Registration regrets

The trouble with getting into required classes

Why is it so hard to get into the required courses I need?

There are two answers to this question. The first answer centers around the number of qualified instructors, while the second deals with academic advising.You may have trouble getting into a required course because there is not an instructor to teach it. With a limited number of professors, the number of sections of any given class will be limited. This is the simplest way to explain the problem, but by delving a little deeper we can see the root causes.

Max Cowan | Argonaut Answers to questions regarding university policies, procedures and student life

Max Cowan | Argonaut
Answers to questions regarding university policies, procedures and student life

Looking at historic trends, state funding has declined while enrollment has risen. Our salaries for faculty have fallen behind those of peer institutions, making it harder to keep quality faculty. When we can’t pay faculty enough, we have to look to other ways to meet student demand for courses.

This is where we have to take into account the differences between lower division and upper division courses. In 100 level courses, the University of Idaho can increase class sizes and hire adjunct faculty. As we saw with National Adjunct Walkout day, these instructors are hired because the university can pay them substantially less than tenured faculty.

The real problem comes with upper division courses. When faculty who teach these courses leave the university, we have a hard time filling these positions. With these specialized courses, adjunct faculty members aren’t often an option to teach these classes, and the university may have fewer sections than students demand.

Turning away from an understanding based on funding for instructors, we can look at academic advising. It’s worth noting that there are many superb advisers at UI. While these advisers work to help students understand the course offerings and design a long-term plan, there are some advisers who are not as dedicated.

Not every program has fulltime advising staff, and rely instead on faculty advisers. For faculty, advising is not usually a large part of their job description. They may only have 5 percent of their job description allocated to advising and will still have research and teaching. Even faculty with all of these responsibilities still may have more than 50 students to advise.

Unlike courses that have student evaluations, faculty advisers don’t receive formalized student feedback. The combination of heavy advising loads and little student feedback creates a system where some advisers may not be adequately prepared.

When students don’t receive strong advising it is easier to miss important milestones, and get off track. Without this support, it becomes difficult to plan ahead, meaning students may not realize the course they need isn’t offered every semester.

Both academic advising and funding for faculty are important pieces to ensure students can get into the required courses they need. With the majority of students taking more than four years to graduate, it seems we need to strengthen both areas to help students save money and graduate on time.

Max Cowan can be reached at [email protected]

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