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Ideas and Opportunities for Increasing Revenue

  • 6 June 2016
  • Author: Brian Van Pelt
  • Number of views: 5705
  • 28 Comments
Please share your questions, thoughts and ideas on opportunities for increasing revenue at CR. You must login in order to post a comment.

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28 comments on article "Ideas and Opportunities for Increasing Revenue"

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Geck-Moeller, Lyn

6/15/2016 1:06 PM

I have a suggestion that might help enrollment. I think CR should try and offer as many classes as possible at the local high schools. It is convenient, offers free parking, and community members are usually familiar with the campuses since they probably attended high school there. When I attended Fullerton College in Southern California I was able to take my English 1A class and a business class at my high school. It was a minute from my house, and it was also fun being back at my old stomping grounds.

Since I have worked here, I believe we have opened up educational sites in McKinleyville and Arcata at least three times. We rent and staff the buildings and they barely survive for a few years. Then we close them. We lose a lot of money and then have to find positions for the staff that were at those sites or lay them off. I don’t think this is a good system. I think utilizing the local high schools and adult education centers is a much better idea.


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

6/16/2016 8:57 AM

Hi Lyn,

I appreciate the suggestion. The College is offering several courses at Eureka, Arcata, and McKinnleyville High Schools for both concurrent and dual enrollment. We also have some courses scheduled at Southern Humboldt High.

I understand your comment regarding our history of opening and closing sites--in other words we were inconsistent. The inconsistency doesn't foster trust with our communities.

I think we have to continue exploring different markets to boost enrollment. I am open to discussing opening sites in Arcata and/or McKinleyville if we can make the a reasonable and sustainable return on our investment.

Keith


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Geck-Moeller, Lyn

6/16/2016 9:23 AM

Thank you for your response Keith. Also, we get a number of students each year that ask if the weight room/gym is available for their use. They are usually not in a P.E. class. They are on campus and some of them have enough time between classes that it would be convenient for them to be able to workout in the weight room between classes. Maybe there is a way that we could charge a fee for students to use the weight room/gym. We could have the gym open at specific times for all students--first come, first serve.


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LaMastus, Clifford

6/16/2016 10:45 AM

I will second this. I couldn't begin to tell you how many Veterans alone we have ask about being able to use the gym facilities every semester.


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

6/16/2016 3:58 PM

Thank you Lyn and Clifford. I will certainly follow up with Joe and Lee (for liability). I'll post a response as soon as I know anything.


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

6/17/2016 2:25 PM

Lyn and Clifford: We can make the 1:30-7:00 time frame open for students and staff who want to use the weight room/gym. This will certainly be a good service for students who want to workout between classes in the afternoon.

The only challenge is identifying funding for a student to sit and monitor the weight room while it is use. I'll continue to follow-up.

Again, this is a great idea!


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Geck-Moeller, Lyn

6/21/2016 12:41 PM

Thank you so much, Keith. This is great! You could possibly create a federal work-study position for the weight room attendant. A Student Employee Requisition would need to be submitted. I am sure there are students especially in the physical education area that would enjoy a part-time job.


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

6/22/2016 1:26 PM

Hi Lyn. I sent an email to Rianne asking whether it's too late to request funding. We'll continue to follow up.


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Lindsey, Lee

6/23/2016 5:10 PM

Also, can we create an open enrollment non-credit weight training class where folks sign in and out? That could help cover costs for supervision and could help with someone to train folks on techniques, safety, etc.


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Lindsey, Lee

6/23/2016 5:08 PM

What about non-credit courses on "organizational topics" that could be offered to CR employees as well as local government agency employees? Examples include first person shooter safety training, writing effective employee reviews, legal/HR updates, etc.


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

6/23/2016 7:09 PM

Great ideas Lee. I'll follow-up with Ahn and see what we can do.


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Darling, Dawson

6/29/2016 10:18 PM

"Where are all the electric car charge points?" This is a question already asked by current local ev car owners, and will be increasingly asked in the future.

Humboldt, comparitively to its size, has pretty good ev infrastructure. And understandably so, it is a fairly environmental area, it has a high concentration of priuses and Leafs. Eureka city council had a pledge to get 40 ev charging stations/parking spots strategically located around the town, yet...we aren't on there, what happened?

We are getting left behind in this new infrastructure and it's only going to get worse. And as a campus that's already out of the way, the need is even greater for us...even though the set up is kind of ideal for charging -most are here for hours.

Fortunately we are currently in an age of incentives and some companies are offering to install them for free! http://takechargeca.com/learn-more/ Up to 10 for a business. I think we all the space we have we can at least to that in strategic locations. Let's get on it! Build our environmental rep, help build infrastrucure, maybe even help win some awards!


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Lindsey, Lee

7/14/2016 5:41 PM

CR has been waitlisted for sometime to have electric vehicle recharging infrastructure installed through a program that provides the upgrade at no cost. Of course, this is a very popular program and we are in a remote area of the State, so we have to "wait our turn".

Also, the infrastructure upgrade only runs electrical wiring out to the designated parking spots. You then still have to find a vendor willing to install a charging station and deal with the billings, maintenance, paying the electrical bill, etc. As with other initiatives, I am concerned about signing agreements that place too much risk on the College. We cannot afford to make agreements that could result in the general fund having to subsidize a charging station.


