Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a two-part series on the increased interest in liberal arts studies. This story focuses on problems this has caused for NIU’s students, faculty and administrators.

by Joe Bush

The supply of NIU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is not keeping pace with the demand for its courses.

“We are at the point where we cannot expand our programs,” said Associate LA&S Dean Peter Nicholls.

The college’s faculty and administrators don’t consider the additional demand upon their resources from increased student interest and academic requisites as a burden, but a challenge.

“We’ve got 1200 (students) who want our classes. We have room for about 500,” said Art Doederlein, undergraduate coordinator of NIU’s Department of Communication Studies, of his task at hand.

Doederlein said he has become the symbol of the word “no” to the students he must turn away because of faculty or space limitations common to most LA&S departments. “I didn’t take this job to say ‘no,'” he said.

English Undergraduate Coordinator J.I. Miller said he values “anyone who is interested in my subject.” But while denying students access to necessary classes is an unpleasant reality for most concerned educators, the student bears the brunt of the dilemma.

Schedules, curriculums, majors and, sometimes, career goals undergo change. If a student wants to stay his or her planned academic route, it may require an expensive extra semester or two.

“This has been one of the most difficult starts of a semester,” said Director of Freshman English Robert Self. “We have been turning down a number of students desperate for courses.

“Our biggest problem is not being able to cover demand for freshman English. This current semester, there are more students unable to get (English) 103 or 104 (two core requirements) than ever,” he said.

Self said the English department accommodated the requests of all 3,254 students requesting freshman English last fall. This semester, the department is staffed to teach 3,295 students, but between 100 and 125 freshman were turned away. All sections of English 103 and 104 were closed on the second day of mail registration, he said.

NIU’s provosts provided the means to hire four additional English instructors at the end of July after mail registration figures were greater than anticipated, Self said. The added instructors “still weren’t enough,” he said.

When freshmen cannot take English 103 in their first term, they will not complete that requirement until their sophomore year, unless they enroll in summer school. Because students with more hours get necessary courses first, a second-semester freshman can get bumped from English 104 by a transfer student with more credits, Miller said.

Such a situation is not unique to the English department. NIU’s Foreign Language department, where more students take classes for their Bachelor of Arts requirements than for their major or minor coursework, turned away more than 250 students requesting Spanish 101, said Acting Chairman George Gutsche.

Although NIU’s math and physics departments are handling the increase from servicing the College of Engineering requirements, physics department chairman Richard Preston said the increase has been noticeable and is “likely to get worse.”

Assistant math chairman Stanley Trail said that with 1,700 students in Math 210—and about 240 students to a section—instructors are on the brink of being overwhelmed, thus limiting their effectiveness.

Even with extra funds this year from the recent state income tax increase earmarked mostly for education, Doederlein said NIU’s funding “is absurd compared to the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University.

“It (funding) needs to be commensurate with our reputation. Even with the new money, which is a welcome relief, it’s not enough.”

A large chunk of NIU’s 13 percent funding increase went to salary boosts that inched the faculty average closer to the national figure, an important point in negotiations with prospective instructors.

Miller said the English department lost four tenured rhetoric instructors due to three relocations and a death. The positions opened last spring, leaving little time for an appropriate search in a field where professors are in high demand.

“We have come out of that, with temporary appointments, better than we might have,” Miller said. “We are relieved to get through this year. There is an urgent need to search this year for permanent takers.”

“If you want to hire these people, you will have to pay competitive salaries,” Nicholls said. “Obviously, if you’re dealing with a steady state budget, you have to make sacrifices elsewhere.”

Those sacrifices may come at the graduate assistant or part-time instructor ranks, from which most of the lower-level courses are taught. Fewer teachers means fewer students.

Space is a problem as well, and the long-term solutions are limited. One new project, an addition to Faraday Hall, will increase space for science classes.

Miller also voiced concern about the distribution of the funds that do make it to NIU. “Our point of view is that having a first-rate school of business or college of engineering is a worry to us because we fear it is going to be a drain on the budget.”

Miller said he is concerned that if the College of Business decides to require foreign languages, money for the English department could go instead to foreign languages to help deal with that increase.

There seems to be no relief in sight. “We will continue to see increased interest in LA&S,” Nicholls said.

“I’ve gone from part-filled classes to filled classes, then to (allowing space to) majors and minors only,” Miller said. “Will I have to discriminate between majors and minors only? … I don’t want to do this. It’s vitally important that students value what we do and how to do it. But the inexorable demands of numbers say some demand us more.”

“We’ve got 1200 (students) who want our classes. We have room for about 500.”

Art Doederlein, undergraduate coordinator