Rising enrollment has students too close for comfort

Inappropriate room sizes are inhibiting learning.

By Rachel Allred

Published March 5, 2010

MU has faced record enrollment two of the last three years, and students have started to notice space tightening where they live, eat and go to class. In this last part of a four-part series, The Maneater focuses on classroom space and what the university has done to accommodate the growing student population.

The rise in enrollment numbers has caused crowded classrooms, more maintenance requirements and debate about how to ensure students receive a quality education.

The average student-faculty ratio is 18:1, but some classes exceed that. According to the Registrar's Web site, the course General Principles and Concepts of Biology has a capacity of 1,050, and 959 students are enrolled in three sections, or about 320 students per section.

Wilson Watt, social work associate professor and Faculty Council member, said the university is short on resources to compensate for the amount of students.

"We have more students and less ability to find the funding to create more and/or better spaces for them," Watt said.

Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Ann Korschgen said in an e-mail higher enrollment is positive because it brings in more revenue, creates more future alumni and signifies the prestige of the university. At the same time, it requires more planning, she said.

"Growing enrollments means that we have to plan very carefully to ensure they have access to courses and faculty to complete their degrees in a timely fashion," Korschgen said.

Watt said assigning classes to the right size classroom is a difficult task for the Registrar's Office because there are more students, and students often drop courses at the last minute.

"I think it's difficult for the Registrar in terms of how to schedule the right size rooms for the right size classes when it's hard to tell which classes are going to be which size," Watt said. "It's a difficult task to begin with, and the larger number of students without an enlarged number of classroom spaces had made that task more difficult."

Overcrowded classrooms, as well as classrooms that are too large, can make students uncomfortable and hinder the instructor's effectiveness. Watt said several people with whom he works at the College of Human Services have made that observation.

"A lot of my colleagues have talked about the feeling that the general classroom buildings are so filled to capacity that it can make students feel shoehorned into the rooms," Watt said. "There's also a sense of frustration that sometimes we have to be in a classroom space that's too big."

Watt said he has experienced this situation at the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center, where a class of 20 students has been held in a room designed to hold much more than that number.

"It is a well-designed space for large groups, and well-equipped for high-tech presentations, but if a small number of students are in the class, they can feel lost," Watt said.

Considering the circumstances and resources, the Registrar's Office has done well, Watt said.

Aside from a lack of ample classroom space, the university also has to deal with more garbage left in classrooms, Watt said.

"Adding just a few more students to the size of the class seems to increase the amount of left-behind paper, food wrappers, etc., by more than would be expected by those few extra students," Watt said. "It can mean that for people who teach late in the day, the room is just a mess. Not because there's any neglect on the part of the janitorial staff, but there's more for them to do, so they have to spend more time everywhere."

Residence Halls Association Representative Colten Ross said he's concerned if something isn't done now to address the excess number of students, things might get out of hand.

"I've noticed this issue everywhere, and it seemed like the university wasn't acting fast enough," Ross said. "We need to take care of this now."

RHA Parliamentarian Jared Grafman, a Maneater staff member, said he's also concerned and there are various options to consider.

"Increasing admission requirements would be one solution," Grafman said.

Korschgen said when admission standards for transfer students were raised in 2006, transfer enrollment declined by 18 percent. The university is not considering raising admission standards. Watt said doing so would defy part of the university's mission.

"A public university is expected to enable the population of the state to seek higher education," Watt said. "Our standards are quite high. I don't think increasing them is the appropriate way to deal with more people wanting to get a university degree from MU."

Heightening the standards would also cause some students who have potential to be turned down, RHA Representative Roman Shmulevich said.

"If we increase the admission standards, a lot of students would have a hard time getting into MU when they could really succeed," Shmulevich said. "I'm all for letting as many students as we can in to experience the Tiger spirit. The extra revenue will generate extra accommodations, and the students that can't handle college will drop out anyway."

Korschgen said the increase is temporary and is expected to begin declining within the next few years due to the projected drop in high school graduates.

Because of the economic strain, MU has implemented a hiring freeze, which limits the amount of positions that can be filled. Watt said having more positions filled would help. Because they can't be, instructors will have to compromise more.

"If all departments had the full compliment of faculty they're supposed to, I think there would be a good ratio of faculty to students," Watt said. "I think faculty are going to have to learn to be more flexible about when they are willing to teach."