<p>A cautionary tale.</p>
<p>courant.com<br>
<a href="http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-uconnsqueeze0311.artmar11,0,3987631.story?coll=hc-headlines-home%5B/url%5D">http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-uconnsqueeze0311.artmar11,0,3987631.story?coll=hc-headlines-home</a></p>
<p>UConn Feels Big Squeeze</p>
<p>Growing Popularity Also Means Crammed Classes</p>
<p>By ROBERT A. FRAHM
Courant Staff Writer</p>
<p>March 11 2007</p>
<p>STORRS -- Like many students, Melissa Noonan was attracted to the University of Connecticut by its growing, high-profile reputation.</p>
<p>But she soon found herself - and her hopes of studying for a teaching career - lost in the crowd.</p>
<p>"Once I arrived at UConn, I couldn't get into any of the classes I needed because they were all full," said Noonan, 20, of Simsbury. "I ended up taking classes irrelevant to my major."</p>
<p>Noonan's complaint is an increasingly familiar one on a campus where enrollment has burgeoned, but the number of full-time professors hasn't.</p>
<p>Bolstered by students attracted to new academic and honors programs, championship athletic teams and dozens of new classrooms and labs built under a $2.3 billion construction boom, the university boasts that it is getting not only more, but better, applicants. The average SAT score among incoming freshmen is up 82 points since 1996.</p>
<p>That popularity has come with a price.</p>
<p>Students are finding that many classes are crowded, taught by part-time instructors or not available at all. Some have to postpone taking required courses or, in severe cases, delay graduation.</p>
<p>While undergraduate enrollment expanded by 44 percent over the past decade, the number of full-time faculty grew just 15 percent.</p>
<p>"You hear UConn is such a great school, and then you get there and it kind of knocks you around a little bit," Noonan said. Disappointed, Noonan transferred out of UConn and now is enrolled at the University of Hartford.</p>
<p>As students log onto computers to register for classes, the number of available seats shrinks quickly. Some students take summer classes to stay on track for graduation or even stay an extra semester.</p>
<p>Slightly more than half the freshmen who enter UConn will get degrees in four years, and nearly three-fourths will get degrees within six years, the latest figures show.</p>
<p>Although finishing in four years is the goal, that may be difficult for students such as Garrett Margolis, a junior economics major.</p>
<p>Last semester, "I came to sign up for classes, [and] there were only three economics courses available," he said. "Two of them were at the same time and same day, and the other was kind of irrelevant to [my focus of] microeconomics. ... If it happens again, I'd have to take an extra semester."</p>
<p>A Campus Transformed</p>
<p>UConn's transformation, spurred largely by the massive construction programs known as UConn 2000 and 21st Century UConn, is widely regarded as a success, but the growing pains are undeniable.</p>
<p>"We've been on a good upward trajectory, and now we're really feeling the strain," Provost Peter J. Nicholls said. "We've got these wonderful new buildings, facilities that are world class, so we can attract faculty here ... but we have to have positions available."</p>
<p>At UConn, unless the university can add faculty to cope with the growing teaching loads, Nicholls said he fears "we cannot maintain what we've achieved as an institution over the long haul."</p>
<p>The university has appealed to the legislature for $22.5 million in increased funds over the next five years to add 175 more full-time faculty members, but the prospects are uncertain.</p>
<p>"Not unless [UConn] can find the savings somewhere else. ... I don't see it, really, honestly, this year," said state Rep. Denise W. Merrill, D-Mansfield, whose district includes UConn and who is co-chairwoman of the legislature's appropriations committee.</p>
<p>Other public colleges, too, including campuses in the Connecticut State University system, have asked for more faculty. Merrill agrees there is a need, "but as I'm looking across the budget and all the things that are priorities - health care, K-12 education - I don't know where this is on the list."</p>
<p>Across the nation, many public universities are struggling with similar surges in enrollment. In most states, including Connecticut, "state support has not kept up with enrollment growth," said Paul E. Lingenfelter, president of the Colorado-based State Higher Education Executive Officers.</p>
<p>Even though public colleges made up some of the revenue gap with hefty tuition increases, overall revenue per student fell, on average, 5 percent nationwide between 2001 and 2006, Lingenfelter said, citing a new report issued by the organization.</p>
<p>No Room</p>
<p>At UConn, the squeeze is especially tight in areas such as sciences and engineering.</p>
<p>John DeWolf, a UConn professor of civil and environmental engineering, is used to relatively modest class sizes. But last fall, one section of DeWolf's mechanics of materials course had 120 students. "In engineering, we have typically kept our class sizes to 35 or less. We're now teaching classes twice as large or larger," DeWolf said.</p>
<p>At UConn, many of the 1,180 full-time faculty are teaching larger classes. Ten years ago, the student-faculty ratio was slightly more than 14 to 1. Now it is more than 17 to 1, according to a U.S. News & World Report survey. That is higher than at most schools that UConn considers its peers, such as the University of Iowa, at 15 to 1, and Ohio State University, at 13 to 1.</p>
<p>In some cases at UConn, students can't get into classes at all.</p>
<p>"It's a complaint we're hearing more," said Nicholls, the provost. "We're certainly hearing it in high-demand areas, such as biology. ... There is also a great deal of pressure in mathematics."</p>
<p>Debra Kendall, a professor of molecular and cell biology, said, "We do everything we possibly can to make sure students in the life sciences get the courses they need in a timely manner. Honestly, we fall short. There simply is not enough faculty to meet the need."</p>
<p>One result has been increased reliance on part-time adjuncts or graduate students to teach classes. The university has 679 part-time instructors, 30 percent more than a decade ago.</p>
<p>"I'm a graduating senior, and I still have half my classes taught by graduate students," said 21-year-old Joe Sweet, of Winsted, majoring in international business management and economics.</p>
<p>Expanding enrollments also have limited the opportunities for undergraduates to work on research projects with professors and placed heavy demands on advising and counseling services, said Nicholls, the provost.</p>
<p>Another big scheduling headache is finding space in "W" courses - classes specifically designed for an additional emphasis on writing.</p>
<p>The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences once required its students to take three "W" courses before graduating but two years ago reduced the requirement to two, the same as for the rest of the university, because of the scheduling squeeze.</p>
<p>The "W" courses, limited in size, "fill up usually the first day," said Josh Cannata, 22, a senior from Stratford.</p>
<p>"I've been here for five years," he said. "I would have been able to graduate earlier if I could have gotten my `W' classes. ... Virtually every semester, as you get older at UConn and you near your graduation date, classes get harder to get into. It should be easier."</p>
<p>Contact Robert A. Frahm at <a href="mailto:rfrahm@courant.com">rfrahm@courant.com</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant</p>