DVC’s weight training gym once used to be alive and full of people trying to get in shape. Now it is a far emptier and quieter place.

The kinesiology department experienced low enrollment rates this fall semester, a problem that has caught the administration’s attention.

According to Ralph Depew, department chair of the kinesiology department, the kinesiology department went from having 3,130 students enrolled last year to about 2,700 students at the beginning of this semester. He estimated that the numbers would go up by another 100 to 150 students before the last add date, but that is still significantly lower than before.

“I haven’t seen that before,” Depew marveled. Depew has seen the effects of the low enrollment rates in his own classes. He went from having five full sections of circuit training to only two full sections with three more with about 20 students each.

Depew described the situation as “a perfect storm of multiple factors.” Some of the factors he named were the limits placed on class repeatability, reduced time between classes, and the department’s name change from “P.E” to “kinesiology”.

This issue has more than just the kinesiology department concerned. Unfilled classes in one department could tip the balance that, as vice president of instruction Susan Lamb put it, is “keeping the whole boat afloat.”

“The bigger classes – your sociology classes, your psychology classes, your

P.E. classes – those larger classes have traditionally supported our smaller class sizes,” explained Lamb. “We do have to have some larger classes to financially balance out.”

The kinesiology department is currently working with the administration to correct the problem. According to Kim Schenk, senior dean of curriculum and instruction, it won’t be a quick fix.

“We’re going to stand back and have a look at what happens,” Kim Schenk said.

Ralph Depew shares this sentiment. He estimates it’ll take a year to gauge the trend in enrollment before making any drastic changes to the kinesiology department’s schedule and curriculum.

Editor’s Note: In the print issue of Sept. 12, 2013, the student photographed was incorrectly identified as Aaron Houstone. The student’s correct identification is Briscoe Allen. We apologize for the error.