news-record.com

As UNCG students put together class schedules for the fall semester, faculty and department heads are working on their own puzzle: how to teach all their classes with fewer people and less money.

University officials say state budget cuts have reduced next year’s operating budget by $11.8 million. That’s led to more than 100 layoffs at the school, including dozens of faculty.

“We’ve lost a lot of teaching power,” said Anne Wallace, head of the English department, “mostly our adjunct faculty, lecturers and visiting assistant professors.”

Those lower-level, nontenured faculty are the backbone of many university departments. Some teach eight sections of a course apiece, including most of the lower-level classes all students have to take.

When the English department goes from 19 lecturers to eight next semester, 88 sections will be lost, affecting everything from introductory literature classes to writing workshops.

Add to that two visiting professors who won’t be rehired and more than 100 sections will be losing their teachers.

Some higher-level faculty are pitching in to teach lower-level classes, but school officials say they’ll have to eliminate 275 class sections — nearly 7,500 seats. Sixty percent of introductory freshman classes will be replaced with large lecture classes.

With fewer sections of nearly all subjects offered each semester, students will also find it harder to get the classes they need to graduate — which could push back graduation schedules.

Some popular classes, such as journalism, have been all but eliminated. The English department has traditionally offered seven sections of the class each year, from introductory to advanced. For next year, Wallace said, she’ll be able to keep just one introductory section each semester.

“That’s a course that students really enjoy and which can lead to their getting outside internships,” Wallace said. “But we just couldn’t do it anymore.”

Students will also start seeing class sizes swell as soon as next semester.

“Every department will be seeing the caps raised on class sizes,” said Charles Bolton, head of the history department. “We have classes that are capped at 100 students that will now have 140 and some that are at 40 that will go to 50.”

Bolton said the larger classes are necessary to keep from eliminating classes altogether, and to keep core classes such as U.S. history and Western civilization, which are required for most freshmen and sophomores.

Required writing intensive courses, which are capped at 25 students per class in all departments, will become more scarce and harder to get into.

“We’re not sure yet what the impact of the larger classes is going to be,” Bolton said. “But it won’t make things easier.”

Wallace said the impact could be enormous for both students and professors. Larger classes “cut down the ability to have meaningful discussions, writing, the ability for students to actually engage with their professors.”

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com