Education for all

In the first week of the semester a substantial part of my non-teaching time was spent in meetings and dealing with the overflow of students trying to get into one of my classes.

With the California budget over two months overdue the university based its fiscal planning for the fall semester on last year's budget.  Without the pay furloughs (there was no work furlough) we experienced last year the number of sections was cut as lecturers were let go.  Class sizes went up to the limit of the size of the room for this semester.  

On day-one of the semester my 8:00 AM organic lecture was already five percent oversubscribed since the classroom had that many more chairs than the course was designed for.  When I got to the classroom there were numerous students standing in the back and on the sides of the room.  If all students wanting to take the class were admitted the class would swell to one-third over the original design size.

In discussing the issue with my Chair and Associate Dean I was told that I needed to take the graduate students who need remediation since they would be held up in their graduate careers by not being able to remediate their deficiency.  I must take the transfer students since they might get off track to degrees if they have to wait until next semester to take the class.  I must take the second and third repeaters since they are already behind and holding them up further would slow their progress to a degree further.  (The university has set a priority on increasing the six-year graduation rate.)  Only I noted that increasing the class size by one-third would necessitate a change in my pedagogical plans for the semester as I am in the process of teaching.  Also, increasing the workload without additional resources is unfair to both me and to the students.  More students should necessitate more office hours to support the students, and I can't offer more office hours without shortchanging my other duties.  It took five days, but by week's end I was assigned a new room that will hold the larger size class and got no other resources to support the student's education or my work.

Routinely, when we complain about class sizes it is pointed out that at RO1s class sizes can be 500 students, as it to imply that we faculty are slackers.  We don't have classroom that will hold half that number on our campus, and one 500 student class many actually be the entire load of that RO1 faculty member.  We must remember though that the RO1s on this area have 500 student classes and a score of discussion sections run by graduate students.  The students get the opportunity to ask questions and get face time with an instructor in a small group setting.  Since my graduate students are taking the class for remediation that would be difficult here.  Also, the RO1s take the cream of the student population.  The public comprehensives and PUI's take the second tier students who are more likely to benefit from more one-on-one education.  This is why large classrooms were not built on our campuses.

I like teaching, but like most people I want a fair shot at being successful at what I do.  Without resources and with impossible demands a career that might be fulfilling becomes a life of futility leading to burnout.  I believe that this has a lot to do with the low retention rates in K-12 teaching and the frustrations and burnout of many PUI and MCU faculty trying to compete in laboratory research.

Anyway, got to go reorganize the pedagogy of my course.  Happy Labor Day!

T.S. Hall