Although class availability is reduced for the spring semester, registration opened Monday with what faculty said is not a large change in class offerings.
N.C. State took a 16 percent budget cut from the state for the 2011-2012 school year. As a result, 1,425 class sections, or 47,491 student seats, have been eliminated, provost Warwick Arden said to the Student Senate Sept. 21.
That being said, the total number of students enrolled hovers around the same number, according to associate registrar Michelle Johnson. Johnson said she did not have readily available an exact number for the drop in class sections for the spring semester.
“Based on our assessments of enrollment, we are not seeing any drop in total, overall enrollment. You have to get down to the individual classes to assess whether or not individual classes have seen a drop in enrollment,” Johnson said.
Joseph Doster, professor of and adviser for nuclear engineering, said his department has not seen a drop in classes available.
“Our courses are primarily taught by faculty. Our courses are not taught by contract people or TAs. So, the number of classes that we offer is pretty much the same regardless. The classes that we offer are all required for our graduates, so whether or not there is a budget cut, we have to offer those classes,” Doster said.
The department of nuclear engineering contains all tenure track professors, Doster said.
“The faculty are paid regardless. Since they are teaching the classes, as long as they’re here, we teach the classes,” Doster said. “We do not have any non-tenure track faculty.”
Meredith Fosque, senior lecturer and coordinator of advising for the Department of English, said her department has also not seen any cuts in classes. She advises mostly freshmen, who are the last to register.
“I feel for [the freshmen], because they are the last to register. A couple of them wrote to me and asked ‘Can you release my hold? I want to get in there before the juniors and seniors.’ I said, ‘No, I’m sorry. It doesn’t work that way,'” Fosque said.
The big issue comes when seniors cannot get the classes they need to graduate on time, according to Fosque.
“The ones that people worry about are the seniors who are considering graduating. If they can’t find their classes, they are in big trouble,” Fosque said.
However, the freshmen and sophomores will be most affected by a lack of class availability, according to Fosque.
Arnie Otmans, undergraduate coordinator in agricultural and resource economics, said his department lost one section for next semester.
“We are offering one less section of an introductory course, but we are offering all the same classes we were offering a year ago,” Otmans said. “[There were] no big changes in our department.”
Students who have registered with Disability Services and have special needs were allowed to register Monday, while graduate students, those in the Honors Program and athletes will be able to register this week.
