2008 Woodie Awards
Class cutting normal, administration says
Joe Chapot
Issue date: 3/3/08 Section: News
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Since Fall 2003, enrollment at CSM has gone up six percent, but section openings are up eight percent. The school is attempting to reach equilibrium between enrolment and sections.
Sections are different blocks of the same course. For example, two Psych 100 sections are offers a class MWF from 9-10 a.m. and MWF from 10-11 a.m.
"What we're doing isn't abnormal. Colleges do this all the time," said Michael Claire President of CSM.
The AFT had nothing to say as of printing.
The biggest factor in determining which sections are going to be cut is enrollment figures. Current CSM policy dictates that any section with less than 20 people can be cut. There is an exception for sections that are part of a degree program, the class will regardless of how many people are in the class.
The school will also take into account sections that are one-of-a-kind, according to Susan Estes, Vice President of Instruction. Though "if low enrollment occurs over a period of time (for a unique class), then the school just won't offer it," said Estes.
For sections that are cut, is to steer students to other sections. Kathy Ross, Dean of the Department of Business and Technology, the department that has to cut the most FTEs said "this wasn't really difficult," and that they were "offering to many sections" for some classes.
One class had some sections with 25 students, some with 15 and some with five.
The department plans to cut the sections with five students and hopefully steer them into a 15 student class.
The final bonus of dropping sections is that by cutting under enrolled sections, the school can save money and open up sections for courses that have significant waitlists.
"We're going to put money in the classroom as much as we possibly can," said Claire told but "we need to be much more precise where we put the money. We don't want to lose a single student if we can."
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