Have you noticed how our classes seem less mobbed this semester than last? I have an impressionistic sense that there was less pressure from unhappy undergraduates desperate to get into any English course with a spare seat this semester, and my impression is borne out by a look at the statistics. The issue of student numbers that this raises is particularly timely as the curriculum committee shapes up 2006-07 and as the Provost’s Office ponders how to boost the University of Iowa’s place on the rankings.

First to the statistics. One of the wonderful initiatives of the Registrar’s Office, in my humble opinion, has been their push to make all kinds of statistics readily available to all, which has led to a democratization of access for planning and understanding the university. The listings on ISIS (http://isis.uiowa.edu/courses) now contain complete information about all courses taught since 2003. A glance under 008 in Fall 2004 shows the range of enrollment in our undergraduate classes: we taught a few big classes of 50-64 students (taught with the help of a grader) and a majority of discussion courses with enrollments varying from 16 to 35, many with 30-35 students in them. Two giant multi-sectioned courses had exceptionally large numbers (Sex and Popular Culture in the Postwar US contained 189 students, Classical Mythology had 149 students). In Fall 2005, by contrast, we have a few big classes (taught with the help of a grader) with 45-67 students but mostly discussion sections with 18-29 students, with a majority enrolling in the low 20s. Again, two giant multi-sectioned classes take up exceptionally high numbers (Sex and Popular Culture in the Postwar US serves 188 students, Classical Mythology has 222). In other words, our normal enrollment in undergraduate literature classes has dropped from the very low 30s to the low to mid 20s. One more influence on numbers is going to be the new Gateway Course for the undergraduate major. If this comes into being as a large lecture, and if our majors don’t then choose to take extra English courses, this could draw down the population of undergraduates in our other courses by almost two students per class, getting us closer to the very low 20s.

There are a number of factors that probably contribute to this drop in class size. We have somewhat fewer colleagues on leave in Fall 2005 than we had in Fall 2004. Sharry Lenhart took a more active role in capping class size during early enrollments, which may have spread students around more thoroughly. Some predictable factors appear not to be in play: we seem to have approximately the same number of majors this year as last (steady at around 1000), while the official statistics, available under “Class Counts” in Infobank (https://infobank.registrar.uiowa.edu/) suggest that we had more contact with students in Fall 2005 than in Fall 2004 (6629 s.h. contacts under 008 rather than 6282 s.h.).

All of these numbers are a useful background for the curriculum committee deliberations as they craft English’s offerings for the next academic year. Thanks to Eric Gidal for chairing this process and to the whole committee for their great work (Doug, Claire F, Ed, Robin, ably supported by Sharry). Eric reports that the process has gone relatively smoothely this year thanks, in large part, to the good work of each of the area committees, where curricular desiderata get worked out by those most invested in the result. Thanks to Doug, Cheryl, Ed, Dave, Claire F, and Robin for chairing those area committees and to everyone for attending and contributing to them. As always, the main challenge for the curriculum committee were selecting from the strong range of proposed honors proseminars, aided by the discernment and guidance of Mary Ann. The other recurring challenge was deciding an appropriate number of graduate courses to offer. Here the committee was guided by the tenor of the discussion around the Graduate Task Force report, as well as by our sense of the relatively relaxed pressures from undergraduate numbers, to offer a couple more graduate courses than this year. This allows for a somewhat broader range of graduate offerings, to honor most of the area committees’ desires, and to ensure that everyone who asked for a graduate course and hasn’t taught within the one in six rotation can have the opportunity.

The size of our undergraduate classes is particularly interesting in view of another university initiative: the Provost’s desire to improve Iowa’s position in the US News and World Report rankings. If you find it distasteful to contemplate any initiative that springs from analysing the USNWR rankings, I share your squeamishness, but I found myself nevertheless interested when Lisa Troyer came to a recent DEO meeting to make a presentation on behalf of the Provost’s Office. Apparently, Iowa is currently ranked 21st among top public universities. The Provost’s stated goal is to get us into the top ten but, apparently, we are currently moving in the opposite direction and this has led to the creation of a Provost’s Office task force examining the dimensions and indicators that make up the rankings. They are highlighting ones where improvement is within grasp, namely student selectivity (we don’t control this as a department, although we were exhorted to play up attractive first-year seminars and honors programs as a way of attracting the best students), graduation and retention rates (intimately connected with the preceding factor: better incoming students are more likely to stay the program and graduate within 6 years), and faculty resources. Faculty resources includes improving faculty compensation (which we are not likely to complain about) and class size. The USNWR sees small classes as attractive, which they define as 19 or fewer students, and large classes as unattractive, which they define as 50 or more students.

Here’s where my squeamishness at chasing the rankings and their seductiveness comes in. On the one hand, that is an absurdly arbitrary definition of what makes a desirable class size. On the other hand, it is a definition that English could make a lot of use of. Most of our GenEdLit and writing courses already operate with 19 or fewer students or are very close to this number and if this becomes a policy desideratum we may be able to use it to argue for slightly more TAs. But the effect could be even greater for the bulk of our undergraduate classes. Apparently, the Provost Office’s task force is paying particular attention to the 861 courses in the university with class size of 20-29, and that includes most of our undergraduate discussion courses. If they ask for my opinion about how to make more of these 19 or smaller, I will tell them in a heartbeat that what we need is more faculty! Alas, though, that is unlikely in the current environment of a smaller better-renumerated faculty that I described in a previous column. With no new resources, we chould designate some courses as slightly enlarged (25-30 students, no worse than our status quo a year ago) to guarantee other courses a slightly diminished size of 15-19 students.

At this stage, I am not suggesting that as a policy change, nor do I even think it is worth setting up a task force! It does seem to me, though, that it might be worth our while discussing among ourselves what we see as a good English discussion class size, driven by pedagogical rather than pragmatic rationale. If subsequently we can improve the quality of the classroom experience for our students and ourselves, it seems to me worth pursuing an initiative even if it follows from the vexing world of chasing US News and World Reports rankings.