BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — Commonwealth University Bloomsburg Campus students have been struggling with scheduling their courses this year. The capacity for courses has decreased and fewer options are available when it comes to scheduling higher-level courses.
Tom Halko, a media and journalism major, states, “I’m not able to schedule an asynchronous course because of the student capacity limit.” Halko described how frustrating it is to try and schedule courses that are prerequisites for higher level classes but be unable to get into them even though it’s a fully online course. He also mentioned, “It’s inconvenient, as a student who joined late into a program, to be unable to get into these lower-level courses so that I can stay on track to graduate on time.”
These struggles are common among students at Commonwealth University Bloomsburg Campus. Elijah Schwartz, a psychology major, also mentioned, “It’s difficult to find available courses and even when I do, they often get canceled because of low enrollment.” Elijah went into further detail talking about how inconvenient it is to have to be going into Banner to see if all of the classes he needs/wants are still available. “I should be able to schedule the courses that I need without having to worry about them disappearing and not having a good alternative easily available.”
This isn’t a new problem, unfortunately, this issue has been ongoing for a while as it has to do with the merger, and the system Banner itself.
When asked about how this problem is seen by some professors Brian Seely, professor of media and journalism, stated, “[That] it’s really a math problem, in regard to lower enrollment courses. Consider the cost of a singular course, on average (in-state and out-of-state tuition) a class costs roughly $600. Depending on how many courses a faculty teaches and their level, they are paid roughly $7,000 per class. Include other costs (e.g., software) and it adds up. Even a course with 10 students could be a loss for the University.” This is an interesting argument to bring up since there isn’t necessarily anything that can be done in a short amount of time to solve the problem regarding money in this particular situation. Dr. Seely also mentioned how he feels when classes he enjoys teaching get canceled or switched “I’ve been a part of classes getting canceled, even entire programs, due to lower enrollment. It’s not a good feeling personally, but also not good for the University.”
Unfortunately, there is no simple and fast solution to these problems, but with increased awareness, decision-makers may address these issues. This will make higher-ups more inclined to solve these problems and allow for some smaller courses to still run, even though they might cost the university more money.
