Semester Transition Coordinating Committee

The minutes of April 30 indicate that the committee is recommending that the numbers of courses be reduced by one-third. Such a reduction makes sense only for a department or college that intends to continue to make extensive use of four-hour (and even five-hour) courses, not for deparments and colleges that intend to adopt the three credit hour standard for their courses. If the basic course unit is four credit hours and the teaching load will be 2+2, as in the College of Engineering, then it makes perfect sense to reduce the number of courses by one-third. If a department like mine (HPJ) expects to use the three-hour unit and teach a 4+4 (or, if fortune smiles, a 4+3), it makes no sense at all. It suffices for HPJ and similar departments to reduce the number of courses by one-ninth. In HPJ we currently teach nine courses/year. Under semesters we will most probably teach eight courses/year. That does not equal a one-third reduction in course offerings. I think that it is unwise to erect the one-third reduction in course offerings as the standard and require departments like ours to to seek exceptions. The nature of the curriculum in some departments and colleges may well fit comfortably in to one-third fewer courses. I am thinking particularly of the curricula of departments and colleges that surround the Piazza della Scienza. However, there are many departments, particularly in the humanities, social sciences, education, technology, and the fine arts, that will be teaching three-hour classes and will teach a 4+4. I do not know what CBA has in mind for class load, but I am pretty sure that they will go to the three hour unit. Those departments and CBA should not be made to petition for an exception to a rule that applies almost solely to natural science departments and to Engineering and Pharmacy. The "one-third rule" is far too rigid. It does not account for fundamental differences in programs and teaching loads. It should not become the standard for course reduction. Yours, John Lomax

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