The University has begun to experience an overall decrease in class sizes as part of the Plan for Academic Enrichment's effort to improve faculty-student interaction.
Though the mean course size has only dropped by a single student, the number of classes with enrollment from 11 to 20 and from 21 to 50 has risen significantly over the last six years.
Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron told The Herald that these changes in course makeup are linked to the expansion of the size of the faculty.
"One would expect that when you in fact increase the size of the faculty, that the number of courses allowing for smaller enrollment should increase," Bergeron said.
As cited in the Plan for Academic Enrichment, Brown had a student-to-faculty ratio of 9-to-1 in U.S. News & World Report by the summer of 2003, a change from 10-to-1 the previous year.
The Office of the Dean of the Faculty reports that over 50 new professors were hired between 2002 and 2005, an 8 percent increase in the total number of faculty members.
Brown's student body has grown by 6 percent since the 2001-2002 academic year, while the increase in number of courses offered during that time is almost double that at 11 percent, according to records from the Office of Institutional Research, which gathers internal information for evaluation and planning,
The Plan for Academic Enrichment calls for Brown to "expand opportunities for students to interact with faculty," and University officials cite the recently introduced first-year seminar program, newly added courses and an improved student-to-faculty ratio as efforts made to achieve this goal.
"Clearly the freshman seminar program was one of the vehicles for (creating smaller classes)," Bergeron said. "Freshmen are in the class to interact with faculty in a more intimate - in a more direct - way," adding that the program hoped to foster "lasting relationships" between entering freshmen and their professors.
The seminar program began with 23 courses and has broadened its offerings to almost 60. Courses designated first-year seminars are limited to freshmen and are capped at 20 students.
But Bergeron said she looks beyond first-years to shrink course sizes.
"Upper divisions are of equal concern," Bergeron said. "As students choose their concentrations, it's important to have close relationships with members of the faculty."
Enrollment in smaller classes increased the most in the life sciences, according to the Office of Institutional Research.
Life sciences courses with enrollment between 11 and 20 students rose by 4 percent between 2001 and 2005, though introductory-level biology and neuroscience courses have some of the University's highest enrollment numbers.
"The thing we need now are more seminar rooms," Bergeron said.
Planned renovations of the J. Walter Wilson building - which will transform the former biology laboratory facility into a home for student support services - will create 10 new seminar rooms in the building's Sol Koffler wing, a development Bergeron said would help the University continue to create smaller courses.
The continuing effort to make class sizes smaller "really relates to undergraduate participation in research," Bergeron said, referring to the Plan for Academic Enrichment's iniative for enhancing undergraduate education. With an increase in the size of the faculty, research opportunities for undergraduates could increase, allowing students to spend more time in close contact with their professors outside the classroom.
Bergeron said she expects the science education committee, which is charged with reviewing the University's undergraduate science and math programs, to encourage more of these interactions.
Departmental undergraduate groups, supported in part at the insistence of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, may also prove "a wonderful way to bring faculty and students together," Bergeron ?added.
