ENROLLMENT PLANNING TEAM
MINUTES
JUNE 13, 2007
2:00 PM PENLAND 110
Present: Ms. Stephanie Foote, Dr. Braden Hosch, Mr. Randy Duckett, Ms. Jennifer Lake, Mr. Randy Warrick, Dr. Tom Mack, Dr. Deidre Martin, Mrs. Vivian Grice, Mrs. Gail Ratchford, Mr. Corey Feraldi, Mr. Ahmed Samaha, Mr. Deri Wills, Mr. Tony Ateca, Mr. Andrew Hendrix, Mr. Glenn Shumpert, Ms. Gwen Ashley
Guest: Mr. Tim Bond, Mr. Mike Lemons, Mr. Tim Hall, Dr. Tom Hallman
Randy Duckett opened the meeting at 2:06 pm stating that there were two recommendations from the Freshmen Admission Action Team and the Financial Aid Scholarship Action Team. He asked if any Action Teams had updates prior to hearing from the FAAT and the FASAT.
Program Updates
First Pace - Ms. Stephanie Foote
Ms. Stephanie Foote introduced Tim Bond as a new employee in the Academic Success Center and indicated that he would be working as a coordinator of the First Pace program as well as an academic advisor.
Stephanie distributed a handout of Important Dates for the First Pace Program, which will begin on July 20, 2007. As of today’s date there are 41 students indicating they plan to attend. As part of the program they have been registered for either English 101 or Math 104.
Admissions – Andrew Hendrix
Mr. Hendrix stated that the freshmen admission numbers were below what they have been in the past few years but they are looking for the number to be close to 640.
Recommendations
Freshman Admissions Action Team
Randy asked Corey to give a brief summary of the report that was presented at the last EPT meeting.
After his briefing, Corey offered the following recommendation for EPT approval.
“The Freshman Admissions Action Team recommends the adoption of a 4% yearly increase in the size of the freshman class over a base of 640 in Fall 2007.”
Additional discussion took place and several questions were asked. Mr Hendrix noted the resources needed to accomplish a 4% annual growth. Members of the EPT voted unanimously to support the recommendation and send it to the Strategic Planning Committee.
Financial Aid Scholarship Action Team
Randy then asked Ahmed Samaha, chair of the FASAT, to discuss the recommendation from his Action Team. Ahmed explained that the scope of the charge of the Action Team was so large that the FASAT decided to focus their efforts on students who seemed to be incurring large debt and receiving fewer grants or scholarships. He offered the following recommendation from the FASAT.
The Recommendation for consideration:
“The Financial Aid/Scholarship Action Team recommends that for students which have an Expected Family Contribution (EFC) between $2,000 and $6,000 and fall between the PGPA’s or collegiate GPA’s range of 2.4 and 2.99 and met the priority financial aid deadline, be awarded a $1,000 scholarship for fall and spring semester. Each year, all students who fall in these ranges would be considered for receipt of the scholarship.”
Glenn Shumpert, Resource person for this Action Team gave additional information about these students and the recommendation. He explained that this group of students were not eligible for institutional scholarships and were just above the Pell Grant cut off as well. He stated that those students who received Pell Grants were also eligible for additional supplemental grant programs. He also distributed a document which indicated that the average debt of students receiving loans at USCA was approximately $23,000.
Discussion followed.
The Athletic Department represented by Randy Warrick and Tim Hall expressed that this scholarship would have a negative impact on some of the athletic teams as this scholarship would be “countable” aid and would count toward the number of allowable scholarships that each sport can offer. One concern was that if this grant/scholarship was offered the coach may not be aware of the award. While the coaches would like for their students to receive a scholarship rather than additional loans, they feel that this recommendation should exclude athletes.
Glenn agreed to take a second look at how it affects the athletes.
Dr. Hallman stated that he is in favor of the recommendation and is willing to discuss this issue with the NCAA. He asked Mr. Warrick and Mr. Hall to provide him with some information prior to his meetings next week.
Randy Duckett asked Mrs. Ratchford to arrange a meeting between, Randy Warrick, Glenn Shumpert, Ahmed Samaha, Tim Hall and himself to discuss this issue in more depth.
After more discussion two suggestions were made and two amendments were made to the original recommendation. The first was that the recommendation include that the students be: full-time undergraduate students. The second was that the scholarship be “up to $2000 a year, but no less than $1000 a year. With these amendments the EPT adopted the recommendation, with one abstention.
Randy Duckett reminded the chairs to turn in their year end reports if they had not done so already.
Ahmed shared the up-to-date orientation figures with the following numbers:
June orientation 203
July orientation 251
August orientation 52
Transfer numbers are lower then last year
Resources/Learning Opportunities
Dr. Deidre Martin will send Gail information to e-mail to the EPT about a learning opportunity “The Millennial Generation” that will be held at Augusta Technical College.
Meeting adjourned at 3:25 pm.