Despite Numbers, Freshmen Receive “Quality Schedules”

Enrollment numbers at the University of Tampa have been rising consistently for years, so few were surprised to learn the class of 2013 is a large one.

While UT administration did anticipate a sizable freshmen class last spring, no one predicted it would be quite this large. About 1,400 freshmen began classes at UT on Aug. 31, approximately 200 more than last year, according to Dr. Kevin Beach, associate dean of the baccalaureate experience.

“The estimated size of the freshmen class from February to June… just kept getting larger and larger,” Beach said, adding that the university wasn’t planning on taking in so many freshmen.

While the final count of new students won’t be in for a few weeks, Eric Cardenas, director of public information, said the university believes this will be the largest freshmen class UT has ever seen.

The unprecedented amount of students could have been disastrous for the university’s academics, since more freshmen require more seats in classrooms.

According to some faculty, however, things are running smoothly.The reason for the unexpectedly large number of freshmen enrolled this year had to do with the university’s budget.

“UT is a tuition-driven institution,” Beach said.  “Because of the economic uncertainty, a lot of people were unsure how many students would come back. To make the budget work, they increased the size of the freshmen class and a lot of those folks showed up.”

Beach added that many freshmen had put in multiple deposits with multiple universities, making it difficult to judge early on last year just how many new students would be joining UT in the fall.In fact, no one realized just how large the class of 2013 would be until the summer.

Suddenly, there was a rush to make sure there were enough classroom spots to accommodate new students who need core classes such as Gateways, Global Issues, English 101 and basic biology and mathematics courses.
“This created a lot of stress on the system,” Beach said.  “First-year writing and department chairs scrambled to get more sections.”

Dr. Mary Jane Schenck, director of first-year writing, said there were ultimately nine new sections added to freshmen writing courses, some of which had to be overloaded.

According to Beach, only 200 freshmen don’t have English 101 or 102 on their schedules this semester.

Many of those who don’t have these courses currently don’t need them until second semester, since some of these students come in with advanced placement credit, allowing them to proceed directly to English 102.

“The English department did a great job in providing seats for students,” said Beach.

Other departments also hurried to make way for the swell of students. Gateways and Global Issues class sizes were slightly increased, according to Beach.

The average sizes of these classes used to be around 22, now classes are capped at 24.

“Math also struggled,” said Beach. “There was a section added during add/drop week, and it filled up very quickly.”

Math courses, however, unlike Gateways and Global Issues, do not need to fit into every schedule freshman year.  General math requirements can be completed within the first two years.

The biology department also added some class sections. “The challenge there is space in the laboratories,” Beach said.

Some of the biology courses require three-hour blocks and it was difficult to find part-time faculty to teach a class three hours a week.”

By adding more class sections so suddenly, the university needed to find more faculty—and fast.  Many adjunct professors joined UT this semester.

“This was not just because of the size of the freshmen class,” Beach said.  “Some faculty resigned at the last minute in August.”

Schenck said the English department has been given no new full-time instructors.

“There are some new visiting faculty who are replacements for those who left for full-time positions elsewhere,” she wrote in an e-mail.  “To cope with additional sections, we hired more adjuncts, and they now staff 50 percent of our first-year writing sequence.”

She has concerns over the large amount of part-time faculty in first-year writing.

“How much time can be given to the adjuncts to oversee their work and integrate them into our curriculum?” she questioned in an e-mail. “Are the adjuncts able to give the time to students that writing courses require?”
While Schenck believes many of the hired adjuncts have excellent credentials, including PhDs, she recognizes that they have other jobs and may not be as committed to the university as a faculty member on tenure-track.

“UT is not unique in this adjunct dependence,” she wrote.  “But we are private, and we do pride ourselves on offering students a carefully thought-out curriculum that represents best practices in the field.  We should not be happy with more than 25 percent of our classes across the university being taught by adjuncts.”

While students may be better off with more full-time faculty, hiring adjuncts on short notice may not be something the university has to worry about again for a while. “We are not planning to have this many freshmen next year,” Beach said.  “This was a one time thing.”

The university website currently boasts a 15:1 student to faculty ratio with an average class size of 21.
When asked if he believed that ratio would change due to increases in freshmen class sizes, Beach said he suspected the ratio would stay the same.

“There is a strict government formula to calculate that number,” he said.  “There are federal guidelines in terms of calculating it.”

Cardenas said the university would not know the new official student to faculty ratio or average class size until after the third week of classes when an official university census is done, though he also believes the numbers are unlikely to change.

“The university doesn’t expect the new freshmen class to alter the faculty student ratio substantially,” he wrote in an e-mail. “With the addition of new faculty, the ratio could actually stay the same as last year.”
After all the bustle that had taken place between academic departments over the summer in preparing for the new wave of freshmen, Beach said he was very surprised there wasn’t more activity in his office during the drop/add period.

“We weren’t even as busy as normal,” he said.  “There were fewer students coming in and wanting to adjust their schedules than in the past.”

Despite the rush to create enough classes, Beach says freshmen were given quality schedules, with the average schedule around 15.8 credit hours.