Policy Context

CSU policies governing impaction were first collected together in Executive Order 319 in 1980. They remained essentially unchanged from that time until this year when San Diego State University’s implementation of campus-wide impaction for all undergraduate categories ignited controversy.

The principles behind impaction are actually quite simple. Impaction can be proposed for a specific program or for an entering class or for an entire campus. The Office of the Chancellor will only approve impaction when it is satisfied that there will be more qualified applicants who apply during the initial filing period than can be accommodated with the available facilities, equipment, or faculty. The campus must therefore be able to demonstrate that it has already implemented all available controls on enrollment short of impaction. Once impaction has been approved by the Chancellor, the campus can employ supplemental criteria (also reviewed annually by the CO staff) to screen the applicants so that the number admitted remains consistent with the number that can be served effectively. A plan of impaction must give priority to California residents and to upper-division transfers, but it can also include provisions to maintain student diversity where there is a clear connection between diversity and program quality.

Impaction in the CSU began with specific programs, not with entire campuses. Until this academic year only Cal Poly San Luis Obispo had ever been impacted on a campus-wide basis, and there impaction was implemented on a program-by-program basis. Accordingly, neither the CO staff nor the Trustees anticipated the challenges that would be posed in San Diego. The San Diego State proposal for campus-wide impaction was proposed fully two years before it was implemented, and it was duly approved by the CO. Not until 800 fully eligible students from San Diego County were denied admission was the fact that some of these students would suffer a financial hardship if they had to attend a more distant campus fully understood. The impact was especially harsh for some community college transfers, typically older students with family or employment responsibilities.

It now appears likely that the Trustees will respond by requiring that future proposals for class or campus-wide impaction include a provision that maintains access for students from the local region (a concept that has not yet been more precisely defined). The trade-off, of course, will be the necessity for even tougher supplemental criteria for students from outside the local area. Similarly, because the CSU will be under intense pressure to accommodate its share of the students who will make up Tidal Wave II, both the CO staff and the Trustees have already indicated that a proposal for impaction must be accompanied by evidence that the campus is taking reasonable steps to maximize its enrollment capacity.

Quality In The Face Of Rising Enrollment

CSULB enrollments are rising rapidly, especially freshman enrollments. The campus will soon reach its current physical capacity for students. The Committee was asked to make recommendations to the campus in the face of this looming increase in enrollments.

While we share the concern for providing access to the CSU, we believe that access is meaningless unless the education we provide maintains a high quality that prepares graduates to be productive citizens.

Once students are here, we have an obligation to provide the classes and services that will allow them to progress toward the degree at a rate limited only by their circumstances, not by our failure to provide the classes and services they need.

Enrollment management cannot focus only on admissions. An increase in the size of the freshman class means an increase in demand for upper division courses two years later.

Upper division courses typically are more costly than lower division courses. Class sizes are smaller and classes are usually taught by regular faculty rather than part-time or temporary faculty. It has been a strain to add enough class sections for the great increase in freshmen. It will be a far greater strain to provide the increased number of upper division classes that will be needed as these students move through the university.

A high quality program depends on having a high quality faculty. We are faced with the challenges of hiring new faculty members both to replace those who have retired or left for other reasons and to accommodate the increase in enrollment. In many fields there is now a Asellers market@ where we are competing with many other universities for the well-qualified people we want. It takes time and resources to recruit new faculty members and to give them an opportunity to become established at the university. It is neither possible nor desirable to achieve an exponential increase in the rate of hiring, as would be needed if we cannot control the rate of enrollment growth.

In addition to our concern about quality, in practice enrollment growth cannot be accommodated simply by increasing the student-faculty ratio. For many classes we are at the limit of classroom capacity. Many classes, especially General Education classes, are already far larger than an instructor can manage without a great deal more assistance than we can provide. We are experiencing heavy increases in demand for courses ranging from Composition to supervision of student teachers, where the course cannot be taught at increased student/faculty ratio.

Working students and students who are parents of young children have constraints on when they can take classes. Realistic planning for use of facilities cannot be based on the assumption that students can take classes at all times of the day or the year.

Increases in student numbers create increased need for staff in many categories, including Enrollment Services, Student Services, custodial staff, technical support staff, and others. Planning and budgeting for enrollment increases must recognize the need for both people and space in which they can work, to provide this essential support.

