Tansey Topics: A weekly look at what's happening at BCCC | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The final numbers for Fall Semester 2013 are in and there's good news and bad news for BCCC. Our enrollment reached a new record of 1,985. That's the good news. The bad news is that our full-time-equivalancy number, on which our funding is based, is down by 15 FTEs.

    This is partly due to the fact that many of our students are taking only 12 credit hours instead of the 16 credit hours, the full-time benchmark for the state. Vice President of Research Jay Sullivan has compiled other enrollment information as follows: About 65 percent of our students are women; 70 percent of our students list Beaufort County as their home address followed by Pitt County for about 10 percent, and about 40 percent of students are enrolled in at least one online class.

    Here's some of what happened during the past week:

• Vice President of Academics Crystal Ange working with Dean of Business and Industrial Technology

    Ben Morris and Dean of Arts and Sciences Dixon Boyles has developed a schedule of additional eight-week classes that will start Monday, Oct. 15. They will include several classes that will transfer to any of North Carolina's 16 public universities and classes that prepare students to enter the work force. Thanks to Crystal, Ben and Dixon for their hard work developing these classes.

• Members of BCCC's Senior Staff spent part of Monday's meeting on a tour of maintenance facilities at the college led by Maintenance Director Melvin lodge and Equipment Coordinator Sherry Stotesberry. Sherry is in the process of choosing items for our next surplus sale.


• The Division of Continuing Education has developed several new classes that are under way or will start soon. Among these is a new Public Safety class, How to Survive the First Three Seconds. The class teachers participants - N.C. Highway Patrol officers, sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement personnel - the characteristics of an armed or combative individual to help them more quickly recognize and survive encounters with threatening and aggressive individuals.


• BCCC's Personnel Directory is finally coming together and will be available via the Internet thanks to the efforts of Rebecca Adams, Institutional Effectiveness administrative assistant. The directory will be available through Courtyard, a private, interactive directory website where college administration, faculty and staff will be able to share and update their contact information. Look for an update soon about the new directory.


• Personal and personnel notes: Vice President of Academics Crystal Ange and I have been named to a committee that is charged with developing orientation materials for community college board members across the state in their role in student success. We attended our first meeting this week along with representatives from nine other community colleges. Congratulations to Clay Carter on his expanded duties as new Director of Community Partnerships. He will coordinate BCCC's Leisure Pursuits classes in addition to work with dislocated workers and evening and off-campus programs.


    Now You Know

    Since many students in the community college system attend classes on a part-time basis, it became necessary to equate them to a "typical" full-time student. The term used for this conversion is called "full-time equivalent," or FTE. One student who takes 16 hours of class instruction per 16-week semester for two semesters generates 512 hours, or one annual curriculum FTE. One FTE generates, on average, $5,000 in funding for the college. So, the loss of 15 FTEs means the loss of $75,000 in state funds.

   •  Aug. 29 - BCCC Foundation Board of Directors, 11 a.m., Board Room, Building 10.

   •  Sept. 2 - Labor Day Holiday.

   •  Sept . 10 - Book talk by Dr. Maurice Godwin on criminal profiling, serial murder and crime scene analysis, noon, BCCC library.

   •  Sept. 17 - Faculty/Staff Kick-off, noon, auditorium, Building 8.

   •  Sept. 20 - 20th Annual BCCC Foundation Golf Tournament, Washington Yacht and Country Club.