<p>The fallout of the Wall Street Recession hitting hard.</p>
<p>And I hope CA isn't next but I may have to light several candles and cross all fingers and toes ... Legislature is back in session Nov. 5 to deal with just this year's budget issues.</p>
<p>I have a very hard time imagining lecture classes of 1000 students. Mind-boggling!</p>
<p>"I have a very hard time imagining lecture classes of 1000 students. Mind-boggling!"</p>
<p>I have about 300 GB of college course video lectures on my home desktop (I need a bigger disk). There are many courses where the kids don't show up for class - they just watch the video from their dorm rooms. It's mildly amusing to see professors at Berkeley pleading with students to come to class.</p>
<p>I remember a lecture hall at BC on European History where there was room for several hundred students - I don't have an estimate but there were several teacher/grad students running the show. I sometimes got confused as to who was who. My son has had a class in a huge lecture hall - I think the capacity was 1,000. I've been in the lecture hall and you need binoculars to see the chalkboard.</p>
<p>I think that it's reasonable to expect less personalization in state universities - the sink or swim approach seems to be common in state u's.</p>
<p>Cornell has a class of over 1000.</p>
<p>Cornell???
I thought things like that happen only at state flagships!!!</p>
<p>We don't really have a flagship in NY, but Cornell is one of our state schools.</p>
<p>Cornell is a hybrid public/private mix as I understand it- does the state have that much control over its budget?</p>
<p>Interesting article, but it seems to be a bit overblown and not particularly well-researched. I'm actually intimately involved in this situation, and so far the various cuts have not been in areas that would negatively affect students. Arizona doesn't prioritize education funding, which is unfortunate, which is forcing the university to look elsewhere for ways to raise money. I will tell you this: most of the people who are whining and complaining about the direction of the university and the allocation of funds have no knowledge of the situation and poorly developed arguments.</p>
<p>The typical ASU student isn't particularly bright, nor is he or she an active participant in classes anyway, so increasing the size of a freshman/sophomore level lecture class wouldn't negatively affect the quality of the learning. Honors students will still enjoy classes capped at 25 students, access to the best faculty members, and many opportunities to advance themselves regardless of the issues facing the university at large.</p>
<p>The huge class at Cornell is Psych 101 and isn't required for most of the enrolled students but has a dynamic professor so both he and the class are extremely popular. Heck, I even attended the lectures even though I wasn't enrolled!! :) The building was setup well for the lecture, large enough projector, after you are past the 100 or so students requiring a lecture format it really doesn't make a difference.</p>
<p>How does this jive with this report issued in January? ASU</a> designs for future with 2020 vision | ASU News
"ASU designs for future with 2020 vision
Arizona State Universitys projected enrollment of 100,000 students by the year 2020 is a statistic that some people find surprising maybe even shocking. But the projected growth in college-eligible high school graduates demands that ASU expand to support the needs of the state; if not, Arizona children will be denied access to higher education.
The universitys growth in undergraduate students will occur on the Downtown Phoenix, West and Polytechnic campuses. The Tempe campus, already one of the largest single campuses in the nation, is currently at its planned instructional capacity."</p>
<p>
[quote]
How does this jive with this report issued in January?
[/quote]
10 months and a reduced state funding and investments. What you want to do and what you can do can be very different. Voters have to decide what they want to support.</p>
<p>I am a big fan of small interactive classes. That is classes of 10-20 students or less.
But I am not sure how much difference does it make to have a lecture with 1000 students as opposed to 300 students. Once you get into the hundreds, I think it's about the same anyway, so they can save some money - why not?..</p>
<p>Yes, why not! The next wave will be to offer English 101 at the football game: meet one hour before every home game, expect the students to upload the papers and have them graded by fellow classmates, and then take a five questions multiple-choice test after the last home game. That would work out great for the students. And all that would be needed is one faculty member and few dozens slaves aka TAs.</p>
<p>The usual ratios are 20 to 25 to one for Freshman english courses.</p>
<p>Berkeley, Yale, MIT and Stanford use large lecture halls for a variety of subjects (you can just peruse the online course videos for these four schools and many others) and it seems to work out fine. There is some amount of work for the students to adjust to the herding cattle approach but learning is the bottom line and it seems that it does work out.</p>
<p>Officials:</a> Proposed budget cuts would severely harm ASU | ASU News
Officials: Proposed budget cuts would severely harm ASU
The options proposed Jan. 15 by the Arizona Legislature would cut the university systems budget by up to $243 million for the remaining few months of fiscal year 2009, and $388 million for fiscal year 2010. This would be the largest higher education budget reduction in the states history.</p>