Struggling to find available graduate student teaching assistants for the laboratory sections of the quickly growing CHEM 0330: "Equilibrium, Rate and Structure," the Chemistry Department has placed limits this semester on the number of undergraduate students allowed to take the course, said Peter Weber, professor of chemistry and department chair.
With one lecture section offering spots to 200 students and two more offering 155 spots each, 510 students will be allowed to take the previously uncapped course this semester. As of yesterday afternoon, about four spots remained open in one section, but the other two sections were full.
It is unclear how many students could not register for the course because of the new limits, but Associate Professor of Chemistry Christoph Rose-Petruck, one of the three professors who teach the course, guessed that the number was between 50 to 100.
Attempting to determine how many students were inconvenienced by the course's new limits, the Chemistry Department released a survey on Friday that asked for students to respond if they were unable to get into the laboratory or lecture section of their choice, or if they were unable to get into the course at all. As of Friday afternoon, 12 students reported not being able to get into both a lecture and a laboratory section.
The new limits come a year after more than 600 students registered for the course in the fall of 2007, a noticeable spike in enrollment, Weber said. For the fall of 2006, 547 students registered for the course at the beginning of the semester, according to Weber, and for about six years before that year, beginning course enrollment was consistently under 580. Weber said he could not find an exact reason for the course's surge in popularity, but pointed to growing incoming first-year class sizes as one possible factor.
In response to the shortage of available spots in the course, the department plans to offer it again in the spring for the first time. The introductory chemistry course serves as one of the fundamental prerequisite courses for 18 concentrations, including biology, chemistry, neuroscience and engineering. It is also a pre-med requirement.
According to Weber, smaller incoming classes for the Graduate School's Chemistry Department have made it difficult to staff the oft-crowded laboratory sections, which only have laboratory stations for a maximum of 17 students per section and are taught by graduate students, who are obligated to be teaching assistants for one course during their first year. The limit on the number of students that can be accepted to the course is based on how many spaces are available in the labs.
For the 2007-08 academic year, the Chemistry Department welcomed only nine new students to its graduate program, 14 students fewer than the 23 they accepted the year before. This year, at the department's urging to the Graduate School, the number was increased to 18 incoming graduate students. In order to staff the laboratory sections for the 510 students of this semester, at least 15 graduate students will need to be available for the course.
"It's better this year, but it's still not sufficient," Weber said. "We're still struggling and we're still trying to fill these last needs."
During the last academic year, in order to accommodate the high number of students and a dramatic drop in first-year Chemistry graduate students, Weber said the department implemented an emergency measure that offered graduate students who were slated to spend the entire semester doing research the option of spending half the semester researching and the other half teaching a section.
For some professors and graduate students, the practice can be frustrating because it can impede graduate students from obtaining optimal results for their research projects, which often rely on outside grants.
"It's a bad idea and not fair to the graduate students," Prof. Rose-Petruck said. "Eventually, we have to let them do the research."
Nicole Seah GS said that the half-research, half-teacher's assistant option likely took a toll on those that were expecting the entire semester to be dedicated to research.
"If you have to pull out 15 to 20 hours for TAing, it affects your research and how much you get done," said Seah, who has led sections for the course multiple times. "And also, it's just exhausting."
The limits have been a burden for a number of undergraduates, particularly the first-years who choose their classes after all other upperclassmen.
A number of students have been unable to register for the class, after some first-years followed the advice of upperclassmen who said that getting into the course would not be a problem because of its size, Jyotsna Mullur '12 said.
Weber spoke of one first-year that was shut out of the class when she first registered and only got into the class on Wednesday after repeatedly visiting Banner the next day, waiting for someone to drop the course.
While the vast majority of students were able to register without a problem, others found that the course limits have prevented them from shopping more classes.
Mullur was able to register for one section, but when she tried to switch into another that better fit her schedule, she found that it was full. Concerned that she may lose her spot, she is currently staying in the section in which she was registered.
"I wish they would up the caps. It's really frustrating because now I'm so worried about which section and which lab I'm going to get into," she said.
As for taking the class in the spring, Mullur is rejecting the option because she must take CHEM 0350: "Organic Chemistry" - a course that has CHEM 0033 as a prerequisite - as another requirement in the spring because it is not offered in the fall. Those two courses are required for seven concentrations.
"They keep saying they're offering it spring semester, but I can't do it. It would mess up the whole sequence," she said.
Weber said he hopes those who are taking CHEM 0033 outside of their concentration will be willing to take the smaller classes in the spring, opening up more spaces for those that need to take the sequence.
