This fall, Goshen College has seen a spike in the number of first-year students with the enrollment of 201 first-year students compared to last year’s 156. After five consecutive years of classes numbering less than 200, the college must now figure out how to accommodate these extra students in the classroom. GC has many classrooms of varying sizes to meet the needs of classes as some need more space than others or need to be held at a certain location or time. This new class has presented several challenges in order for GC to meet those needs.
To find appropriately sized rooms for every class every hour, some of the larger classrooms on campus have added seating. According to Cynthia Good Kaufmann, co-chair of the Learning Spaces Committee, she has ensured that the largest of the classrooms are “at full capacity furniture-wise.” She says that the Rec-Fit Center 104 now seats 60 up from 50; Newcomer 17 now seats 60, up from 50; and Administration Building 21 (PC lab) seats 22, up from 20.This means that even amongst the larger classrooms, there is a need to be able to accommodate larger class sizes. While not an issue on its own, the result of these accommodations has been several changes made to classroom assignments, class size capsand class sections.
Kristin Waltner, the interim registrar, says that this large class has presented many challenges and “growing pains,” in making sure the physical classrooms can fit all of the students but in the class rosters too.
Even as the fall semester drew closer, many courses still had long waitlists. While some of the competition for these courses naturally worked itself out as students began to solidify their areas of study, it also led to the registration cap increasing for many courses and adding sections in other cases to allow more students.
Waltner also says that classroom assignments usually begin to be finalized at the end of summer and at that time she and those she works with were having to do some last-minute room reassignments. “There has been some shuffling since then as a result of course caps being increased,” Waltner said. “And sometimes that creates a bit of a domino effect.”
The delays in the repairs of the Administration Building’s elevator have not made this process any easier. According to Waltner, some classes have needed to be moved out of the building as the result of accessibility accommodations not being met. Once the registrar’s office learned the elevator would not be finished before classes began again this fall, they sent out messages to students and faculty scheduled to be in the building to learn whether accessibility would be an issue for them.
“We will need to be strategic in the courses that we’re offering and in our course planning process,” Waltner explained. The registrar’s office also wants to make sure that the professors are having their needs met such as hours and workload.
Many students take the courses they do in order to make sure that they meet the requirements to graduate. Two very important parts of this process that affect course scheduling are the sequencing that programs recommend and the conflicts that arise from changes a student might make in what they want to major or minor in.
For example, the nursing program requires more than 80 hours for the major itself to be completed and has little wiggle room for adjusting when a particular class is to be taken. This can cause issues if multiple courses are to be taken but are given at the same time. Also, many students change their chosen major or minor which can bring about unforeseen conflicts as they try to meet their requirements. Many programs and departments are aware of these issues and do their best to ensure each student can graduate.
The incoming class of 2024 has certainly changed how GC handles the room assignments for its many courses. According to Waltner, what future classes and other unknown variables might do remains to be seen, but the college will do its best to continue to meet the needs of its staff and students.
