2008 Woodie Awards
Course Shortage Strikes MSU Departments
Administrators and Students Recognize Lack of Needed Courses in Various Academic Departments
Issue date: 11/18/04 Section: Opinion
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The number of problems over the lack of available undergraduate courses has increased for biology, political science and music majors.
Students have communicated the course shortage issue to the proper administration and have requested additional courses that will accommodate their schedule, Associate Professor and Chair Scott Kight said.
According to the Institutional Research Semester Enrollment Reports, the freshman student body grew from 2,370 enrolled freshmen in 1999 to 3,000 enrolled freshmen in 2003, a 21 percent increase.
"The faculty members of the Biology and Molecular Biology department are presently all scheduled at their maximum contractual teaching loads and none are presently able to request a teaching assignment for additional course sections," said Kight.
Problems in relation to the shortage of major core biology classes for spring 2005 are being resolved by temporarily adding sections to be taught by adjuncts, said Kight.
The shortage in biology courses seems to be the lack of faculty, while in other areas students seem to have a concentrated interest in a few popular major electives, while other less popular electives are still open, said Kight.
"The department sends us to the Dean and they really don't do anything to help the students. The Dean advised the students to wait for someone to drop the class or take it next semester. [The registration for spring 2005 has been] hectic and unfortunate and miserable," junior biology major Saeed Shahidi said.
"The shortage of major core courses are relatively new due to a significant number of new full-time freshmen this year," Kight said.
Each department, however, is facing its own version of the course shortage problem at MSU. "We need more people in the department," Political Science Chair George Zilbergeld said.
Currently, there's an estimated 250 political science undergraduate majors in ratio to six full-time professors and seven adjuncts, said Zilbergeld.
Students have communicated the course shortage issue to the proper administration and have requested additional courses that will accommodate their schedule, Associate Professor and Chair Scott Kight said.
According to the Institutional Research Semester Enrollment Reports, the freshman student body grew from 2,370 enrolled freshmen in 1999 to 3,000 enrolled freshmen in 2003, a 21 percent increase.
"The faculty members of the Biology and Molecular Biology department are presently all scheduled at their maximum contractual teaching loads and none are presently able to request a teaching assignment for additional course sections," said Kight.
Problems in relation to the shortage of major core biology classes for spring 2005 are being resolved by temporarily adding sections to be taught by adjuncts, said Kight.
The shortage in biology courses seems to be the lack of faculty, while in other areas students seem to have a concentrated interest in a few popular major electives, while other less popular electives are still open, said Kight.
"The department sends us to the Dean and they really don't do anything to help the students. The Dean advised the students to wait for someone to drop the class or take it next semester. [The registration for spring 2005 has been] hectic and unfortunate and miserable," junior biology major Saeed Shahidi said.
"The shortage of major core courses are relatively new due to a significant number of new full-time freshmen this year," Kight said.
Each department, however, is facing its own version of the course shortage problem at MSU. "We need more people in the department," Political Science Chair George Zilbergeld said.
Currently, there's an estimated 250 political science undergraduate majors in ratio to six full-time professors and seven adjuncts, said Zilbergeld.