Press Release

Bunker Hill Community College Takes Extraordinary Measures To Deal with Explosive Enrollment Growth

Friday, September 4, 2009

Bunker Hill Community College President Mary Fifield called an emergency meeting of key staff yesterday when it became apparent that the College was at a breaking point due to the overwhelming student enrollments filling every available course.

In addition to the standard fall class schedule, the College added 108 new class sections over the summer to the schedule. As a result of yesterday’s meeting, 40 new classes were added within 24 hours. These 40 classes will begin on September 14, a week later than the start of the fall semester on September 8.

The College had projected an enrollment increase of seven percent for fall. “Today enrollment is up by 23 percent over last year and still climbing.  We just topped 10,000 students, the highest ever for BHCC,” Fifield said.  “We even have two new classes starting at midnight.  We are holding classes in the Schrafft’s Center, near the College.  Existing faculty are taking on more courses, and we are hiring new faculty as fast as we can locate instructors with appropriate qualifications and experience.” 

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About Bunker Hill Community College
Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts, enrolling approximately 18,000 students annually. BHCC has two campuses in Charlestown and Chelsea, and a number of other locations throughout the Greater Boston area. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in Massachusetts. Sixty-five percent of the students are people of color and more than half of BHCC's students are women. The College also enrolls nearly 600 international students who come from 94 countries and speak more than 75 languages.