The Small Section Cut Session

This week we had our second and final cut session for small sections before the fall semester starts. (I’m still getting used to the idea that fall starts in August here.) It’s a sort of pruning exercise in which sections that are too small to run are canceled.

This fall’s session wasn’t nearly as bad as the previous one, because we had pared down the schedule in advance based on recent enrollments. But even with careful planning and analysis, there are surprises.

The most basic and frustrating one is that enrollment shifts aren’t evenly distributed. Saying that the overall number is within a point or two of last year makes it sound like scheduling should be relatively straightforward, but that average figure contains double-digit percentage increases in some areas and drops of similar magnitude in others. Professors aren’t interchangeable, so the fact that the Hypothetical Studies department is blowing out the doors doesn’t help the Applied Irony faculty make their loads.

I can construct a number of “more perfect world” scenarios that would make cut sessions unnecessary. Consistent enrollments across programs would help, as would sufficient operating funding, as would overall enrollment increases. (Back in 2008–10, we didn’t cut much at all. Nearly everything was full. The big challenge was adding capacity.) If we were financially able to cut off enrollment a month before classes started, we could work wonders in terms of optimizing the schedule. In the absence of any of those, we have to steward resources carefully, which means not paying full freight for too many small classes.

I say “too many” rather than “any” because there are always exceptions. Sometimes it’s the only section of a class and a few students who are registered for it need it to graduate this semester. Sometimes it’s an overflow section that’s kind of too small on its own, but it’s too big to just merge with the original section. Sometimes it’s the only section during the day, or at night, or online. Sometimes a particular professor needs a small class to make load. And sometimes we approve a section only to have several students drop it quickly, leaving us carrying a smaller group than we would have approved if we had known. All of these happen. And sometimes they give rise to angry complaints along the lines of “why is that one OK and mine not?” The answer—that there’s a much bigger picture—doesn’t mean much to someone whose focus is entirely on a particular class.

When cuts are made very close to the start of classes, we have to be aware of whether we have other places for students to go. (This is one of the attractions of online classes from an administrator’s point of view: They fit in anybody’s schedule.) If the number of credits a student takes changes, we may need to repackage their financial aid, which is quite a task at scale, particularly in a year when financial aid officers are struggling with partial and dilatory guidance from the feds. Classes too far out of sync with the rest of a schedule can put a student in a bad spot. When students are balancing complicated lives to be here, even seemingly small disruptions can throw them off course (no pun intended).

Of course, all of this is happening while students are still enrolling, and with drops for nonpayment in the background. That means the enrollment numbers are moving targets. For courses near the borderline for running or not, those last-minute fluctuations may matter. I’ve had to learn over the years to shrug off the occasional wrong call simply because there are too many moving parts to get every single decision right.

Precarity rolls downhill. If we’d like to avoid the last-minute shuffle, we’d need steadier and more robust operating funding. Absent that, we do our best to protect the Applied Irony department from the consequences of this year’s blip.