With another large freshman class expected, Baker University’s faculty and staff will be working hard to make sure there are enough classes to accommodate all the students.
Lisa Johnston, assistant dean of student academic services, said compared to this time last year, Baker is ahead in the number of people who have expressed interest in the university and who have already signed up for one of the summer enrollment dates.
To ensure there are enough classes, Johnston said they carefully monitor the summer enrollments.
“If we need more sections then we add them,” Johnston said.
Johnston said they try to plan to the best of their ability. The staff often doesn’t know how many students will be attending until they sign up for an enrollment date.
“We can’t estimate with 100 percent accuracy,” she said.
To counterbalance the uncertainty, Johnston said one good cultural aspect of Baker is the focus on student needs.
“The faculty are by and large always very good on supporting student needs,” she said.
Johnston said there is not much worry about having to increase class sizes to accommodate students. Baker is not currently utilizing all of its available classrooms.
Johnston said there are some things the staff is working on. Not having enough sections on the books is one of them and the problem with interterm is another.
Sophomore Nathan Jones said he did not care for this year’s interterm courses.
“I didn’t take one this year,” he said. “I hated the selection. They were terrible.”
Rob Flaherty, acting associate dean for faculty and administrative services, said he will serving as director of interterm until a replacement can be found. He said he has been working with faculty to try to increase interest in teaching interterm to ensure what happened this year does not happen again.
“We have to first see in the fall when we first send out the call for interterm and see who wants to teach,” Flaherty said.
If there isn’t enough interest, Flaherty said he has to encourage professors to teach.
One part of his job is finding out why faculty members are not interested in teaching interterm. One reason is that professors like the preparation time before the spring semester, he said.
“Some like having time in January to recharge,” said Flaherty.
Flaherty said one of the measures they are taking to increase interest in interterm is increasing the pay for teaching it.
While he needs to increase the amount of classes offered for interterm, Flaherty said he does not want to see professors teach classes just because they feel obligated to. He said the best part of interterm is when faculty are able to teach something they are passionate about.
“That is when classes get interesting,” he said.