Keep an eye on your classes scheduled for 2013, because some classes with fewer than seven students might disappear.
J-term and spring semester classes with fewer than seven students are cut in most cases, said Victoria McGillin, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. She said this is a standard procedure done every year, although exceptions were made last year because of the semester conversion.
The provost, deans and department or program chairs decide if a class will be dropped.
The decision to cancel J-term classes is made beginning the week after fall break, said Paul Eisenstein, the dean for the School of Arts and Sciences, in an email interview. Registration for spring semester classes is examined periodically beginning around Nov. 15.
Other dates to look at registration numbers include Dec. 1 and Dec. 15, but Eisenstein also said, “In many instances, it’s case by case within these windows.”
According to Eisenstein, the likelihood that more students will still sign up for a course is taken into consideration when they are determining how early or late to cut a class, if at all.
If a class is cancelled, enrolled students will typically be notified by the registrar, the department chair or the program chair, Eisenstein said. These students will also be
directed toward resources for further help, such as their faculty advisers and the Center for Student
Success.
For general education courses, such as Integrative Studies courses or introductory math and language courses, several sections of the course are often available. When canceling one of these sections, Eisenstein said that the university will try to move its students to a section that still has open slots.
Dean of University Programs Wendy Sherman Heckler offered a specific example in an email: When the deans and the provost saw that classes for the INST 2200 thread had waitlists in the double digits, they asked Denise Shively, the director of the Integrative Studies program, to find a faculty member who could teach an additional section.
INST 2202: The Responsible Self in Hinduism and Buddhism, taught by Suzanne Elise Schier-Happell, was added to J-term. Students on the INST 2200 wait list had the first opportunity to add the class, and then it was made available to the rest of the student body.
“If you see a course that has double-digit numbers on the wait list, a dialogue gets started about the possibility and utility of adding another section,” Eisenstein said.
On the other hand, Eisenstein said that if a course with fewer than seven students is “critical” for degree completion and could affect when a student graduates, it might not be canceled.
“It would be unfair and unwise to halt a student’s path to (his or her) degree based on a course cancellation,” he said.
English professor Norman Chaney agreed that class cancellations should not affect a student’s ability to meet requirements.
“If they’re taking that into account, they’re on the right track,” he said.
McGillin said that low-registration classes are canceled so that other classes can be added elsewhere, as was done with INST 2202.
If the person teaching a dropped course is a full-time faculty member, then another course must be found for him or her to teach, which Eisenstein described as “some minimal
juggling of assignments.”
According to Chaney, full-time professors teach six classes a year.
If one of those six classes is dropped, the full-time faculty member might be assigned to a course originally meant to be taught by part-time faculty.
McGillin did not have a specific estimate of the money saved by condensing classes, but she said that adjunct professors have a range of pay rates.
Senior communication lecturer and adjunct professor Linda Davis’ schedule has been affected once by a cancellation. “It’s difficult from semester to semester because we don’t know if we’re going to have a job,” she said.
Chaney, a full-time professor who has worked at Otterbein for 45 years, has not been affected by schedule changes due to class cancellations.
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