By Tristan Weisenbach and Isabella Darcy
Managing Editor and News Editor
Hundreds of students are having trouble enrolling in classes at the College for the second semester in a row due to lower budgets for adjunct sections, an increase in the number of full-time students, faculty vacancies and other factors.
As of Nov. 22, 737 undergraduate students were only enrolled in less than three units for the spring 2025 semester. 284 of those are first-year students, according to data provided to The Signal by a program assistant in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Anyone enrolled in less than three units is considered a part-time student.
“We knew by Wednesday of the second week of registration that there was nothing left in most classes, and particularly those that served the college core,” the HSS program assistant said.
According to the program assistant, the number of students under-enrolled this semester is more than typical. However, they did not provide any specific numbers to compare from previous semesters.
“My courses up until my actual enrollment time had just kept closing and closing and closing,” said Rebecca St Fleur, a freshman English major. “So even five minutes before my time, I had to keep looking up classes to figure it out.”
Marie Barger, a sophomore women’s, gender and sexuality studies major, told The Signal that she is worried the lack of available classes for the upcoming spring semester will throw her off track from graduating on time.
“My enrollment period, it wasn't late but it also wasn't super early, and every single class I wanted was filled up,” Barger said. “Every single one.”
Elissa Paranich, a sophomore sociology and criminology double major, said she had three courses to enroll in but struggled to enroll in a fourth. The class she wanted had four seats left immediately before her enrollment time. However, she was still unsuccessful.
“In the time it took for me to hit ‘enroll,’ the four seats were gone,” Paranich said.
However, some students, especially seniors, told The Signal they did not have issues enrolling in classes for next semester. Sydney Eltringham, a senior political science major, said she did not have any trouble with enrollment, but knew of other students who did. Seniors typically have the earliest enrollment time periods, and some seniors do not enroll in a full four-course load.
Numerous departments across the College, especially those that offer College Core classes, told The Signal they had difficulty providing enough classes for students. Most of these departments are in HSS.
Marimar Huguet Jerez, the department chair of world languages and culture, said the number of adjunct sections that her department could offer this year was reduced due to budget challenges. In addition, her department has lost five faculty members in the last three years, none of which have been replaced.
“I mean, it’s like a ticking time bomb,” Huguet Jerez said. “Who’s going to teach these students?”
Her department offered eight sections of Spanish 102, the most popular basic sequence course, in spring 2024. However, there are only five sections being offered this upcoming spring. For Spanish 103, nine sections were offered last spring, but only six are being offered next semester.
“We serve almost half of the student body of this institution because of the language requirement,” Huguet Jerez said.
According to data provided by Luke Sacks, the College’s head media relations officer, there was a 4.1% increase in the number of full-time equivalent undergraduate students at the College from fall 2023 to fall 2024: 6743 to 7020.
An HSS professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity said another contributing factor to the registration difficulties is the number of faculty members who accepted the voluntary separation incentive plan this past spring.
The proposition allowed faculty members and librarians over the age of 60 or who have worked at the College for more than 20 years to complete an alternate assignment for one year before retiring. Most alternate assignments began this fall. According to Sacks, 26 faculty members accepted the voluntary separation.
The HSS professor said more faculty took this agreement than the College had anticipated, and many of these positions have not been rehired yet. According to multiple sources, this, combined with a reduction in adjunct sections and a greater number of students at the College than previous semesters, caused the number of available seats in needed courses to be less than the number of students.
“It seems like somebody didn't do some basic math, right?” the professor said.
The HSS program assistant said that during a program assistants meeting earlier this fall, Interim Provost Suzanne McCotter assured staff that steps were being taken to avoid the registration issues that were previously experienced ahead of the fall semester.
“Everybody heard the provost go on the record saying, ‘we will not be in that same position. There's money. We'll plan ahead.’ None of that happened, obviously,” the program assistant said. “What did happen is that we knew at the department level, probably in October, there were just literally mathematically not enough seats for students in general to fully enroll in four classes.”
McCotter provided a statement to The Signal on Nov. 21 regarding the current spring registration situation.
“In previous years we have accommodated additional demand by opening more sections even if enrollment in those sections was low. This year we’ve been trying to be more efficient in our scheduling. Clearly, we still have more work to do to improve the process by which we identify need,” McCotter said.
In an email to the campus community on the same day, McCotter said late registration fees for the spring semester will be waived due to the challenges students are facing. She also said additional course sections will be opened soon.
Many academic schools are utilizing waitlists to help students with course registration. Huguet Jerez said she tried to squeeze one or two students into classes where it was possible, but more than 40 students were still on the world languages and culture waitlist as of Nov. 19.
Erica Bagnarelli, assistant dean of the school of the arts and communication, said she’s worked with her students to use waitlists for courses and help them with any challenges they’ve faced so far. She also encouraged students to communicate with faculty and staff in their departments when they encounter trouble.
“I think that our students are well connected with their departments when they do possibly run into a challenge,” said Bagnarelli. “They know the right people to connect with through our waitlist system and just connecting with our chairs and program assistants.”
Sunita Kramer, dean of the school of science, told The Signal that this year, her school has taken measures to avoid opening more courses than needed which often results in canceling under-enrolled classes in the future, as they’ve done in previous semesters.
“Our approach this year was to be a little bit more fiscally responsible and not just open up classes right away, but really create a waitlist situation where we can get an idea of what students need, and then be committed to making sure that we have the sections that we need,” Kramer said.
According to Kramer, faculty and staff in her school are working to address the individual needs of students, and she expects to have all registration issues addressed by the end of this semester.
“We care very deeply about our students, and it's one of the things that I like the most about being here at TCNJ,” Kramer said.
The College is considering options like adding more sections to some courses, and in some cases being more flexible with requirements in an effort to resolve scheduling issues. In the meantime, the College is asking all students, faculty and staff to be patient, according to Sacks.
“We want to ensure that the solution adequately addresses the need, but does so without creating excess capacity as has happened in the past,” Sacks said in a statement to The Signal.
Lauren Madden, an elementary science education professor, told The Signal in a statement that she is grateful that more course sections are opening. Madden said it has been frustrating to see so many students experience difficulty with registering for classes they need.
“I'm just glad that many of the students who were really scrambling are in a better situation now than a few weeks ago,” Madden said.
The course registration process always has its highs and lows, according to Bagnarelli, who has seen a variety of situations play out over the 20 years that she has been involved in the process. She is confident that by the spring, any difficulties that are currently being faced will be worked out.
“I have no doubt in my mind that despite the frustrations and challenges that our students and our advisors are experiencing right now, we will find schedules that work for our students, in time for graduation,” Bagnarelli said.
