By Tristan Weisenbach and Isabella Darcy
Managing Editor and News Editor
Danny Graziano, a freshman accounting major, was shocked to see himself enrolled in a 300-level Chinese course when he obtained his fall schedule at the end of the summer. Because he didn’t feel prepared to take such a heavy course during his first semester as a college student, he searched for another open class to take its place.
The only other courses Graziano found were other 300-level electives, so he opted to enroll in a political science class. So far, he’s found it to be challenging.
“[The] writing is much more complex and very stressful as I have no experience writing these types of papers,” Graziano said.
This is just one of multiple issues that students, faculty and staff shared with The Signal about the fall semester schedule. According to multiple sources, departments scheduled “tightly” this fall, more so than previous semesters, leading to a shortage in available classes. Paired with an increase in the number of incoming students, issues arised.
Chung Sum Chak, department chair of the department of art and art history, told The Signal that he had a “much harder time” finding classes for incoming students compared to previous semesters. In addition to enrolling some transfer students in 300-level courses, he was unable to find a fourth course for at least one incoming transfer student.
“I couldn't find anything else that fit her schedule, and so she said, ‘well maybe I'll just take three for this semester instead of having a full load,’” Chak said. “So I think it could be avoidable if we have more classes.”
According to data provided to The Signal by Luke Sacks, the College’s head of media relations, this fall semester has the least number of scheduled classes compared to the previous three fall semesters, with an average of 150 fewer classes. Spring semesters always have less classes offered when compared to fall semesters, according to the data.
Suzanne McCotter, interim provost, told The Signal that it is too early to compare data on the number of courses being offered, as some class types such as independent research and graduate courses, sometimes do not get added to the count until the end of the semester.
However, multiple faculty and staff members agreed that the number of available seats for students to enroll in this semester is less than usual. Dianne Miles, the program assistant for the departments of world language and culture and women’s, gender and sexuality studies, said all of the classes in the department of world languages and culture were full at the start of the semester.
During the add/drop period, though, she said about 10 first-year students dropped out of one of their 300-level courses. A typical number of students to drop out of any given course, she said, is around two or three.
Janelle Estime, a sophomore psychology major, said she would feel “overwhelmed” if she was a freshman taking a 300-level course.
“I don’t think it helps with the transition from high school to college at all to immediately jump into a 300-level class,” Estime said.
Karen Dubrule, program assistant for the department of sociology and anthropology and the environmental studies program, said she was getting calls all throughout the summer asking if there were any classes with available seats.
“It was ‘The Hunger Games’ times 100, and everyone was calling everyone, asking, ‘Can we get one seat?’” said Dubrule. “And the poor pathway and center for student success students, they weren't even fully enrolled right. They had needed three classes and they couldn't even find a third class until the last minute, and so bills were going out and they were only part time students. It was so bad.”
Ivonne Cruz, executive director for student success and retention, acknowledged that the summer was “hectic” because of the delay of the May 1 deposit deadline, due to complications with FAFSA.
“Losing a full month in the summer made a lot more things hectic,” Cruz said, “because out of three months you would have had, you had only two months at a time when a lot of people are taking vacations.”
Cruz oversees the schedules of incoming pathway and CSS students. She said she filled about half of a 300-level course with some of her freshmen, and alerted the faculty and staff of that department about it beforehand.
Over the past year, the amount of faculty and staff who left their positions at the College increased from previous years, in part due to the voluntary separation agreement offered this past spring. According to multiple sources, this has impacted the course offerings this semester.
To offer more available seats for students, the department of sociology and anthropology opened up two asynchronous classes before the fall semester.
“First year kids should not be in asynchronous classes,” said Dubrule. “They want to be in person, but no one is also thinking about these kids, they still need the classes in the spring, and they're still cutting classes.”
According to a professor with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity, most first-year students who were placed into 300-level classes this semester are from the School of Business.
The professor said the School of Business took on a larger than anticipated incoming class, and therefore struggled finding enough courses to accommodate all of their students.
The professor also teaches one 300-level course that has four first-year students from the School of Business. They said the students in their class seem to be doing well, and that they do their best to support them in any way they need.
McCotter said that students being placed in higher level classes could be due to the types of courses they took in high school.
“We have a lot of students who are coming in with a lot of credits, so they may have met the requirements to get into an upper level class,” McCotter said.
Despite the challenges felt across the campus this semester, McCotter praised the hard work and dedication of the College’s staff and faculty for always being willing to go above and beyond for students.
“When students have needs, we answer those phone calls,” McCotter said. “If we have a group of students and we need to find a class for them, everybody picks up their phone and [say], ‘yeah, I can help you. Yes, let's do it.’ It's really such a team effort.”
