<p>This should make you GDI’s happy. :-)</p>
<p>[SGA</a> opens up block seating | The Crimson White](<a href=“http://www.cw.ua.edu/2010/08/20/sga-opens-up-block-seating/]SGA”>http://www.cw.ua.edu/2010/08/20/sga-opens-up-block-seating/)</p>
<p>Class sizes grow over the years
by Will Tucker</p>
<p>As the University continues to grow, so does students’ awareness of the growing pains—specifically in class sizes.</p>
<p>“[The growth] has certainly pressed the limits,” said Larry Bowen, associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Bowen also teaches one class a semester, Mathematics 110.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure if limits on class sizes have gone overboard, but if a class was limited at, say, 60, in the past, you would have had only maybe 53 or 54 even though it would hold 60,” he said. “Now you’re going to have 60. Whatever the limit was, the growth has made sure that [class sizes] were there.”</p>
<p>Bowen graduated from here in 1979 and joined the faculty in 1981. He mentioned that certain facility developments, like the construction of the Mathematics Technology Learning Center in Tutwiler Hall, correlate to changes in class sizes.</p>
<p>“When I first started teaching, the Math Lab wasn’t there, and we just had the classrooms in Gordon Palmer,” he said. “No room in that building other than the auditorium would hold, at that time, more than about 40 people.</p>
<p>“The Math Lab has changed things now…[mathematics classes] don’t necessarily meet but once a week, and maybe some of the upper level courses have gotten smaller.”</p>
<p>Matt Garmon, a junior majoring in accounting, agreed with Bowen’s idea that upper level classes, even in majors other than mathematics, are getting smaller.</p>
<p>“It seems like they’ve been getting a little smaller as I’m getting into my upper level classes, but starting off, they were huge,” he said. “They were around 200 people.”</p>
<p>**Amber Moore, a sophomore majoring in business, said through Honors College, she has only experienced small classes until this year.
**</p>
<p>“The classes I’ve had in the past have always been something like 15 students,” she said. “So, this is the first semester I’ve had huge classes.”</p>
<p>Moore said she sees Honors College class sizes staying the same and noted that she mainly chose to attend UA because of the University Honors Program.</p>
<p>She said, her entry-level classes this year, like Geography 101 and Accounting 210, seem large.</p>
<p>“They’re at least 150 [students]. They’re in the big lecture classes.”</p>
<p>Class sizes seem to vary across the board, according to Austin Curry, a freshman majoring in biology, who is taking all entry-level courses.</p>
<p>“Some are just about like high school with about 30 to 40 people,” he said. “In my English class, though, there’s about a hundred in there…I’ve never seen that before.”</p>
<p>Larry Bowen said he’s seen freshman class sizes consistently growing.</p>
<p>“Definitely with the major universities, the class sizes of at least the freshmen have been creeping up for years,” he said.</p>
<p>“The rooms won’t hold more than they’ll hold,” he said. “As much as you want more people in there, the room will only hold that much.”</p>
<p>Nursing building opens doors
by Zoe Storey</p>
<p>Nursing students have a new place to call home.</p>
<p>The $16.9 million Capstone College of Nursing building opened its doors this week to a recently finished facility built in response to the rapidly growing college. Construction began in October 2008 and concluded in July.</p>
<p>“In the last 10 years, our undergraduate program has increased from 350 students to 1,200,” Dean of the College of Nursing Sara Barger said. “We now have 300 students at the master’s level and a doctorate program. We have previously used classrooms all over campus and finally having the rooms for our students to learn is dynamite.”</p>
<p>The 64,000-square-foot building, located off University Drive across the street from DCH Regional Medical Center, provides a highly interactive education for nursing students, according to a UA news release.</p>
<p>“Our goal is to produce graduates who can provide quality, safe care and who feel comfortable in a technology-driven environment,” Marsha Adams, professor of nursing and assistant dean of the undergraduate program said. “We want to reduce the orientation time for our graduates when they start with a health care agency.”</p>
<p>Two seminar rooms, three classrooms, computer labs, two study rooms and a student lounge, as well as an auditorium with seating for 148, are featured in the Neo-classical, three-story building, according to the news release. A 34-bed clinical practice lab, six computer-controlled patient simulation rooms in the Simulation Center for Clinical Excellence will contribute to the nursing students’ education.</p>
<p>Shelley Jordan, director of advancement for the College of Nursing, said the simulation labs contain life-sized, computer-controlled simulators that imitate real patient conditions. The students can come into a simulation lab with a scenario such as a drug overdose or gunshot wound and gain hands-on experience as the situation is broadcasted to classrooms.</p>
<p>“All the amenities are so high-tech; it is nice,” Chelsea Colagross a junior majoring in nursing, said. “Everything is more technologically based and [the facilities] help learning.”</p>
<p>The building will be dedicated at 10 a.m. on Sept. 10. UA President Robert Witt, Barger and guests representing nursing faculty, staff, students and alumni are expected to attend the ceremony.</p>
<p>“A new Capstone College of Nursing building serves as a visible example of The University of Alabama’s commitment to providing our students with a state-of-the-art learning environment,” Witt said.</p>
<p>Looks like a very positive development, for now. But I do still hope that the vast majority of the lower bowl student section seats are not block seating. I would hate to see that part of the section look half empty while the upper deck is full. If the change is managed well, it WILL be a great change for UA, and help to heal the rift that exists between SOME students at UA.</p>
<p>I know that Honors College Assembly is wanting to get block seating. (:</p>