RCC changes schedule to cut commuting costs

By Miranda Baines

Published: July 25, 2008

Rockingham Community College has changed its class schedule for the upcoming academic year to reduce students’ commuting costs.
“The reformatting would cause students not to have to be on campus so much,” said Kim Pryor, director of public information.
At RCC, half of the student population goes part time, and many students have families and a job, said Dr. Robert Keys, RCC president. Looking for ways to minimize commuting time and costs to help students make education a priority seemed a logical step.
Keys and his staff began looking to reduce commuter costs without sacrificing instruction time. College deans reformatted between 20 and 25 business and science classes for the fall semester.
“Some three-day classes were consolidated into two, and some five-day classes were consolidated into four,” said Keys. “We will reformat more classes for spring semester, and our goal by summer 2009 is to operate the college on a four-day-week academic calendar.”
Dr. Sheila Ruhland, vice president for instruction, plans to develop a course schedule that offers a three-day option for students, especially in the applied sciences degree. Areas of study include accounting, criminal justice, electronics and engineering. Ruhland said a three-day option is already available for industrial technology students.
“It is a whole new way of how we’re looking at scheduling at RCC,” said Ruhland. She said RCC’s students are more “time-and-place bound” and have more obligations than in the past.
“Today’s student isn’t necessarily coming full-time, taking 15 or 18 hours of courses.”
“We’re trying some 7 a.m. starts so students can get here a little bit earlier and still get to work. A lot of our students work,” said Ruhland. RCC is also considering offering weekend-only classes for students who can’t attend during the week.
RCC also is considering offering some courses off campus.
“We need to rethink the campus boundaries to include the entire county rather than limiting our offerings solely to our campus in Wentworth,” said Keys. “It makes more sense to send one instructor to a community location rather than have 30 students commute to our campus.”
Ruhland said RCC also plans to increase its online course offerings and videoconferencing. The student development staff at RCC has also created a referral service for students who want to carpool. The service will be available in the fall semester.

Staff Writer Miranda Baines can be reached at or 349-4331, ext. 35.