Inside Brown’s increased crunch for classroom space

Brown has long grappled with classroom space constraints, but the closing of multiple Barus and Holley rooms and lecture halls following the Dec. 13 shooting has reduced the University’s already limited instructional space.

According to Associate Provost for Academic Space Ira Wilson, these closures eliminated roughly 10% of the University’s 105 registrar-controlled classrooms. But this figure “understates” the impacts of the closures — among the ten closures, eight were medium-sized classrooms and two were large lecture halls, Wilson said.

“It’s fully 33% of the large classrooms,” he explained, adding that eight medium-sized rooms represent a third of the the classrooms in that size capacity as well.

Classes displaced due to the Barus and Holley closures were reassigned to new rooms without altering its meeting time, which led to the use of “every classroom available,” Wilson added.

Departments can also use non-registrar-controlled rooms as academic spaces, but the majority of classes occur in the registrar-controlled classrooms because department-controlled spaces tend to be smaller. There are currently around 375 spaces on campus being used for teaching, according to Wilson.

The changes altered how Assistant Teaching Professor of English Nell Lake structured this semester’s shopping period. Lake said she was told there were “no circumstances in which (professors) would get a different classroom,” making it necessary to strictly enforce enrollment limits for her courses, which are capped at 17 students.

In previous semesters, “sometimes we over-enroll, thinking that people will drop by the end of the shopping period, or we’re just perhaps willing to go over by a couple of people,” Lake said. 

This semester, she chose a different strategy, asking unregistered students who were shopping her classes to attend class on Zoom rather than in person. 

Still, many students entered the classrooms, she said. In accordance with guidelines given to professors in an email from Provost Francis Doyle on Jan. 14, which instructed professors to ask students to leave the room if the capacity was surpassed, Lake asked unenrolled students to step out of the classroom during shopping period.

“That was very uncomfortable for me,” Lake said. “It doesn’t feel very Brown-like to, during shopping period, ask people to leave the classroom, with the ethos of (the) Open Curriculum and exploration.”

But Lake emphasized that she understands “the administration is doing the best it can,” under “difficult circumstances.” 

Ellie Fuller ’26 had “more difficulty than anticipated” registering for classes during shopping period due to the classroom constraints. She registered for most of her classes “very last minute,” citing both room limitations and shifting classroom locations.

“The majority of the classes that I ended up registering for were very last minute,” she said, citing both room limitations and shifting classroom locations.

“As the Brown community works together to navigate the impacts of the Dec. 13 tragedy, we recognize that some practical impacts, such as the reduced classroom inventory, present limitations in the short-term,” University spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. 

“The College is home to a dedicated group of academic deans who are available to help students navigate academic choices, including this semester for any student who may be impacted by an enrollment cap for a course in which they had hoped to enroll,” he added. 

Associate Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Program in Linguistics Scott AnderBois encountered similar enrollment limitations. His course, LING 0130: “Playing with Words: The Linguistic Principles Behind Word Games and Puzzles,” which is capped at 103 students, had received around 20 override requests by Feb. 2.

Without a clear academic priority group for enrollment, AnderBois opted for a “luck-of-the-draw” system, allowing students to claim spots as they opened on Courses@Brown. 

According to AnderBois, he had to turn away many interested students. “It’s too bad that there’s 20 to 30 … students there who would have wanted to take it who did not get the chance,” he said.

For Nico Perry ’29, classroom limits affected his experience in both humanities and STEM courses. When Perry shopped COLT 1410S: “Classical Tragedy,” approximately 25 students arrived on the first day, but only 16 to 18 seats were available, he said.

According to Perry, the professor explained that in a “normal year,” the class would have been moved to a larger space to accommodate everyone.

In addition, even for some classes with lecture sections that had open seats, limited conference section space meant that some students were unable to register.

Perry encountered difficulty securing a conference section for MATH 0200: “Multivariable Calculus (Physics/Engineering),” a requirement for several STEM concentrations. 

In a Feb. 3 faculty meeting, Doyle discussed making preparations for a smoother transition in the coming semesters, with “higher enrollments” and “more courses being offered” in the fall. 

He said the University may consider how teaching spaces, time blocks and classroom distribution across campus could be adjusted, such as drawing in spaces like the School of Public Health.