Two years into Camosun College’s restructure of registration dates and fee deadlines, faculty members are challenging what the college claims are benefits of the change.
Until 2022, the policy allowed students two weeks into the term before paying course fees and dropping classes without facing financial penalties. Since the change, students only have a 100-percent fee refund available if a class is dropped by the day before classes start; this year that falls on September 2. Following that deadline, students will be eligible for an 80-percent fee refund for up to one week. After that, refunds will not be issued for that term.
A Camosun faculty member—who has spoken to Nexus on condition of anonymity—says that students have been fixed to a restrictive deadline that financially prevents them from making individualized academic decisions.
“The primary concern about the add/drop policy change is that it means that students are likely to be penalized before they’ve even taken a class if they decide that that class doesn’t work for them for whatever reason, whether it’s a scheduling issue, whether it’s a learning difficulty, a learning style, the dynamics with the instructor or the classroom space, whatever the reason is,” says the faculty member. “Any reason, I think, is legitimate from a student’s perspective. So, it takes away the flexibility and the possibility of students to be able to work with the courses that are on offer at Camosun.”
A second Camosun faculty member—also speaking on condition of anonymity—adds that students’ lack of information results in unsatisfactory class selection.
“[T]hat ability to make an informed choice about which course you want to put your time and energy and passion into, I think, is really stripped away… which I think is really unfair for a student,” says the second faculty member.
Camosun registrar Scott Harris acknowledges that students should be well-informed before selecting classes. He says, for this reason, Camosun has created new tools for students to better verse themselves in class syllabi, a consolidation of all historical course outlines and syllabi available on Camosun’s website. Additionally, the college is working on further assistance to better define academic information.
“The other thing that we’re doing to help students make informed decisions is, especially for those students who are in open programs like University Transfer, that aren’t as prescribed as another program, like a Nursing program, for example, we are finalizing recommended study pathways to bring real clarity to those open programs and make it easier for students to select courses that fit with their aspirations and that they’ll actually able to be transferrable to other institutions depending on their goal,” says Harris.
The first faculty member says that a lowered 80-percent refund has the potential to cause long-term consequences, limiting students from registration. They say this disadvantages marginalized students to a greater extent.
“Academics is, as we know, fundamentally entangled with privilege and finance expenses. And so reducing, taking away that 20 percent of tuition, if the course is something like $460… is a significant amount of money, which could affect the student’s ability to take another course in the future. So they might not be moving laterally within Camosun, they might be fully dropping the course from that semester course load and then losing out on that 20 percent. In the long term, if that happens more than once, that can be a significant amount of money that they’re losing that they could be using toward tuition in the future, toward their program, other courses, whatever the case may be,” they say. “That is my personal concern for students because tuition is increasing.”
Harris says Camosun considered financial concerns, and as a result ensured the policy features broad financial criteria, such as students applying for financial aid, students with sponsorships, and students with tuition of less than $250. However, Harris stresses student accountability and making attentive decisions for themselves.
“[W]e’re really trying to give our students agency as adults to make informed decisions… We want students to make purposeful decisions as early as humanly possible so that what they’re taking actually aligns with their future academic or career goals. And so there’s a number of ways that that can happen,” says Harris. “If they’re in an open sort of enrolment program like University Transfer and they’re not sure, I would highly encourage those students to be working with an academic advisor, because not only will the academic advisor help them choose the right courses that can transfer, but they also might have some of that additional context about which instructors might suit their learning style the most, et cetera.”
As well, the first faculty member is concerned that the policy unequally impacts neurodivergent students who may face a wider range of repercussions.
“If we take into consideration a student who may have some neurodivergence, which is something that we see a lot at Camosun… If a student realizes that by the second or third day that they’ve sat in that class, this does not work for them, then it can affect not only their ability to either drop the course or to take another course, but affects their anxiety levels, their ability to even learn the material,” they say. “So there are a lot of different ways that it can affect a variety of students’ learning approaches.”
Harris emphasizes the available support resources for neurodivergent students and students registered with the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL), saying utilizing these tools can alleviate difficulty in the classroom.
“But [CAL counsellors, academic advisors] are all things that need to occur sort of before the beginning of the term anyways,” he says. “So the earlier students can be engaging with those support resources to make good, informed decisions, I think the better.”
The first faculty member feels that Camosun’s policy is exclusively explained in overly technical language, resulting in ill-informed students. They argue that information is unfairly inaccessible for young Camosun students and students returning to education after several years.
“I think this policy, because it’s not explained anywhere, it is in the academic calendar, buried under really technical language that even I had to… really tease apart carefully to understand what the implications are. So I think this policy is capitalizing on students’ lack of awareness of tuition policies rather than actually fulfilling the values that the college claims to have for students and supporting its students,” they say. “I think it’s doing the opposite, and I think that’s really against the ethics of a huge swath of folks who are working and teaching [at Camosun].”
Harris says he believes the college over-communicates. He refutes the claim that the language is too technical, saying that communication from the college to students has been refined with technology like ChatGPT to allow information to be comprehensible at a grade-school level to be easily accessible to all incoming and returning students.
“We actually had [Camosun student agreements] rewritten last year. They were coming out at around a Grade 12 readability level, and so we had those redone to a Grade 7 or 8 readability level. So we’re very mindful of that. It’s not like we’re ignoring those students. We’re definitely trying to be extra proactive with those students,” he says. “We’re working with the School of Access to make sure the right kinds of information gets communicated out to the learners based on their expertise.”
Both faculty members would like to see a change in the deadline policy that includes more freedom for students’ flexibility and is more focused on learning and less on the college’s finances.
“With inflation and with this policy change in the add/drop, that hugely affects students’ ability to be a part of Camosun College,” says the first faculty member. “At the expense of students’ ability to enrol, maybe long term or in a consistent way… It’s making students bear the brunt of Camosun’s need to balance the budget and to maintain the bottom line. I think that really goes against the general mission of a community college at large.”
Harris confirms that the policy change was made in part to combat financial loss. He says that while the previous policy had benefits, it was no longer feasible.
“This change also brought us in line… We were the only college in British Columbia that had a 100-percent refund after the start of the term, and it just wasn’t fiscally sustainable for the college. We’re trying to ensure that Camosun is here in 50, 100 years. And so we’re trying to make sure that we’re being as fair as possible while also ensuring that the college is sustainable. Every time a student registers in a course and holds that seat into the term, there’s fixed costs associated with that and that won’t always be able to be backfilled by another waiting learner,” says Harris. “So that’s why we landed on the 80-percent refund, which is also one of the highest in the province.”
The first faculty member recognizes Camosun’s effort to support students. However, they hope to see a change in the deadline policy to further that support.
“I think it is important to note this, that fundamentally, I’m not against Camosun itself. I think Camosun does excellent work at supporting students,” they say. “I have met some of the most dedicated instructors and student support staff here… The issue is with the policy and the priority of balancing the books rather than stewarding the students and taking care of them.”
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