Continue to manage

Do you ever wonder why in most classes student enrollment is so high? Many times, students are forced to extend their college tenure because some classes are offered in the fall and are not offered in the spring semester.
I have witnessed many students unable to take English 110 or 111, not because they haven’t taken the proper steps to register, but because there are not enough professors to teach the class.
This limits class enrollment to about 25 students per class, which is considerably high due to the number of sections offered per semester.
However, this is not the only department in which this situation takes place. I have witnessed first hand economic classes that were overfilled to alleviate the issue of student enrollment in the course.
After talking about this to my advisor, Andrew Muhammad Ph.D., one thing became clear to me. This issue made me understand fully why the number of students in classes are so high because there are not enough professors to teach all the subjects that our departments offer.
This problem overloads our professors making it hard for us to get the education that is traditional for schools of our enrollment size. I have conversed with professors in various departments that feel that their workload is higher than the norm because they are teaching four to five classes in their respective fields.
Why does this problem persist?
The problem seems to persist because we continue to manage with what is currently given. Some students simply don’t mind when there are 25 people in a class instead of 19. The professors on the other hand have a real problem when it comes to dealing with 25 to 30 different students with various levels and learning styles.
For some students, they choose not to care as long as they are enrolled in the class. However, what students fail to realize is that with larger class populations, the student misses out on the benefits of the personal student teacher relationship.
Sure, their are many that are still able to make that connection. One must also realize those that get lost in the masses of faces that sign the role or sit on the back row of an already crowed classroom.
For the professor the story is slightly different. The professors are here to educate, true.
However, it is very hard to make any kind of connection with the students if they feel that they are greatly outnumbered. Many professors end up teaching several sections of many different classes, which greatly effects the way they teach and the connection made with their students.
Again I ask why does this problem persist?
It is not that the professors don’t feel overworked or the students feel that class size isn’t important, but it is rather that we continue to manage.
We manage with the odds stacked against us. Please don’t misunderstand what is being said: If we continue to manage no matter what they throw at us, then when will we ever receive help?
If professors continue to spread themselves thin to cover all the sections that need to be taught, how will the department realize a true need for new professors?
Moreover, if the students continue to sit on their hands about class sizes and the disadvantages of not having a personal relationship with their professors then how will the university realize that there is a problem with the student to course offering ratio?
This issue will continue to be ignored if we continue to manage. The university will continue to stuff students in overfilled classrooms. Professors will continuously be forced to teach five and six sections of a given subject simply because they continue to manage with the current number of professors.
Sure, showing that we are flexible and able to manage is one thing, but if we continue to do such, how will our departments and students ever express a real need for help? We need more professors and smaller class sizes to alleviate this problem.
So if we continue to manage with the way things are then we can expect that they continue to think we can handle whatever they put on our plates.
This is not to tell you what to think, but rather what to think about.