Many professors have expressed confusion as to whether the administration decided to automatically remove enrollment caps limiting courses sizes and to cancel courses with smaller enrollment figures.Under former Dean of Arts and Sciences Jessie Anne Owens last year, it was ruled that courses which were usually canceled with fewer than five students would now be cut from the schedule if under eight students enrolled.

Minutes from the April 10 faculty meeting paraphrase Owens' announcement of this policy change.

"Department chairs will be responsible for managing exceptions to this limit," the minutes read. "Dean Owens is working closely with department chairs to offer courses of interest to students. If a course does get canceled, department chairs work with affected faculty and students."

The minutes also state Owens proposed a review to remove enrollment limits, except in foreign language and University Seminar (USEM) courses.

Owens later said, "we asked the department chairs to review the caps in their course offerings to make recommendations. It's a decision between the department chair and the professor. We just want to make sure the caps make sense from a pedagogical point of view."

Arts and Science Dean Adam Jaffe said some change in policy is a result of the tight budget, but that he has tried to handle funds as efficiently as possible by pushing departments to offer courses that are in high demand.

"If they are not offering courses that are in high demand, then we ask them to think about whether that's something they need to be offering," Jaffe said.

CONFUSION ABOUT COURSES BEING ALLOWED WITH LIMITED ENROLLMENT

Many professors are unclear if a course with eight of fewer students will be allowed to run.

"This was a policy that (former) Dean Owens had worked on and it was not clear with me if that policy was going to be enforced," said Michael T. Gilmore, chair of English and American Literature.

Gilmore said he thought there would be no exception to the policy of cancelling courses with eight or fewer students.

"Last year, when it was brought up, there was a lot of unrest about the idea that there would be a strictly observed minimum of eight," Gilmore said.

Professor Janet McIntosh (ANTH) was also puzzled.

"I remember that the chair of our department had mentioned something in a department meeting that the dean at the time (Owens) had said there would be a policy if you did not have a minimum number of students, a class would be canceled," McInstosh said. "It was not entirely clear what would ensue after that."

McIntosh said he assumed there were no exceptions to this policy.

"I was assuming this policy was in effect - that classes of under eight would not be allowed. It was an impression that I had."

This thought is also present in other departments.

Prof. Jerome Levine (MATH) said, "what I understood was the new policy - that courses of 8 or less would not be offered. I heard it from word of mouth. I can't point to anybody who is official standing that has stated that policy to me. But I think we would like to know if that's not the policy, since we seem to be under the assumption that it is."

SOME PROFFESORS UNSURE ABOUT RULES FOR CAPPING COURSES

Professors are also confused about enrollment caps.

According to Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe, professors are encouraged to cap courses.

"If somebody wants to put on a cap that may seem questionable to us, we may have a conversation with them about how there are a 100 people who would like to take this course," Jaffe said. "Why is it that you have to cap it at 25? And we would have would have a discussion about that. There is certainly no across the board elimination of the opportunity to cap courses."

Confusion exists in various academic departments.

"My understanding is that faculty could not cap their courses," Prof. John Burt (ENG) said. "But I don't know for sure because it's not an issue I've faced."

Prof. Stephen Whitfield (AMST) said he thought caps were removed entirely, except in languages and instances where the instructor and department made an appeal before individual departments and Jaffe's office.

Last fall the cap for this course was 33 - it increased to 70 students this fall. Whitfield said he did not cap Journalism in Modern America since he believed he had no control over deciding the enrollment limit.

"For this spring, the Registrar's office has again removed enrollment caps for courses not covered by previous agreements," Jaffe said in a recent memo to department chairs.

But Whitfield said he would not have capped the course because it usually topped at three dozen students in the past.

"But blowing the cap away on (Journalism in Modern America) for this semester was hardly done with my consultation or approval, leading me to believe that the presumption is that courses are not capped - except in special cases like languages - though they can be through the negotiation with the department and the Dean's office," Whitfield said.

Whitfield said the increased enrollment in journalism courses requires an explanation, though the program has long been popular.

"The doubling of the size of my own enrollment - when I'm the same guy and the syllabus is continuous with previous years - is due to what could be called 'the Socolow effect' the presence of a very able Director of the Journalism Program. Now in his third year at Brandeis, Micahel Socolow has experienced skyrocketing enrollment too."

Socolow instructs 133 students in his Advertising and the Media course. This course was originally designed as a seminar.

