The college said student success has long been a factor in assessing current and prospective staff, but it’s relatively new to officially codify in an evaluation whether instructors’ students are performing at or above the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) course average — the measure of 'student success' used by the college.
About a month ago, three CFCC instructors, who agreed to discuss the issue on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by college administration, told WHQR that this year, instructor evaluations had changed, with one saying they were “blindsided by [it].” Several others have spoken with WHQR since; some said the new policy is creating conditions for grade inflation.
One of the CFCC instructors wrote to WHQR that the change in the instructor evaluation policy incentivizes teachers to assign easier coursework so that students could get better grades.
The instructor said it could create, “a ‘breeze’ of a course where everything [is] an online multiple choice-type assignment, the answers to which were easily Google-able, and the student could get an A without ever cracking the book (and we can look in our [online system] and see who is doing our assigned readings, and most students are not - even ones that pass): that would get the instructor a stellar rating.”
They added that, “My impression is that leadership emphasizes rapid and extreme growth in enrollment over all other areas, and this has come at a cost of quality. More students in recent years are unprepared and unmotivated. They want the path of least resistance. Enroll online, log in once a week before things are due, never read, crank out some AI slop and get that A.”
Additionally, they wrote, “The culture has degenerated at CFCC. We all lower the bar to accommodate this [new evaluative tool]. These are not the courses we taught a few years ago (and even though they were more rigorous and college-worthy years ago, students were more successful).”
CFCC spokesperson Christina Hallingse responded via email that, “The grade inflation concern is an oversimplification; this metric is one of several data points faculty use to reflect on instructional effectiveness and student success. As higher education evolves, benchmarks help identify opportunities to strengthen engagement, retention, and completion while maintaining academic rigor.”
[Note: You can find CFCC's full instructor evaluation is at the end of this report.]
Hallingse added further, “Student success rates have been a component of CFCC's faculty evaluation process for over a decade. While this is the first year those specific student success rates have been formally documented on the evaluation itself, they have always been a part of the overall assessment. There is no standalone policy governing this practice, though the college handbook does state that all employees (faculty and staff) are evaluated on an annual basis.”
NCCCS publishes course averages, meaning CFCC can assess its instructors using that data.
Other concerns
Some instructors who contacted WHQR also claimed that their evaluations were changed from a 4 (the highest rating) to a 2, by an academic dean, overriding their direct supervisor’s rating.
Individual personnel issues, including evaluations, aren't public records, so it can be hard to verify those stories. However, Hallingse wrote that, as a general practice, “Any supervisor within the faculty member’s chain of command can override an [instructor] assessment.”
One instructor also raised concerns that CFCC includes students who ‘no show’ or ‘withdrawal’ as part of the overall student success rate. They said it’s unfair to be judged on those students because instructors have no control over whether a student shows up to class or ends up leaving the course.
Hallingse wrote that “pursuant to NCCCS, ‘no shows’ do not affect documented success rates, but withdrawals count as non-completions.”
AJ Jaeger, the executive director of NC State University’s Belk Center, said they did not have anyone who could speak to issues around instructor evaluations, but did say that NCCCS gathers data on students who withdraw from classes but not ‘no shows.’
Sarah Deal, the director of research at the Belk Center, confirmed that withdrawals are a “grade that appears on a students transcript and counts towards their GPA and financial aid eligibility,” and wrote that it’s “not unfair” that the instructors are being evaluated on those student withdrawals, but didn’t state why.
Financial incentives
Since early April, NCCCS spokesperson Nathan Hardin has not responded to repeated requests by email and phone for comment on the issue of instructor evaluations, including whether there are current state incentives for these student success rates. WHQR also asked Hardin if other community colleges evaluated their instructors this way. No response was received before publication.
However, NCCCS Board member Lisa Estep wrote back to WHQR via email, confirming that the state does give out some performance-based funding to colleges, “although it’s relatively small dollars compared to the overall budget (approximately $18 million, around 1%).” And she added that there is funding tied to retention and recruitment of faculty, but these are “usually non-recurring and performance based per se.”
WHQR has previously covered NCCCS retention funds. CFCC gave a significant amount of that money to their upper administration, and in 2023, failed to send in their accounting of the funds before the NCCCS report deadline.
Keenan Jones, a former department chair and 27-year veteran instructor, also noted that, in 2024, there was pressure from then-Vice President Michael Cobb to ensure the college could receive an additional $200,000 for student success rates.
Currently, according to CFCC's 2025 Performance Measure summary, which includes some of these overall ‘success rates’, the college is generally in the middle of the pack — not necessarily making ‘met’ or ‘exceeded excellence’ level or ‘below-baseline level.’
On the whole, CFCC didn’t improve on its basic skills progress, first-year progression, or licensure pass rate from the 2024 school year.
Dual-enrolled students
Another part of the discussion over grades is the rapidly increasing number of high school students, sometimes called dually-enrolled students or Career and College Promise students, matriculating into CFCC courses. It’s a trend that spans NCCCS.
According to the latest statistics from NCCCS, about 20% of high school students in Pender and New Hanover counties were taking courses at CFCC. For the last school year, CFCC had around 3,300 high schoolers enrolled, which is close to 14% of its total student body.
This spring semester alone, 1,551 Pender County high school students are taking CFCC courses. WHQR asked New Hanover County Schools for its CCP student enrollment numbers, and they sent the number of courses NHCS students matriculated into this year: 4,693 (several students could be taking one or more of these courses).
The top courses NHCS high school students take at CFCC are art appreciation (501 students), general psychology (481), and music appreciation (450).
In 2023, several NHCS Advanced Placement teachers told the school board that they were specifically concerned about the level of rigor at CFCC.
One of these CFCC instructors, who asked not to be named, wrote of this issue, “Aside from success rates, what leadership emphasizes most for instructors is not deepening knowledge of the discipline or enhancing pedagogical skills. It's recruiting by going to high schools and even middle schools and convincing children to enroll as CCP students. There are so many children in these college courses now. In some sections they are the majority of students! That never used to be the case. Some of them are ready and do fine but that is not true as a whole.”
