An in-depth look at the reasonings and controversy surrounding STLCC’s initiative
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Managing Editor
Recently, the cancellation and removal of classes from STLCC’s Course Catalog caused a stir. The removal of these courses comes as a result of a variety of factors determined by a recently formed course review scheduling team. This team is composed of four people including two staff members (one from Meramec and one from Florissant Valley, a dean from Forest Park and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Andrew Langrehr. Langrehr recently spoke with The Montage regarding the cancellation of these selected courses, the reasons behind those decisions, and how STLCC determines what courses to run with for a given semester.
Canceled Courses
As of press time, the following 20 courses are no longer being offered beginning at the start of the Spring 2024 semester:
- COM 112: Argumentation and Debate
- English 202: Introduction to Poetry and Plays
- English 204: American Literature
- English 205: American Literature II
- English 211: British Literature II
- English 224: Fiction Writing
- English 233: Writing Memoirs and Creative Nonfiction
- Mass Com 134: Introduction to Filmmaking
- Mathematics 165: Structure of Mathematical Systems
- Mathematics 166: Structure of Mathematical Systems II
- Mathematics 177: Finite Mathematics
- Mathematics 212: Discrete Mathematics
- Music 113: History of Jazz
- Music 211: Music History I
- Music 212: Music History II
- Political Science 213: Introduction to Comparative Politics
- Foreign Languages: 202 Level courses
Langrehr said that the decision to cut these courses is in part, the result of a convergence of data dating back up to five years.
“In any given year, in that five year look back one offered more than a couple two, three times a year in the whole district,” he said.
Filmmaking Department Speaks Out
One faculty member spoke up directly about the changes to the Board of Trustees.
“For 15 years, I’ve taught students how to make and understand movies,” Professor Rob Hahn said at the Sept. 28 Board of Trustees meeting. “I’m compelled to bring concerning news about future students, because for them the dream may be over. Filmmaking has been cut from the spring schedule, perhaps removed for all time, canceled without consult of the data showing our students’ success.”
Hahn left a handout for members and attendees at the meeting to read, citing time constraints on speakers preventing him from speaking at length. “But,” he said, “to summarize, every fall and spring for over 40 years, filmmaking has provided quality, affordable training to over 2,200 students, working class students, students of color, and first generation learners.”
After describing the successes of various alumni who went through those courses, Hahn said, “But now, filmmaking is canceled. And when our school closes the door on our low income, first generation students with the big dreams, we’re sabotaging everything our Community College stands for.”
Hahn pleaded during his time at the podium for the college to overturn the decision to cancel filmmaking, saying that the decision will cost future students jobs.
Karina Robb, a student enrolled at Meramec and previously taught by Hahn, also spoke at the meeting regarding the cancellation of the program. After explaining how the program helped her, she addressed BOT Chair Craig Larson, stating “Mr. Larson, you had said [to a previous speaker] that you really support the fine arts, […] if you support the fine arts, in turn you sort of have to support media. And yes, I hope you consider keeping it on the course roster.”
Their pleas, however, appear to have fallen of deaf ears, at least for now.
Why? Enrollment plays a key factor
Langrehr said that many of these courses were canceled because the demand for them simply was not there.
“I would classify [those courses] as low demand,” he said. And here’s my metrics on it: the review of the schedule, looked at what courses of our more than 1600 courses in our catalog. Of all of these courses, which ones are required in programs? If they’re required in programs, we’ve got to have them in the schedule, because students need them to complete. Then it looked at which courses are recommended for a student and transferring in a discipline. Like if you’re going to transfer, and you have some options, which ones have we recommend that students take? Those ones were considered needs.”
“And then it looked at which courses are very popular that students are choosing for their electives,” he continued. “You know, they’re offered in multiple sections across the district, on all the campuses because students want these classes. If they were in that vein, we kept those in the schedule, too, because students wanted them. So classes that we offered, not on all the campuses, so we may be off for one section or two sections of it in the whole district, in a whole year, those were viewed as not in high demand. Not needed, because if they were needed, they’d have been offered across the district, and more often.”
