Class size may hinder enrollment

Editor's note: This is the second part in a three-part series about education at SF State in the '90s. Part one, "Report predicts enrollment increases," ran in Tuesday's issue. Part three will run in next Tuesday's issue.

Increasing enrollment demands coupled with a short supply of spaces have caused some SF State departments to impose strict entrance requirements.

"Our campus admits students until the first day of classes, so getting in is not the difficult part," said Ed Apodaca, SF State associate vice president for enrollment services. "But getting specific classes or specific majors might be difficult."

Enrollment in the cinema department is so demanding, the department is considering implementing higher GPA and prerequisite entrance guidelines designed to stem the flow of applicants to the program, according to Associate Dean of Creative Arts Derek Hunt.

The guidelines would follow cinema's sister department, broadcasting and electronic communication arts, which also has been experiencing the problem of too many applicants and not enough space to accommodate them.

The cinema department has 744 undergraduates and 65 graduates. BECA has 621 in its undergraduate program and 59 in its graduate program.

Students must pass three prerequisite core courses with a grade of C or better before being admitted into the BECA program, and maintain a cumulative GPA of 2.3. Students wishing to enter these prerequisite core courses must apply a year in advance, according to Hunt.

"That's just to be eligible to take the program core courses," Hunt said.

Apodaca said, "You get to the point where you only accept those students who apply in the month of November, then, pretty soon only those who have applied in November and completed the application and have had the test scores. Then, it actually gets to a point where you cannot serve all the students who apply, are eligible -- and then you start looking at ways of ranking students."

Apodaca notes that highest priority is given to California community college transfer students and upper division transfer students because "they have nowhere else to go."

"Once in, the student starts looking at the majors they're applying for. Some majors are more restrictive than others," Apodaca said, noting that when enrollment increases, lecture courses are assigned larger classrooms, but lab courses are not.

"One of our biggest problems is lab size. They can only handle 24 or 18 students at a time," said James Kelley, dean of the College of Science and Engineering. Kelley teaches 65 students in his class "John Steinbeck and 'Doc Ricketts': Literature and the Sea."

The Science and Engineering College has 3,200 full-time students, all of whom take lab courses at one time or another.

One such lab course is Human Anatomy.

The course, supervised by Eugene Handler, is a prerequisite course for most health-related degrees, including biology, physiology, kinesiology, physical therapy and nursing. There is only one room -- Hensill Hall 101 -- in which the course is taught. This room serves 12 sections of Human Anatomy, with 240 students.

"Dr.(Charlene) Stone and I handle the lectures, and we have a series of teacher's assistants who handle the lab," Handler said. "The problem is, we've had to turn people away. We turn students away every semester.'

Last semester, 120 students were restricted from taking the course because of lack of space.

"With the number of people in the lab, it's open virtually all the time," Handler said. Not only are classes held every day of the week but students "come and go at all times to do out-of-class research."

"If they can't take the class, it just delays the time it takes to get out of the course," Handler said.

"I'm finding, as a student, I'm limited on what's available to take," said Ralph Baumgardner, a kinesiology major.

"The biggest problem I'm noticing, and this is true of the whole state system, is that if somebody is working they cannot complete the bachelor's degree just on afternoon or evening classes. They have to get morning classes, whether they like it or not, because with some of the classes that's the only time they are offered," Baumgardner said.

Apodaca is aware of the problem of the lack of class sections offered at different times for those who work.

"Sometimes their work schedule dictates when they can take their classes. A lot of times, because of space, and faculty, we can't always offer sections at the times the demands are highest," Apodaca said.

"The average classroom shouldn't have more than 27. It used to be that our classes had 23 or 24. That cushion is gone," Apodaca said.

Another class that routinely fills up quickly is American Sign Language.

"I've tried to sign up for three semesters in a row, and this is the first semester I've gotten in. I'm a senior. I should have gotten it," said Julie Mawod, a recreation and leisure studies major. Currently the class has 45 students enrolled. "I should have had this class before this semester. It was already booked up, and I was there on the seventh or eighth day of registration."

Students interviewed said they were coping with the large classes, but the individual contact with the instructor is reduced.

Brenda Cochrane, director of labor studies, echoes this thought.

"(The instructor) is not able to give the attention as you would like to be doing," Cochrane said. Cochrane has 45 students in her Women and Work class.

The department of nursing is another program affected by many applications for entrance and few available spaces. Last year the nursing school had 410 undergraduate applications and 150 graduate applications. The program has only 88 spaces in the undergraduate program and 54 in the graduate program.

Shannon Perry, director of the nursing school, believes the demanding entry-level criteria ensure that students can get through the nursing program and that impacted programs challenge the competence of applicants.

"Sure it can take a long time, but once you're in, you're in," Perry said. "Once in, there's a high probability of passing the nursing program."

According to Perry, 3.25 GPA is the average for nursing students.

Nursing students must pass all general education courses with a C or better; human anatomy and human physiology with a B- or better; the nutrition course with at least a C; and a cumulative GPA of 2.5. These are only the prerequisites to the nursing courses.

Having passed the first requirements, nursing applicants are judged on a variety of academic, community and health-related factors before being accepted into the program. Even then, if space isn't available, the student may have to wait a semester or a year before being admitted.

Nursing is the only impacted program at SF State.

Impacting is a process by which the school requests the right, from the CSU chancellor's office, to limit enrollment. It also restricts the school from expanding. The criteria for the nursing program is tough, and the applications for admittance are many.

"This gives us an opportunity to select students. We like the impacted status," said Perry. "Would you want somebody with Cs to take care of you, provide intravenous injections, prepare medicine?"

"You have to remember, you could have 250 apply and only be able to admit 10 because you already have 40 or 50 in the pipeline," Apodaca said.

While Perry likes the idea of impacted programs, Apodaca doesn't favor restrictions on students attending higher education institutions.

"It's wise to keep education as expansive as possible, because for every year you go to college you're going to earn more money. You're going to pay more taxes," he said. "If you make education too expensive, too selective, we're going to have a number of people unemployed or in prison."

[ Golden Gater Online December 7, 1995 ]

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