Enrollment numbers up at RCCC

Rowan County’s layoffs and Cabarrus County’s new high-tech jobs have overwhelmed Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, administrators said Monday.

Enrollment in continuing education courses rose 15 percent last semester and 9 percent more this semester, said Jeanie Moore, associate vice president of instruction and continuing education.

At its Kannapolis and Salisbury campuses, the college had about 23,763 students enroll in at least one course in 1999-2000. That’s up 5.3 percent from 22,552 the previous year.

“We’re getting an increase in our services as well as actual enrollment,” she said. “Our numbers are higher; our classes are larger.”

The college has trained many workers for Corning’s optical-fiber plant in Midland in southern Cabarrus County. At the same time, many employees laid off their jobs in Kannapolis and Rowan County have benefited from learning new skills at the college, Moore said.

“We’ve got a lot of things that are exciting and, at the same time, disconcerting,” she said.

College President Dick Brownell remarked that with a slowing economy comes greater need for community colleges — yet less money from the state government.

“The typical college conundrum is: When the economy is in jeopardy, enrollment goes up, while at the same time, the possibilities of funding are cut,” he said.

Last month, the Legislature ordered the state’s 59 community colleges to return 1.5 percent of funding for the fiscal year.

Also Monday afternoon, trustees learned what the college is doing to serve some 70 of its students who have disabilities. To relate, some trustees donned headsets over their ears. Others wore goggles masked with duct tape, sat in wheelchairs or had their hands bound in straps. Then board members criss-crossed a room and tried to answer a list of questions about each other.

Mark Ebersole, the college’s director of counseling and coordinator of disability services, said students with disabilities who come to Rowan-Cabarrus expect an equal opportunity to learn.

“This is a service that has begun over the past 10 years,” he said. “You have to understand that these services are mandatory in public schools. They are not in the colleges. But as students, they come here and expect them.”