On March 4 in the J. Paul Leonard Library, SF State will conduct the last of three hearings to remove the impaction status on Environmental Studies, Apparel Design and Merchandising, Child and Adolescent Development and Dietetics majors for the 2019-2020 school year.

According to the CSU website, an impacted campus constitutes that there are more applications from qualified applicants than there are available spaces.

According to Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management, Maria L. Martinez, the removal of impaction involves a multi-step proposal process which requires that SF State send a brief proposal to the Chancellor’s office. Then, once the Chancellor’s Office has the preliminary approval of the proposal, SF State is required to conduct three hearings, where stakeholders of the campus can provide feedback or questions they may have.

“The Mission of CSU is to provide access to students who meet the basic CSU requirements,” said Martinez.

According to Martinez, if you meet the basic CSU requirements and the program you are applying to is not impacted, by mandate, the program is required to grant the student admission.

SF State has a total of twelve impacted programs and a large number of those programs pertain to the Health and Social Science College.

Programs like Environmental Studies and Criminal Justice Studies both belong to the Health and Social Science College and are also on the impacted list. SF State is in the process of uplifting the impaction on both programs. However, the lift won’t go into effect until the fall of 2019 and 2020.

“We suspended impaction procedures for both Environmental Studies and Criminal Justice Studies, however, due to the lengthiness of procedures and growth in enrollment as a consequence of this, Environmental Studies will not be off impaction officially until Fall 2019,” said Dr. Elizabeth Brown, Department Chair for the School of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement. “And Criminal Justice Studies will remain suspending impaction admission procedures until we reevaluate for the next possible time to officially lift it, which is Fall 2020.”

The College of Business is not on the impacted programs list, but the concentration of accounting is. Due to the increased demand in the concentration, accounting has officially been declared impacted for the fall semester of 2018.

“We made the decision to open up enrollment to a broader number of students in order to meet demand and to facilitate students graduating with the degrees that are necessary in their chosen future profession,” said College of Business Dean, Linda S. Oubre.

For biology student Angie Guillen, the impaction of her major at SF State has delayed her graduation timeline and made it difficult to register for classes. There are only a few sections for biology classes and limited professors in the department according to Guillen.

“If the major wasn’t so impacted I would probably be able to graduate in a four year period, but I have to stay for an extra year just to finish all my major classes,” said Guillen.

According to Martinez, impaction is not so much tied to the school budget but to capacity. The university has facilities, classrooms and support services that correspond to the respective major and some majors have unique resources and labs that are also required.

“If there are many more students who want to come in and our resources don’t cover them all it would be a disservice to bring them on,” said Martinez. “Ultimately the goal is to have the right level to make sure all students are served well.”