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The Rice Thresher
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by Elizabeth Decker thresher staff Enrollment in some introductory courses has increased this semester while dropping low enough in others to cause cancellations. In the School of Humanities, five sections of Spanish have been cancelled, and instructors of those sections told their students to transfer to others. Hanszen College freshman Natilee Harren said her professor sent an e-mail stating her section of Spanish 202 was being cancelled. While the e-mail said there were two other sections to which Harren could transfer, one was full and the other was offered at an inconvenient time. Harren said she was especially disappointed at the timing of the decision. "I understand that they had to cancel it, but I'm just surprised they waited this long to do it," Harren said. Hanszen sophomore Dan-Victor Giurgiutiu, who was enrolled in the same section, said he was upset by the decision to cancel the class. He was also unable to transfer to another section. Giurgiutiu said he especially wishes the class hadn't been cancelled because he found its small size to be a conducive learning environment. "It's such a wonderful thing to have four people and one Spanish professor," Giurgiutiu said. "I was really quite happy that we were down to four people in only one class." Dean of Humanities Gale Stokes said language sections are usually only cancelled when enrollment is low. Stokes said classes can also be cancelled due to other circumstances, such as faculty resignations or a shortage of graduate students to serve as teaching assistants. These situations can develop between the time a department publishes its course offerings and the beginning of the semester. Departments are also struggling this year with larger classes in such introductory courses as Anthropology 201, History 101/301, Physics 125, and Psychology 101. Anthropology 201 has grown from 110 students last fall to 166 registered as of Wednesday. History 101/301 has a combined enrollment of 78, up from 27 two years ago, while Physics 125 has 156 students registered compared to 118 last fall. Psychology 101 has grown from two sections of 106 and 85 to sections of 125 and 99. Philosophy Professor Eric Margolis, who teaches Philosophy 103: Philosophical Aspects of Cognitive Science, reported an unexpectedly high enrollment of 75 in his class as of Wednesday, up from 38 last fall. Margolis ordered only 40 copies of the book for the course, based on the pre-registration results from last spring. When he attempted to order more copies, he found the book is now unavailable, and many students still don't have one. Despite the inconvenience caused in his class, Margolis noted that he was pleased to see the increased interest in cognitive science. "There's an advantage in having it grow, too, if there's interest in the class," Margolis said. Registrar Jerry Montag said the registrar's office only imposes limits on class sizes if the professor has chosen to set one. Montag cited the professor and the time of the course as the two biggest factors influencing larger class sizes. Stokes agreed certain professors are more popular with students, leading to larger enrollments in those courses. "There are some professors who just attract students," Stokes said. "I mean, what are you going to do?" Stokes said some courses can be taught effectively to a larger class, but others require lower enrollment. "If you're doing primarily a lecture course, with not much discussion, then if you have 30 or 130 it doesn't make that much difference as long as you're able to ensure that the writing assignments and exams are properly graded," Stokes said. "Of course, if you are thinking of a course where the primary mode of interaction between the professor and the student is going to be discussion, obviously you have to have a small class," Stokes said. Computer Science Lecturer Ian Barland said science and engineering courses in particular can be taught to large groups of students because of the nature of the material. "In general, there are very concrete points you're trying to get across," Barland said. "I'm not trying to have a discussion. I'm trying to engage the students, and have them thinking, but it's different than me discussing Moby Dick with 120 students and trying to have a dialogue." Barland said there is a point at which additional students don't affect the way the professor can teach the class or what students get out of it. Margolis said it is important for students to have a variety of class sizes. "I think students should have available to them classes with smaller enrollments," he said. Class sizes are difficult to predict during the first two weeks before the add/drop deadline because some students visit several classes, or "shop," before choosing their courses, Montag said. Montag said the presence of "shoppers" in many courses makes room assignments difficult because it is hard to know how many students will actually enroll in the course. Montag said his office assigns rooms based on pre-registration results and faculty requests and then gets final approval from deans before classes start. When classes grow too large for the room to which they have been assigned, an attempt is made to find a larger room, but this is not always possible. Stokes said few large rooms are available for classes that outgrow their present spaces because few are built that size. "We don't have very many large classrooms, and especially in building classrooms, we're not building very many classrooms that will hold a class of 60, 70 people," Stokes said. The practice of shopping also makes it difficult for professors to know how to teach the first weeks of their classes, Margolis said. "Shopping in general makes it challenging," he said. "There's always this feeling that someone will come in on the third day of class and say 'Oh, I was shopping,' and then they missed something. "Do you do it twice, do you have them come into your office and try to redo it for them? I mean, how much introductory material can you give?" Barland said he tries to keep all the material from class on the Web and will accept late homeworks from students transferring into the class, but ultimately he has to start the course. "I gear the class to the person who was there the first day," he said. "I'm not going to slow down." Despite some problems, Montag said it seems the campus is comfortable with the shopping period. "In my opinion I think the faculty are comfortable with that two-week period," Montag said. "They feel it gives the student adequate time to appropriately assess the course, the curriculum, what's going to be required, and to make certain that the student will succeed and succeed well in that class. I think it's a very fair deadline."
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