Steps are being taken in answer to grievances and concerns College of New Caledonia's international students aired during a town-hall style meeting earlier this month, an administrator said Thursday.
Prime among them has been to improve communication, said Chad Thompson, CNC's acting vice president of academic services.
"Students seemed not to be aware of varieties of policies, procedures and mechanisms for feedback that exist," Thompson said.
As a result, he said the school's website is being updated to include a page of answers frequently-asked questions and making sure it's available on social media.
As well, he said feedback forms have been implement to allow students to alert the school about any problems they've been having with the agents handling the paperwork required to come to Canada and enroll at CNC.
That way, the school can look into the concern "immediately, instead of waiting until it's been brought up, in some cases, two years later."
More broadly, administration is looking "very carefully" at ways to answer students' claim of a lack of available courses, particularly in the business management diploma program which Thompson said draws the overwhelming number of international students.
On that note, he said the dean of university studies and career access is keeping a close eye on enrollment numbers and waitlists and adding faculty and sections where the demand has turned out to be higher than first expected.
"It is something that happens every summer though, that we monitor wait lists very closely, that we monitor student demand and start trying to recruit additional people if that seems to be the case," Thompson said.
The number of faculty in the business management diploma program has already been "greatly increased" in response to student demand, Thompson said and added it has always been by creating full-time faculty positions so instructors are available outside of class as well.
"The waitlists that the students have been concerned about have been dramatically reduced and I am confident that returning students and new students will not have any difficulty getting the classes they need come September," Thompson said.
However, it's also likely the number of students who can enroll in business management program will be capped. Currently, the program is open to any student who meets the prerequisites.
"We're working on that very carefully to make sure that should we set such a cap, it's going to be the appropriate one and that we'll also take care of the potential consequences from that," Thompson said. "If students are unable to get into business, will they just move to another program and then simply move the current issue somewhere else."
A working group is being set up with the CNC Students' Union to keep students posted on the progress being made, he added.
CNCSU president Harman Dandiwal reserved comment saying he wants to see the school's plan in writing first.
Roughly 300 international students packed a portion of the school's gymnasium on July 3 for the meeting. CNC president Henry Reisser and college administrators were present and took in a presentation from Dandiwal and heard personal stories from students about the problems they have faced.
For the 2016-17 school year, there were 925 international students at CNC, more than double the 390 attending in 2013-14.Total student population, meanwhile, declined to 8,140 from 9,520 over that time.
International students are advised to budget for $12,000 a year to cover tuition and fees for a full-time course load at CNC.
