WHAT ABOUT THE STUDENTS

My son is in the midst of looking for a college as he is in his last year of high school. I am hoping that the deciding factor will be: is the teaching of the undergraduate student the absolute center of the college? Such a consideration might sound like the most radical idea in the context of this discussion.

The number of students we have in the 101/201 classes has always been the real problem.
With 27-29 students in class how much real attention can we give to any one student?

Shouldn't the real goal of the department he the reduction of class size to an absolute figure of say 15 students per 101/201 class?

This is unlikely with this new proposal.

By reducing the class size for these classes we can possibly remove the negative tone that is always attached to such classes.

I would think the full time tenured people would find that such classes are really of interest as they ask the basic questions that all literary study are concerned with and that is one reason why I ahve always enjoyed teaching 201.

BY reducing class size students will have a far better experience of English classes and are more likely to see the advantages of the major.

These 101/201 courses are a sort of basic common course that all our students take and by reducing the class size we are better able to prepare them for the actual college experience...

I know. I know. All of this sounds utopian. Dont you realize that John Jay is an urban university etc etc etc but why shouldn't there be one moment in our students' lives when they have the experience that so many of us had who did attend colleges where the freshman common courses were limited to 15 students... like many of you I try very hard to overcome the inherent alienation of our experience here at JJC... I sometimes succeed as do many of you and I hope we can remember always that students have to come first.