UA Honors Classes swamped by increased enrollment?

<p>Hi all. I was just looking at UA’s paper the Crimson White on-line, and watched a video report entitled, “UA Enrollment Expansion.” The very first student interviewed said that she had been told that her honors classes would have 20 students max, but both of her honors classes had 70 students (because of the influx of freshmen.) Can anyone comment on whether or not this is common for lower-level honors classes? Other issues addressed in the clip were lack of parking, and increased traffic. Just how much larger does UA hope to become? Are sufficient honors classes being added to the schedule to accomodate the higher enrollment? Thanks!</p>

<p>Laminate: I can only speak of my D’s schedule, but of the 3 (out of 5) honors classes she’s taking, one has 24 students (vs. 35 in the regular section) and 1 has 15 students and another has 12. Her 1 credit Honors Connection class had 10 students. Her regular classes have 48 students (math) and 160 students (anthropology) but that was expected. </p>

<p>I haven’t heard of any overenrollment in honors classes, but the departmental ones may have done that. It will be interesting to hear if anyone has had this experience.</p>

<p>My son (a freshman) has three honors courses and the enrollment is almost identical to that of RobD’s daughter. He also has two general ed/survey courses with large lecture section enrollments, as expected.</p>

<p>We met with President Witt during our visit to Bama last February and he told us his plan is to cap UA enrollment at 31,000.</p>

<p>but both of her honors classes had 70 students (because of the influx of freshmen.)</p>

<p>???</p>

<p>That can’t be a University Honors Program class. Was this a dept honors class? Dept honors classes don’t have the same limits.</p>

<p>UHP classes typically have 15 kids in them…maybe this year they’ve allowed 20 or so.</p>

<p>Let me look at the actual numbers and report back…</p>

<p>Just checked the ACTUAL enrollments in each University Honors Program class. Nearly all were limited to 15 students each. I saw one with 18 students. </p>

<p>That quoted student must be talking about a dept honors class. They don’t have the same limitations. For instance, one of the Honors Intro to Bio does have 62 students for lecture (another only has 35), but their labs only have around 25 kids in each lab.</p>

<p>Same experience here as for Malanai and Robd - small honors classes, large gened classes. I would have to agree that parking is an issue, especially with all the construction projects around campus thrown into the mix. D opted not to take a car on campus this fall for that very reason, and she hasn’t missed it at all.</p>

<p>The girl in the story probably confused UHP courses (any course numbered UHP XXX) with honors sections of departmental courses (like honors freshman biology or honors general chemistry).</p>

<p>Many thanks, all! I was hoping there was some kind of rational explanation…! :)</p>

<p>Then there’s the non honors classes that have small enrollment. My son’s Eng Comp class has only 25 kids in it. It is a themed class, but is not an honors class. He gets lots of individual attention, even one on one critique sessions with his professor.</p>

<p>You can look at the capacity of the class when you register, but this can change as you get closer to start date of the semester.</p>

<p>Also, as the semester goes, some classes will get smaller, as students either don’t attend or drop the class.</p>

<p>^^</p>

<p>Yes, all the Freshman English Comp classes are limited to 25 kids. </p>

<p>My kids have never really had any large classes except I think one time. Most have been very normal sized or quite small…especially for a big school.</p>

<p>I just watched the video. The girl is obviously misinformed. The UHP classes are limited to 15 students while dept honors can be larger. I do wonder which classes she’s talking about and I wonder if she’s just guessing (exaggerating) as to how many kids are in there, because dept honors classes aren’t typically that big…although there are a few that are.</p>

<p>The largest classes that my son, who is in his second year, has had were about 62. They were two, 300-level classes for his majors. This semester, his classes range from nine students to 44.</p>