Kodiak College Suspends Several Programs With Low Enrollment

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Kodiak College is cutting a few programs which are no longer in demand and draw on unnecessary funds. The suspensions come during a difficult fiscal time for the state, and academic leaders have previously said no program is off the table.

Earlier in May, the University of Alaska Anchorage agreed to Kodiak College’s request to stop admission to the undergraduate certificate in construction technology and the undergraduate certificate in industrial safety program support.

Kodiak College director Alan Fugleberg says these certificates in particular aren’t in demand.

“We just have had very little interest and actually have no enrollment as of the time of program suspension. In recent years, the numbers just dropped due to lack of interest, and also courses such as the industrial program safety support program, those are offered entirely online now out of Anchorage.”

He says the enrollment fails to justify the expense of hiring a teacher. He furthermore says Kodiak College may offer some of the classes from the certificates through its continuing education program, which it’ll be building on over the next year.

Fugleberg says the college is also removing the Associate of Applied Science degree program in computer systems technology due to low enrollment.

“We only had one student remaining in the program who had not been active in recent years and, as a result of just total lack of interest in the program, we decided to suspend that program as well.”

Fugleberg says the Anchorage campus suspended its admission to that program roughly a year ago, and Kodiak College will offer many of the same courses through its occupational endorsement certificate.

He says the decision to suspend the three programs is also part of trimming away at expenses that put demands on the college’s budget.

“When we look at the entire university system, there has been a mention by President Johnson about the need to reduce the number of programs across the university, and that’s our part of it. It’s a logical choice to cut something that there are just no students for.”

He says they went through a program review and the UAA provost approved the suspensions.