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Darling, Dawson

7/19/2016 8:12 PM

Ah, good to know we're on track for it. After that's done, from what I understand, finding a vendor shouldn't be too difficult. They seem to be chomping at the bit. More of concern would be picking the most reliable one... The program you speak of, what's the name of it and who heads it?

(I'm somewhat hoping the Humboldt County Public Works dept. isn't in charge, as they've been dropping the ball on a few things.)


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Clark, Karyn

6/30/2016 8:08 AM

This is somewhat of a quickie idea and easy to do: How about a main banner link on redwoods.edu for "Giving to CR?" That could then route people to the Foundation page. But as it stands right now, people who may be interested in donating, anything, to the school, have to do a lot of work to find out how to go about doing it. Even if it's not a cash donation, if someone donates "stuff," or "services," that's less "stuff" or "services" we have to pay for.


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

6/30/2016 1:29 PM

Hi Karyn: This is a fantastic idea! I will talk to Marty Coelho about this idea when he returns from some time off. I'll get back to you in a few weeks.

Keith


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Coelho, Marty

7/5/2016 9:46 AM

Karyn - great idea, we will put in place. We are currently working with the finance team to set-up our website for online donations. But this would be smart to have in place in the interim.

Marty


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Lindsey, Lee

7/14/2016 5:34 PM

What about a convenience fee for paying with debit/credit cards? The Business Office absorbs $37,000 in card fees annually on about 11,000 individual transactions or about $3.75 per card transaction. If it drives more students to pay cash, then that's OK. We'd still lower the card fees we're eating. :)


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

7/14/2016 6:49 PM

This is a good idea. We just have to figure out the "right" convenience fee and determine the best time to implement the feed keeping in mind the workload of our programmers.


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Darling, Dawson

7/19/2016 8:19 PM

Having no experience in these matters, is that level of fee normal? It seems a bit steep.


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Snow-Flamer, Keith

7/24/2016 3:55 PM

Thanks for the comment. Both the chancellor's Office Fee Book and CDAM discuss card fees, so such fees are not prohibited. Santa Rosa Junior College, charges a Convenience Fee of $2.00. Note that SRJC's fee only applies the fee to online transactions.


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Cox, Catherine

9/23/2016 2:30 PM

Does the district do anything now with contract instruction - providing instruction to outside entities based on their organizational needs, which they pay us for? I'm asking because my daughter works for Humboldt Waste Management, and we were talking the other day about how they need to build a pool of on-call employees who are certified to deal with hazardous waste. This requires either a 24 or 40 hour HAZWOPR course, which is very hard to come by in this county as it's not offered anywhere. I'm sure there are other types of training opportunities and offering contract instruction can bring in revenue to the college as well as drawing in potential new students to our programs.


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Fielding, Ahn

9/30/2016 12:29 PM

Thank you Cathy. Contract instruction is in "not-for-credit" (a.k.a., Community Education). Yes, there are always training opportunities and we welcome any suggestions on topic areas/identified needs. As for HAZWOPR, anything OSHA is hard to deliver due to the instructor certifications required. We're looking into investing in sending instructors to get specific OSHA certifications and HAZWOPR is one of them. Again, please do send your ideas and thoughts on training needs to me!


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Walkley, Shannon

10/3/2016 3:49 PM

In Del Norte, I am seeing an increase in the number of individuals with disabilities who would benefit from the Community Education courses that are being offered in Eureka. Since there are no courses in Del Norte, perhaps CR could increase revenue if there were courses available for this population.


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Walkley, Shannon

10/3/2016 4:06 PM

Has anyone looked into Dual Enrollment or partnering with Del Norte County Schools? Although the campus is close to DNHS, the high school has the facilities for classes related to wood working, metals, and music to name a few. Our students have expressed interest in these courses.


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Harrington, Su

10/14/2016 9:26 AM

From what students have said, we have a 2-year waiting list for the RN program. Why not invest the money to recruit more faculty and expand the program?


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Durkee, Lynn

10/20/2016 4:47 PM

On average, the Del Norte Education Center fields one call or walk-in per week about taking the GED. Due to the distance (85 miles four times over a two day period), many potential students are not able to take the GED,m and thus do not qualify for financial aid, and therefore do not enroll at the college. If the number of potential students is 30, we are losing $150,000 in FTES. This seems like a lot of money to not be trying to capture. Del Norte Education Center needs a way to provide the GED test in this county so that we can capture students we are currently losing to frustration.


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Clark, Karyn

11/9/2016 10:46 AM

Now that Marijuana has been legalized in California, perhaps we can create some type of AG certificate that plays into the stuff HSU is doing? Maybe some AG classes in Cannibis Cultivation, Hydroponics, some Chem/Bio classes on the properties of THC and pharmacological implications of the medicinal uses of cannibis. There could be Soc and Psych classes as well as Addiction Studies classes. In fact, we could probably offer a certificate and a degree. If we were to do this, we could be on the forefront of schools offering certifications and degrees. It would be another unique thing that could being in students from all over the world.

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