In order for SF State students to graduate, they must complete the Segment III requirement. But many students are finding that some classes aren't available and haven't been for a few years.
Effective fall semester, five clusters will be deleted from the class schedule because the courses haven't been offered frequently enough or do not have enough student interest.
"The policy says you may drop the cluster if no one takes it, but the policy does say you must offer every class. There's a technical violation," Bill Perttula, chair of the Segment III committee said.
The five clusters that will be dropped are: philosophy, politics and economics, population dynamics and ecology, modern urban America, Capitalism and the modern world, and Canada and the United States.
The Canada and the United States cluster is being dropped because the professor who taught classes in the cluster left SF State.
The lack of classes can make it difficult for students to complete their requirements.
"I had to change my Segment III cluster because one of the courses was never offered," Julie Herrera, a junior in liberal studies said.
The decision to drop a cluster begins with a recommendation by the Segment III Committee to the dean of undergraduate studies and vice president of academic affairs. If they approve the recommendation, then the cluster is deleted from the next bulletin.
But, students shouldn't worry too much about Segment III affecting their graduation date. If students find that one of their courses isn't offered, they can obtain a "waiver to substitute" in which they petition to apply another class to the requirement.
Students currently have 67 Segment III clusters to choose from. But only 25 percent of graduating seniors in the spring semester of 1994 were enrolled in 72 percent of the clusters offered.
According to a sample of graduating seniors in the spring of 1994, the human sexuality cluster was the most popular with 25 percent of students enrolled.
"I think that the issue of sex is such a common topic that when you have the opportunity to take a class in it, students jump at the chance," Rich Morgan, an SF State student enrolled in the human sexuality cluster said.
The poll was taken from a sample of graduating seniors in 1994. Every third graduation application was reviewed to see what cluster students were enrolled in.
The Segment III Committee also gave graduating seniors an optional survey with their graduation applications in 1992 and 1994 to find out their opinions of Segment III.
In the 1994 survey, 80 percent of students either strongly agreed or agreed that the theme of the cluster they took was highly significant to them in terms of their experiences, achievements and problems.
Their were no significant changes in the answers between the 1992 and 1994 surveys even though 691 answered the questionnaire in 1994 compared to 1,200 students in 1992.
The survey, according to Perttula, is designed to obtain student ratings of how well their cluster of courses in Segment III met the university's explicit goals for Segment III clusters.
Students were also asked what their favorite part of Segment III was. In 1994, almost half of the students said they liked the wide diversity of cluster themes offered. But 22 percent said that all Segment III courses should be offered in both the fall and spring and 23 percent wanted the cluster to be six units instead of nine.
Segment III began with a six unit requirement and later changed to nine.
Before 1992, state law required that each campus have one or more courses that gave students an "integrative experience," according to Perttula.
Previously, SF State had one 500 level course that was offered in each department. But faculty realized that all of the general education requirements could not be tied into one course. Segment III classes were created to fill this gap.
"You can go to many universities in the United States and California and go through your entire college career and never have any course work on non dominant groups," Perttula said.
Some other suggestions given by students in the survey were to offer more choices and classes or to delete the program entirely.