GSCO fully maxed out, adding 500 more students since opening

GSC Oconee has reached the maximum capacity of students that it can physically hold.

According to Kristen Roney, GSCO Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs, since the opening of the Oconee campus in 2003 with 1,800 students, the school has had an increase of roughly 500 additional students.

The largest increase was from Fall 2004 to Fall 2006, which was “one ugly semester” according to Roney, “This was when we realized how many students we could actually serve on this campus and we set the maximum capacity of 2,350, which has been enforced since then.”

This year, Roney said that a plan was created by GSCO Assistant Vice President for Student Development and Enrollment Management, Dr. Michelle S. Brown,  that gave administration more control over the different planning processes. The plan composed data from the last 2 years to demonstrate what type of percentage shift they could expect, so that they could serve the maximum amount of students in the fastest amount of time for things like financial aid and registration.

According to Roney this was one of the least chaotic semesters in since 2006.  “While there are certain things we need to work on,” she said, “I think it worked fairly well.”

While Roney says it would be great to offer full majors at GSCO it just is not physically possible with the amount of space we have available. Therefore, if a student plans on receiving their associate’s degree through GSC, they will have to main campus at some point in the process. “Science majors, almost across the board, have to go to main campus to finish their associates because we just do not have the lab facilities to accommodate all of those classes,” Roney said, “but we try our best to be strategic on different classes we offer for different semesters to appeal to a large block of students.” For example, if there are 300 GSCO students that need an Art Appreciation class and only 20 who need Organic Chemistry- the art class will receive priority.

Another problem GSCO has had this semester is parking. Roney believes a cause for this is that something the administration has wanted to happen for years and years is finally happening- students are spending more time on campus. She said students are being more involved with campus events, and doing more of what it takes to be successful. “I walk out of my office and see students sitting at the tables outside in the quad area,” Roney said, “and that is a wonderful sign.” While she is very pleased with this, the unfortunate result is parking is limited, and it is getting tougher to find a space. She has a few ideas that she is entertaining on how to fix this, but nothing has been set in stone yet.

“We just need something to fix this so students can continue to stay on campus, but at the same time alleviate the parking problems,” Roney said.