Future applicants seeking admission might have to think longer about second and third choices when selecting a major.
Effective fall 2010, an additional 12 majors will be impacted at Cal State Long Beach, according to the impacted majors list on the CSULB Web site.
The majors are biology, communications studies, design (Bachelor of Arts), English, history, industrial design (Bachelor of Science), interior design (Bachelor of Fine Arts), journalism, kinesiology — exercise science, liberal studies, political science and sociology.
They will join the list of the other 11 majors that will continue to be impacted, including art (Bachelor of Arts — option in studio art), college of business administration (all majors), criminal justice, film and electronic arts, health science — radiation therapy technology, kinesiology — athletic training, kinesiology — kinesiotherapy, nursing, psychology and social work.
“The demands of those majors have grown significantly,” CSULB President F. King Alexander said at the Convocation continental breakfast last Friday. “It’s anticipation of what we know is going to be a massive flow of students into those programs.
“That’s just the nature of being very popular among transfer students, and even new freshmen.”
Alexander added that the students would mostly be transfers from community colleges, and not just nearby Long Beach City College. Three other community colleges based in the Orange Coast area are considered in CSULB’s local tier.
“Because CSU Fullerton was challenged to handle their enrollments this fall, the CSU chancellor [Charles Reed] directed CSULB to expand its ‘local admissions guarantee area’ for transfer admissions to include the three community colleges in the Orange Coast District,” director of strategic planning David Dowell said in an e-mail last Friday. He said the notice was given “suddenly” in July.
“For campuses in our local admissions guarantee area, we are required to admit to ‘non-impacted’ majors using lower, less selective criteria,” added Dowell, who is also the vice provost for planning and budgets. “This means that we have little control over the numbers of students admitted from these campuses.”
Dowell said applications from the Orange Coast District were analyzed, and “eight majors not yet impacted that were likely to be overwhelmed next fall” were identified. He spoke with the deans of the two colleges with departments on the list and after requesting “supplemental admission criteria needed for impaction,” both colleges cooperated.
Not all departments were made aware of its majors being added to the list ahead of time, however.
“We were not informed until the decision was made,” said Nancy Quam-Wickham, history department chair, in an e-mail last Friday.
Raul Reis, the chair of the journalism department, also was not informed but understands the inability to reach each department.
“I don’t think impaction will be detrimental to the department in any significant way,” Reis said. “I still wish the department and its faculty had been consulted when the decision was made in July, but understand that the window of opportunity to add newly impacted majors to the list was very narrow, and given the seriousness of the current budget situation, that important decision had to be made.”
Dowell was told by one of the deans that it was impossible to consult with all of the departments ahead of time “given the haste with which we had to accomplish this.”
“There is still time for departmental discussion,” Dowell said. “Impaction for these departments only provides us with authority to use supplemental criteria. We are not required to use this authority and we don’t need to decide until November when applications are filed.
“I think when departments learn of the value of this tool, the usefulness of gaining this authority will be clear.”
Current CSULB students must declare a major once 60 units have been completed. If the major is impacted, they will be required to meet the standards for admission to that major.
Freshman applicants will not be affected by the admission criteria based on the major declared on the application, the Web site said. If offered admission, those interested in impacted majors will be admitted to a “pre-major.”
However, once 60 units are completed, the student must apply to the impacted major and meet its additional requirements to remain in the major. Otherwise, the student will be required to select another major.
Transfer applicants will be required to meet the general admission requirement as well as the major’s requirements, if impacted.
Specific majors have different criteria for eligible applicants, such as limited space-availability based on cumulative GPA and/or minimum GPA, letters of recommendation and, in some cases, faculty judgment of the ability to succeed.
Alexander pointed to the “economic recovery period” and decline in applicants offered admission, coupled with the high demand for those newly impacted programs. He anticipates another enrollment drop from 35,800 students this year to “about 33,300” next year.
“When we start growing again, I think there will be some easing of the pressure. … But that’s a couple of years away,” he said.
