March, Douglas communicated that summer courses would be online to support students’ class, program, and degree completion, with the added benefit of allowing the college to comply with the Provincial Health Officer's social distancing directive.

Last year, according to the Douglas College “Institution Accountability Plan and Report 2018/19 Reporting Cycle,” approximately 7,500 students enroll in summer courses. The report—which is submitted annually to the Post-Secondary Audit and Accountability Branch of the Ministry of Education—states that domestic enrollments were flat and the college has been buttressed by international enrollment.

However, with international travel slowed and the transition to online instruction, there may be less students partaking in the 2020 summer semester. To combat the flattening of domestic enrollments and decrease of international enrollments that could hamper the college’s economics, Douglas reminded

Instructor

for Douglas to do more

» Tuition freezes and refunds are among the proposed options

students that some Douglas programs are accepting applications.

The college prompted Canadian students, via their website, to apply to the summer 2020 semester and the

advocates

programs accepting applications by May 10. Interested students were asked to call the Registrar's Office via a Zoom teleconference meeting code to find out what programs would be accepting applications.

Photo by Billy Bui

Students applying to the college during late registration would be subject to all the same requirements of any perspective applicant—including fees and official documentation.

“Students applying between April 20 and May 10 must send their required documentation to us immediately. We do not guarantee their acceptance for summer if their admission documentation is delayed,” stated the press release on the Douglas News page.

Douglas does caution applicants that late registration is a difficult process, for example full courses, accessing course materials, and de-registration, but reminds students to reach out to the Registrar for more information.

“Applying and registering once the semester starts can be challenging,’ reads the online news announcement. “If you miss one or more classes at the beginning of the semester, you may find yourself too far behind to catch up. Some instructors hold quizzes as early as the second week of classes.”

As an example of the degree of difficulty associated with late registration, the Criminology diploma—the fourth most popular Douglas’ program by number of applications in the 2017 to 2018 academic year—is open to application via the open enrollment stream. Yet, at the time of writing this, only two of the 34 courses offered in the summer semester have space to register.

Atiba Nelson Staff Reporter

ith the curve flattening,

the start of spring, and dwindling economic options ahead, a group of protestors have begun imploring the provincial government to ease public health restrictions which they find oppressive.

However, this group is not the only cohort upset at their institutions. Irritated college students in the United States have begun demanding their educational institutions refund tuition due to lackluster online course delivery. Some have sued their schools with the hopes of receiving thousands of dollars back.

The lynchpin of the lawsuits is that students believe their educational institutions did not honour their agreement to provide the necessary tools to learn during campus closures and mandatory online classes.

“lam missing out on

everything that [my university] has to offer—from libraries, the gym, computer labs, study rooms, and lounges,” said Grainger Rickenbaker—a student who

is suing Philadelphia’s Drexel University—in an interview with Bloomberg News.

Rickenbaker pays over $60,000 in tuition and living expenses. Although Douglas College tuition is not as expensive, a Douglas professor believes that the college should be helping students during the COVID-19 pandemic, albeit not through a refund.

Chris Maguire, a faculty member in the English language learning and acquisition (College Preparatory English) department, recently advocated for a tuition decrease of 50 percent at Douglas. He states that the pandemic presents a good time for the college to raise goodwill in the eyes of students.

“Tt’s a time in our society when we need to do the right thing,” Maguire told the New Westminster Record, “it seems it would bea

good time for them to make that grand gesture.’

Maguire argues that Douglas is profitable annually and a decrease in profit over several semesters would not impact the college’s bottom line, especially when the students served by the college are facing economic hardships.

“If Douglas only makes $1 million next year instead of $10 or $7 [million], what’s the harm?” said Maguire. Although Douglas College is a not-for- profit entity, the college does have an endowment of over 20 million dollars through the Douglas College Foundation— which can operate at the behest of the college.

“Tuition [is] increasing faster than the cost of living for students that I teach, that are international, and they’re increasing [tuition] to [the] maximum allowable by law for the domestic students, and it’s not necessary to do it unless you need the money,” said Maguire.

WELCOME

Photo by Billy Bui