"Changing a class from a seminar to a lecture does change the learning environment a bit," Socolow said.

But Socolow said the Dean's office has been responsive to higher enrollments.

"We will be offering two more classes - JOUR 110b: Ethics in Journalism and JOUR 112b: Literary Journalism - this year than we offered last year," Socolow said.

Bur Burt also said he was not consulted about any policy changes.

"I don't know that Owens didn't in fact consult anybody," Burt said. "Had there been discussion about it, there would have been considerable argument about it."

Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Elaine Wong said she does not understand why there is confusion. According to her, the issues were discussed last year at several meetings with department chairs, who were then asked to convey the information to faculty.

"Both last spring and this fall, memos summarizing the agreements that the chairs had reached were also distributed," Wong said. "Classes with fewer than eight students are not automatically canceled if there are pedagogical or curricular reasons for continuing to offer the course, but the dean has asked departments to think carefully about the curriculum so that we can use our teaching resources as wisely as possible."

Not every faculty person was confused about the need for professors to confer with chairs before setting a course cap.

Chair of the History Department Paul Jankowski said, "no, I was not confused in the least. It is a policy that makes good sense."

Jankowski said he was also clear about the eight student enrollment policy.

"No, I was not confused, as it's a clear benchmark. I am well aware that there will be cases in which Department Chairs will ask the Dean that the rule be waived."

Jankowski said he learned of the new policies last year at regularly scheduled meetings, when department chairs met with Owens.

"It's hard to know why people are not clear," Wong said. "Some people distribute memos and don't read them. And it's not their fault. That's why we discuss it again this fall to make sure people really understand it."

Jaffe said that while his office tries to do the best with their resources, it is difficult to please everybody. To better serve the community's interest, Jaffe said he urges students to strongly consider pre-enrollment.

"If people don't do pre-enrollment or they don't take it seriously, or they don't really sign-up for the courses they know they are going to take, then it makes it harder for us to provide the resources," Jaffe said. "It's much harder the during shopping week to deal with a course that is overflowing than three months earlier in pre-enrollment."

JAFFE'S OFFICE OFFERS SOME CLARIFICATION OF NEW POLICIES

Jaffe recently completed a summary of the current enrollment policy, based on a discussion he had with department chairs at a Oct. 1 meeting. In the summary, sent to all department chairs Wed. afternoon, Jaffe outlined policy changes and explained the exception of allowing routinely low enrollment courses to be taught.

"For courses that are routinely expected to have low enrollments that are nonetheless justified, this justification can be made in advance as a part of the curriculum/staffing planning process, so that the issue does not have to be revisited when low numbers actually appear," Jaffe wrote in his summary.

Jaffe said those courses with historically low enrollments may still be offered if they are deemed critical by department chairs.

"This pre-approval for low enrollment could be applied to specific courses, or to certain categories of courses, so long as a good case is made," Jaffe said.

Gilmore said if clarification had not occurred, he would have organized his department to form a protest against what he thought was a "blanket policy."

"My hope was that there would be some flexibility. Now it seems there is some flexibility," Gilmore said. "On the whole, I think Dean Jaffe has been good about this. He recognized there is need for recognition and exception in some cases."

Chair of American Studies Jacob Cohen said it was made clear exceptions to the minimum of eight students rule to hold a class would have exceptions. But he also said the situation needed to be described more precisely, mentioning that enrollments fluctuate during pre-enrollment and the two-week shopping period.

"Would a course be canceled during the pre-enrollment of after a beginning of a semester?" Cohen said.

Cohen said there is pressure to find a course with an audience of eight or more students. If a course is canceled, Cohen said professors will have to teach an additional course in a future semester.

Jaffe also said that if courses are canceled, professors would then be asked to teach another course or a USEM.

"It is very awkward to cancel courses once the shopping period commences, because as students schedules begin to gel, it creates real problems if schedules disappear," Jaffe said. So if courses are going to be canceled, they are typically canceled after pre-enrollment, but before the semester begins. We try to take into account additional sign-ups that might occur during the shopping period, but that is hard to do."

Since Jaffe has sent his memo, Cohen said he feels most of his concerns have been clarified.

"It seems to me that the new guidelines...address nearly all of the qualms which faculty people had about the practices and policies," Cohen said. "His application of the guidelines is encouraging and he shows every sign of goodwill and flexibility.