Ohio State is a big university with overcrowded classrooms, and these large classes will only continue to grow. Budget cuts have been pushing OSU students, faculty and facilities to their limits, and the students are feeling the effects.
“It’s difficult. The students have it harder as the class gets less personal,” said Dr. Lucia Dunn, a professor of economics, who is teaching a 200-level class.
Her staff members find themselves short-handed because her class consists of about 600 students.
“Once you get above about 100 students it all feels the same,” Dunn said. “The problem is keeping their attention throughout the entire class. The key is in the presentation.”
The recitation periods are the classes which suffer the most.
“Going from a class of 30 to 40 to one of close to 70 is a challenge,” Dunn said.
Economics isn’t alone. Introductory classes in a number of fields, such as biology and sociology, are feeling the squeeze of crowded classrooms.
Dr. John Wenzel, a biology professor, said he sees the large class sizes as a problem.
“These classes are moneymakers for the university, so we must accommodate for the numbers,” he said.
Having discussions are hard hurdles for many of the students, but Matt Schroeder, a teacher’s assistant, seems to have found one solution. After about an hour, the students discuss the material with five people seated around them.
“It seems like it wouldn’t work,” Schroeder said. “But the scores show it does.”
Dr. Roman Lanno, a professor of Biology 101, was much less concerned with the size of the class.
“This course has been this large for a number of years,” Lanno said. “It’s just recently that we have the technology to handle a class this size.”
