Current Release: September 11th, 2007 | Vol. XXIV Iss. 10

By Schaeffer Gayle

Making required classes more available for students

By Jeni Meyers

jlmeyers@vwc.edu

One of the reasons I chose to attend Virginia Wesleyan is because of its small, close student population and its liberal arts program. I was unaware that by the end of my senior year I would be fighting to graduate on time due to courses not being available. Oh sure, a class was offered my junior year – but if I wasn’t required to declare my major until the end of my sophomore year, and hadn’t yet taken any of my introductory courses that were pre-requisites for this particular class … how am I supposed to take it? This problem is mainly dealt with classes that are required to be taken in order to fulfill a major, and this is a frustration felt by many of the students here in many of the various majors offered. A lot of courses are only offered intermittently, or perhaps fall/spring of odd or even numbered years. This is a problem in the scheduling of classes that can be, and needs to be, fixed. And it needs to be done soon.

The population of Virginia Wesleyan is increasing each year as the freshman classes are getting larger and larger. As more students are coming into Wesleyan’s classrooms, it is necessary to begin thinking about offering more classes regularly, especially classes that are going to be requirements for a particular major. Many of the major departments at Virginia Wesleyan are understaffed and overworked, which makes regularly offering particular classes a difficult task. However, with the growing size of the student population, Wesleyan should also consider the necessity of expanding its faculty population.

If there was more than one qualified faculty member in a major department that could offer the required classes, the professors wouldn’t be strained and the availability of the class would not be as limited. I understand that budgeting and money is always an issue when it comes to hiring more staff members, but in the long run it will be beneficial to Wesleyan’s student retention rate if these measures are taken to make required classes available every fall and/or spring semester instead of fall/spring of even/odd numbered years.

If you are not going to be willing to offer these classes at times and semesters available to all students, then there should be an alternative class or track that the student can take to get the credit. It could be by offering a similar class, but with few variations, in the alternate semester of the unavailable class. Or allowing a student the option of taking a similar class being offered in a different subject area, that could be slightly adjusted (if necessary) to fulfill this requirement.

This is a problem both previous and current Virginia Wesleyan students have dealt with it. When there are over 10 seniors who need a class in order to graduate and that class isn’t being offered until the summer or next year, what are they supposed to do? Of course we can always cross-register, but what happens when the host institution’s class is full? Should they really have to wait until the summer, and graduate late in order to fulfill this requirement? Not only that, but then they have to pay for the extra time spent because a class isn’t being offered. That is not fair and that means that the college is not fulfilling their part of the four year graduation guarantee that students sign as freshman. This is a problem than can be, and needs to be, fixed.