When Leslie Richards began the second week of her Italian language course, she was shocked to hear it would be the class’ last day.
The no-preference sophomore, her instructor and classmates all learned ITL 102 had been canceled on Monday - in the middle of class.
“Somebody came to our class and said, ‘Your class is canceled,’” she said. “I was upset because now I have to change my schedule around.”
University officials canceled more than 350 class sections for the spring semester. Many more sections have been rescheduled or moved.
In an effort to keep some classes, officials have been forced to combine sections of classes in one classroom.
“One of the jobs of the colleges is to constantly review the curriculum,” Provost Lou Anna Simon said.
“They reform old and new courses, and every year there are a lot of new courses that are added or dropped.”
Simon said MSU colleges and departments decide their cancellations, but have the responsibility to ensure options for students who need jeopardized classes to complete their majors.
“Each change has a different story,” she said.
“Part of it is some courses have a very high demand, and ideally, you’d meet the high demand and not cancel the classes with a lower demand, but lack of faculty members often causes them to be needed for teaching other classes.”
Lucia Florido, visiting professor of romance and classical languages, is teaching three Portuguese language classes at different levels in the same room - at the same time.
Florido said the class, which includes second-year Portuguese students, Spanish-speaking students and graduate students, is progressing quickly despite the unplanned combination.
She has been optimistic, though. Florido believes she and her students will adjust to the inconvenience.
“Any discrepancy there is in the classes will not exist in a month,” she said.
David Byelich, executive director of the Office of Planning and Budgets, said the university tries to avoid cancellations and combining classes.
“We do have a finite number of classrooms, and in order to optimize the facilities we have, we do need to offer other classes through the course of the day,” Byelich said.
“Throughout all of our planning and so forth, the academic mission of the university is primary, so we will allocate and reallocate funds and resources as necessary.”
John Herrick, associate dean for the College of Social Science, said instructor illness and unexpected leaves of absence are other factors that contribute to cancellations.
“Units are very reluctant to cancel classes unless they have no alternative,” he said. “Departments realize that cancellations most often present real inconveniences to students, and they cancel classes only with great reluctance.”
Paul Menchik, professor of economics, said the department is smaller than it was five years ago, which has caused scheduling problems for students.
“What we need is to get more faculty,” he said. “The classes are full and we don’t have the faculty to add additional sections. We just aren’t the right size.
“Demand exceeds supply.”
Pedro Maligo, professor of romance and classical languages and coordinator of the Portuguese program, said MSU is the only three-year Portuguese language and culture program in Michigan.
“Combining the classes was a solution suggested by the department chairperson with good intentions of salvaging the programs,” Maligo said.
Assistant Provost Barbara Steidle said classes such as Portuguese often suffer from below-minimum enrollment.
“In many languages, first-year enrollment is pretty full,” she said. “In the less common languages, the second-year enrollment drops down a lot and creates a circumstance of having low faculty and low enrollment in one area.”
Jan Delatorre, an international studies sophomore in Florido’s class, said if it weren’t for the combined class and Florido’s teaching skills, no options would exist, and he would not be able to complete the two-year foreign language requirement necessary for his major.
“I think there’s basically no interest in taking Portuguese,” he said.“Keeping one class together and paying the teacher is really expensive, so to save money and stress, I think it was economical to actually put three classes together.
“But that doesn’t really allow for lower-level Portuguese students to develop.”
Staff writer Jeanne Chan contributed to this report.
Megan Frye can be reached at fryemega@msu.edu.
