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Sinclair considering expansions, changes to Dayton campus

Record enrollment, tighter budget forces college to evaluate resources.

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By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer 10:34 PM Friday, September 25, 2009

DAYTON — Sinclair Community College was prepared to accommodate a historic surge of students this fall through increased capacity of its downtown Dayton campus, suburban learning centers and online course offerings.

However, the record enrollment of 25,345 students is forcing the school to look at ways of improving its main campus, said President Steven Lee Johnson on Friday, Sept. 25.

“There’s space here, it just needs to be reconfigured to work a little better for us,” Johnson said.

For example, Sinclair might move or expand its bookstore to integrate Internet book sales. Students currently pick up Web orders at another location.

Sinclair also is looking to expand its online courses, which attracted a record 6,000 students this fall.

One in four Sinclair students take an online course, but relatively few study exclusively online. “The vast majority are using online as just another option to build a (class) schedule,” Johnson said.

Sinclair’s two-year enrollment surge has been driven by both the economic downturn and a tuition rate of $2,025 per year for Montgomery County residents.

Sinclair’s board last week voted to increase tuition 3.5 percent to $2,100 starting the winter quarter. State funding for the college was reduced by as much as 2 percent in July.

“We’re squeezed,” Johnson said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re not increasing our expenses at nearly the rate we are increasing our students.”

Sinclair over the past two years has added 200 adjunct faculty members, as opposed to full-time faculty. Johnson and his senior staff did not take pay raises this year, while faculty and staff received modest increases, he said.

Johnson does not want to grow the college too fast and then have to retrench.

“We are hoping for some significant economic recovery and expecting our enrollment could then back off a bit because of that,” he said. “But if we need to go to 27,000 or 28,000 students in the next year or two, we’ll be ready.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2419 or dlarsen@Dayton DailyNews.com.