There were quite a few people with confused expressions wandering the halls at Riverland Community College Monday, but Kris Chapin said they were well taken care of.

Tuesday, August 24, 1999

There were quite a few people with confused expressions wandering the halls at Riverland Community College Monday, but Kris Chapin said they were well taken care of. Chapin, an information specialist at Riverland, reported that the biggest problem of the first day back to school was "people finding the right spot."

"We had people from student services in the hallways just looking for that lost expression," Chapin said. "Whether it was a classroom or registration or financial aid they were looking for, I think we got most of them sent in the right direction."

Riverland President Gary Rhodes said the day was "crazy", but good.

"It’s scary in the sense that we haven’t had any major problems," Rhodes said. "I think that we may have had better coordination between student affairs and academic affairs than we’ve had sometimes in the past."

More good news from Rhodes – enrollment appears to be up, possibly as much as 4 percent. He said there are higher numbers of younger students – just out of high school – in the morning and evening classes and that non-traditional as well as post-secondary numbers seemed to be holding firm. Definite numbers weren’t available because of the high number of students still registering for classes.

"That (last minute registration) is typical of community colleges around the country," Rhodes said.

Also typical is a drop in enrollment when a community college makes the switch from quarters to semesters, something Riverland did last year. However, the effect is generally brief, as evidenced by the climb in enrollment this year.

"It takes a little getting used to the idea," Rhodes said.

New programs at Riverland include one for surgical assistants being offered in conjunction with Rochester Technical college, one for masonry, a broadcast support specialist program that teaches both performance and technical skills and training for transport refrigeration mechanics.

Rhodes was also excited about the school’s expanding laptop program, in which the school leases laptop computers to students who are required to use them as part of their course. Both nursing and accounting are among those programs that require laptops, which Rhodes said make technology a necessary part of the learning process.