Enrollment planning needs to consider all of the costs of instruction, not just faculty compensation. The university is desperately short of funds for maintenance and replacement of our heavily used equipment and structures. Increased use will make the situation even worse. Departments are desperately short of money for duplicating, supplies, and other instructional costs. Some departments are able to maintain their programs only by bridging the gap with money earned from summer sessions.

The Committee Planning Process

In the Fall of 1998, President Maxson and the Chair of the Academic Senate formed a small working group to begin the process of planning for a predicted enrollment surge in the next decade. Members of the working group are Director of Strategic Planning Dowell, Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Services Enders, Associate Vice President for Student Services Nishio, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs Polakoff, Professor Goldish, Secretary of the Academic Senate, and Senate Chair Crowther. Other members of the University staff and faculty assisted this core group from time to time.

As a working group, its task was to formulate recommendations for consideration by the President and the University community. The group’s work was to frame the discussion and not to determine the policy outcomes. To that end, the group began by determining just what our enrollment capacity was with our existing resources. The resulting figure (24,600 FTES) gave us a basis for estimating how soon we would reach that capacity.

The data available to us made it clear that we would reach our existing capacity within 3 to 5 years and that we needed to begin to formulate a plan whereby we could limit enrollment. Limiting enrollment in the context of the mission of the California State University and Trustee policies on admission presented significant problems. Raising admission standards reduced access for our traditional constituency and might change our role in the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Permitting enrollment to grow unchecked would damage the learning environment and deny access to a quality education to those admitted.

Over the course of the past year there has been extensive discussion of the various means by which our enrollment may be best managed to ensure educational quality. These discussions have been held with the President’s Cabinet, the Council of Deans, and culminated with a lengthy conversation at the annual retreat of the Academic Senate in the Fall of 1999. The Senate Retreat made clear the faculty’s desire to maintain the diverse community that has become a particular strength of our University as well as to continue our qualitative improvements.

Gathering the input from the many sources consulted, the working group commissioned a series of analytical studies described below to determine possible selection criteria that might be used to supplement the existing criteria for admission to the University.

Data Analysis and Results

The Committee was concerned with two major issues that required empirical analyses. The Committee commissioned Dr. Patricia Bachelor, Professor of Psychology, to conduct an extensive study with data furnished by the CSULB Office of Institutional Research. The purposes of the study were:

1. To determine if available selection criteria (high school GPA, admissions index, etc.) are valid for use with CSULB’s student populations in the ranges we are likely to need to apply criteria.
2. To examine the potential impacts on student mix of applying potential selection criteria.

Two entire freshman cohorts were studied including special admissions (Fall 1996 and Fall 1997). The committee defined indicators of student success based upon existing University academic policies in terms of:

1. grade point average
2. percentage of units toward degree earned
3. completion of remedial Math requirements
4. completion of remedial English requirements
5. completion of GE Math requirements
6. completion of GE English requirements

The study was confined to predictors that would be potentially available as supplemental selection criteria.

In an additional step, to examine potential impacts upon student mix, descriptive data on the current (Fall 1999) cohort were gathered. Admissions index scores were cross-tabulated by ethnicity, gender and high school of origin.

Findings

1. Fall 1997 and Fall 1998 cohorts were extremely similar in terms of demographics, academic profiles, and college success outcomes. At admissions, about one-third of students passed or were exempt from ELM and about one-third of students passed or were exempt from EPT.
2. At end of 1^st year, two-thirds had met remedial English requirements (including one-third who met requirements at admissions) and 50% had met math remedial requirements (including one-third who met requirements at admissions).
3. At end of 2^nd year, two-thirds had met English GE requirements and 50% had met Math GE requirements.
4. SAT math scores correlate with ELM about 0.6 and SAT verbal scores correlate with EPT about 0.75. First year GPA and 2^nd year GPA correlate at about the 0.9 level.
5. First and second year success indicators for upper-level remedial groups are very similar to regularly admitted students. Success for both regularly admitted and upper-level remedial students is higher than success for lower level remedial students.
6. Admissions index scores are positively related to the number of "success indicators" earned by students. Analyses provide a means of estimating the accuracy with which a raised eligibility index could be used to admit students. Results indicate that the accuracy of the eligibility index as an admissions criterion is acceptable.
7. Applying the admissions index as a supplemental criterion would have the following impacts:

1. Gender: a moderate impact favoring males,
2. Ethnicity: a sizable impact favoring non-minority students,
3. Income: a sizable impact favoring higher income students.