Langrehr said that most popular courses have hundreds of students enrolled per semester, while the canceled courses may have had fewer than 100 students over the last five years.
“In determining whether a course is popular, we would want to see that you’re offering several sections of that and that students on multiple locations ideally, all the locations are demanding as opposed to a section or two on one campus,” he said. “So those are kind of the metrics [we’re looking at]. Our enrollment is how many students signed up for this class.”
Langrehr acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic affected enrollment during the period of time that was studied, but doesn’t believe it had a significant enough effect in terms of the fate of the canceled courses, citing the five year time period that the college is using to make its decision beginning well before the onset of the pandemic.
“The pandemic was very challenging, challenging for scheduling, and challenging for students,” he said. “But I think that coming out of it, we’re trying to add beneficial modes for students and give them more options for how they might want to take a class. And students are signing up for them.”
Langrehr continued, “A high flex modality, where I can come and sit in class, or if something comes up, so I need to watch it, […], that’s been pretty popular in some spots and some disciplines. And we know you’ve got to ramp up the technology to do that, that you’ve gotta have that in the classroom to be able to do it. And we’re putting resources behind that so that we can make sure that students’ preferences are met where that mode is concerned.”
Returning to the canceled courses, Langrehr said that it boiled down to “pretty simply, that students haven’t chosen how we’ve offered this to take it very much. It’s not a requirement in any of our programs. So we want to have the things that students are demanding in the schedules, the things that are needed, so that they can complete things efficiently. But I think the students have sort of voted on this with what they’ve signed up for past them and haven’t signed up for those ones in the big number.”
Langrehr also mentioned that scheduling for the next semester is not finalized at the beginning of registration, and classes are sometimes added closer to the start of the semester, with adjustments made up until the beginning of the semester. He also made sure to note that if demand for certain courses rises, some courses have the possibility to return, including the filmmaking course.
“We never carve anything into stone,” he said. “The best opportunity those classes on that list and filmmaking have to come back into the schedule would be if a transfer focus area or program identifies that as something students should take. Or if there, I guess, if there was a groundswell of students saying to the advisor [that they would be interested in it]. But the most likely route would be, we decide that that’s an important course for a student in their pathway to a career. They’re finishing here. So it’s one of our programs, or we’re engaging with our four-year Transfer Partners. And as we add focus areas for transfer, does that become part of one of those? […] The pathways and programmatic focus of the schedule is about making sure the schedule is filled with needs, as opposed to wants. Unless it’s wanted by a lot of people.”
What goes into a class cancellation?
Not all classes make enrollment requirements. Langrehr explained that class cancellations are often made to ensure students have alternative opportunities to meet Gen Ed requirements. There is no set minimum criteria, as every situation can be different.
“There’s a lot of depends,” he said. “So, as an example, if this is a course that students need to complete, and there’s one section of that course, on the campus, in that semester, we’re gonna run out with a very, very low number of students because those students need it to. So if that same number of students, let’s say there’s three or four students in there, and we run it as it’s needed, that same three or four students were in a class, that there’s 10 sections of it. And there’s three sections that still have room in them for someone else to jump into it, we would cancel that. And it does depend a bit on capacities. Some classes have a very high capacity because maybe it’s in one of our bigger rooms. But generally, if classes are in the double digits, if they have a normal size room [such as] the 25 seat classroom and start getting into 12, 13, 14 people [enrolled]… it’s pretty safe, even in multiple section classes.”
“But I want to be real clear, that varies a lot, depending on the circumstances,” Langrehr continued. “And you’ll even have students or faculty say, ‘hey, this class with four students or five students is running over in this other discipline, or over on this other campus. And why is this one getting canceled?’ There’s always logic behind it, that we want to make sure where possible that if we cancel that class, there’s another opportunity for that student to either take that same class, or meet that same Gen-Ed requirement with a different class so that they’re not slowed down in their progress.”
