<p>I am adjuncting two courses this semester at local “directional” college. Both courses are capped at 24 students, but there is only one section of each. As registration continues, more students are still requesting admission with assorted sob stories. I have relented and now have 30 and 31, and have turned away at least 2 others. </p>
<p>Department Chair 1 suggested admitting 2-3, but one of the other professors said to admit as many as there were chairs in the room. </p>
<p>It is becoming more difficult to make these individual decisions without a guidepost. Arguments for/against further admissions? Advice for next time around?</p>
<p>a. How many students you can have in your course without losing effectiveness in teaching the students, or creating excessive workload on yourself (e.g. extra work grading assignments, projects, and exams)?</p>
<p>b. Whether the students actually needed the course to graduate on-time in their majors? (more for which students get priority to be added if you do not want to add all of the students trying to get in)</p>
<p>Obviously, if there are a lot of students, the optimal solution is to add another section of the course.</p>
<p>They would have to find yet another adjunct in order to add another section in either department. That is easier said than done, and certainly can’t be done this late in the game. All the students who have requested admission “really needed” in. I opted to go first come, first serve.</p>
<p>Are these intro or upper-level classes? And are the classes writing-intensive? For me, I have found that 20 is my comfortable limit for an upper-level (discussion-based), writing intensive class. Any more than 20, things start to feel fragmented. So I try really hard to keep small classes small. But once the class is no longer small, I would let in as many as there are seats.</p>
<p>As for next time around, you might think about requiring that students get permission from you before they can register. That way, you can give preference to seniors or juniors who really might need the class, or to majors, or whoever you think really does need the class, rather than just wants another T-Th class . . .</p>
<p>DH surprised me when he said that he had approved about 30 for a 21 capped class, heavy on writing, with muliple tests. He explained that he felt comfortable that x% would drop out in the first two weeks, bringing the number down. And, that’s what has happened, all but one time. In his case, though, he had taught the class(es) before and knew some kids wouldn’t stick it out. Another friend of ours used to claim he’d scare them away with the initial syllabus. No idea if he really did.</p>
<p>Be careful - I used to work at a place where the dean would automatically raise the course cap to whatever number was overloaded the previous semester, so over the years, a 20 person seminar gradually turned into a 50 person lecture.</p>
<p>Guidelines: Allow in final semester seniors who need the course to graduate (verified by the student’s advisor or registrar). Anyone else would have an opportunity to take the course another semester. For me, that would be the only criteria that would persuade me to push a course up past the cap.</p>
<p>One course is an intro physics and the other is engineering mechanics. Both are typically either required or prerequisites, and both have students that span from freshmen to seniors. ALL the students asking for overrides either need it to graduate, or as a pre-req which will cause them added time if they don’t get in now. This is not narrowing down the field. </p>
<p>While there is no writing, there is a tremendous amount of homework as well as 3 exams, an assortment of labs, and a final in each course, which means lots of grading. The possibility of asking for more money has some merit - I can see it working at a private U, but not sure about a public one.</p>
<p>Sylvan, I could be wrong, but I think at least for Umass online courses, the number of students does drive TA payments. I think you may want to raise the issue.</p>
<p>In that case, if there’s no way to narrow the criteria so you can allow in a few with the most need, you just stand firmly on whatever enrollment cap the university established. It sucks, but not having enough sections of a required class is the university’s issue, and you should not have to be deciding the merit of all these requests.</p>
<p>What majors require freshman level introductory physics (presumably for physics and engineering majors) or engineering mechanics but do not have them as prerequisites for other courses so that seniors are waiting to take those courses? Seems that any major that requires these specific courses needs them at the head a sequence of prerequisites, so the seniors trying to take those courses are already extremely delayed in progress. Or are the seniors trying to fulfill a “take one of courses in this list” type of requirements?</p>
<p>Another possible means of prioritizing: students who are repeating the course after failing or late-dropping the course previously go to the back of the queue. They already had their chance the first time, but “wasted” it, so they need to let someone else get his/her first chance…</p>
<p>Course caps are set for a reason. They have a pedagogical rationale, and they should be respected. I do not believe they should be exceeded by more than 2 students per section. In some situations, course caps are set by physical limitations such as number of seats in a room, fire capacity limitations, lab seating, etc.</p>
<p>In the short run, it feels good to accommodate pleading students and frantic advisors. In the long term, ignoring caps just encourages the university to underestimate needed course offerings and understaff them, to the long-term detriment of program quality. If faculty don’t respect their own caps, then no one else in the university will.</p>
<p>It’s been my experience that most students who beg to be admitted to a full class at the beginning of the semester left their registration too late. I am particularly unsympathetic to seniors, because they have first crack at all classes because of priority registration. Students who don’t register ASAP set themselves up for all kinds of problems.</p>
<p>I got the distinct sense that the intro Physics teacher my D had at the CC deliberately graded much more harshly - more hastily? - prior to the drop date. This person apparently counted on the post-drop reduced class size for a comfy class load, and the relatively few survivors had a decent class experience from that point on. You could find out what the typical drop rate is (without extreme measures!) and proceed based on that.</p>
<p>OP is asked to teach 2 classes with 21 students in each. By admitting 30+ students in each class, she is in effect teaching 60 students instead of 42. She needs to get paid for 3 classes, not two. The school is collecting money from its students, presumably the cost is calculated by how many courses those students could take and how many they would need to offer in order to fulfill the needs. If those 20 students are taking OP’s course that means they are not taking someone else’s course, so why shouldn’t OP get paid more?</p>