Basis of the Plan

The campus needs to control the enrollment of CSU-eligible applicants in light of the growing enrollment demand and limited capacity. Admissions controls must be accompanied by implementation of various strategies to increase enrollment capacity prior to, and concurrent with, implementing supplemental admission criteria (i.e. distance learning, Friday enrollment, disqualification procedures). While controlling enrollment, the University will attempt to maintain its ethnic, geographic, and academic program diversity while enrolling applicants who demonstrate the most potential for academic success.

Components of the Plan

1. Continue to admit all fully eligible upper division, graduate, and post-baccalaureate applicants who file their applications during the CSULB-defined filing period.
2. Close admissions to lower division transfer students.
3. Require SAT scores of all freshmen applicants.
4. Continue to admit all fully eligible first-time freshman applicants who graduate from high schools in a CSULB-defined "primary service area" and file their applications during the common admissions filing period.
5. Implement moderately higher supplemental admission criteria based on an elevated eligibility index for first-time freshmen applicants who graduate from high schools in a larger CSULB-defined "secondary service area"¹ and file their applications during the common admissions filing period.
6. Implement higher supplemental admission criteria based on an elevated eligibility index for first-time freshmen applicants who graduate from high schools outside of the CSULB-defined primary and secondary service areas.
7. Designate a number or percentage of first-time freshmen to be admitted through an alternative admission screening process. These will be applicants who will be considered based upon "institutional interests," special circumstances, and/or applicants for whom redirection would pose a program hardship.

Close at the end of the Initial Filing Periods

The campus now closes to all new undergraduate levels at the end of the initial filing term and to all but upper division transfers and 2^nd BA’s for Fall.

The campus has not recently explored these options.

The campus has fully complied with the required compliance with transfer admission requirements. The impact of the remaining changes should not be significant to the campus as advance notice has given students and counselors time to plan for compliance:

Fall 2000 – Upper Division Transfers can no longer use high school course pattern

Fall 2003 – UC and CSU align the HS course pattern

Fall 2003 – Proposal to use core gpa for HS eligibility index

Reduce Exception Admission

The campus has greatly reduced exception admission at all levels (freshmen/lower division general exceptions; freshmen/lower division EOP exceptions; and upper division exceptions). The campus has implemented a ‘rescind/defer’ policy for provisional undergraduate admissions. Under this policy, transfer students are not allowed to enroll if they do not fully meet the terms of their admission offer; freshmen are not allowed to enroll if they do not meet the terms of their admission offer and do not need remediation.

The campus is in full compliance with the requirement that students must take the ELM/EPT prior to enrolling. The campus had 153 regularly admitted freshmen who were allowed to re-enroll at the end of their first year that did not complete remediation activities.

The faculty may want to explore tougher standards and enforcement in determining academic success, progress and thus the right to continue. Tougher standards in these areas would help to reduce overall enrollment pressure thus permitting the admission of more fully qualified new students. It would also allow faculty to focus their course content somewhat more on those students who have already shown the ability to keep up.

Class Room Utilization

The Academic Senate has recently adopted a new scheduling policy designed to require more Friday classroom utilization.

While most CSULB courses taught entirely by distance education are offered through self-support programs, there is current exploration of the use of distance education technology to support campus classes. The new scheduling policy acknowledges that this can reduce the total seat time for a class.

The campus proposed a Summer 2000 YRO pilot in Computer Science to the CO. The proposal was not funded. The campus is beginning to analyze the considerable impact of implementing YRO. The campus is determined to move slowly and carefully in this area so that any problems encountered are small-scale and solvable at acceptable cost.

Because the CSU Trustees are expected to enact a revised policy on enrollment management in March of 2000, the Committee recommends that no campus policy be adopted until that time. We are endeavoring to provide the President and the university community with enough pertinent information on this issue to facilitate useful discussion of our options. Once the Trustees have acted, we should be able to move toward the formulation of our own policy without unnecessary delay.