Search for Justice

HUNDREDS of students were shortchanged last week--lotteried out or dismissed from their Literature and Arts B classes because of overcrowding. When "Jazz," "Monuments of Japan," and "Modern Art and Abstraction" turned away vast numbers of students in their lotteries, a chain-reaction of confusion ensued.

Searching for substitute courses, scores of students showed up at Literature and Arts B-25, "Rembrandt and his Contemporaries." The professor, who originally did not intend to lottery the course, responded to the large influx of students by sending approximately 100 sophomores scrambling for another course on the day shopping period ended and study cards were due.

The professor did offer a lottery among sophomores for the remaining spaces. But the displaced sophomores must now jump into a new course a week-and-a-half behind and, like other students lotteried out of classes, must enroll in their second-or third-choice classes. Problems such as this one can be prevented or at least eased in the future by implementing a number of changes.

FOR the present semester, there are only three Literature and Arts B classes that have not been limited in size by a lottery or other means, in large part because of the limited offerings. This limited capacity is further strained because many departments use certain Core classes as introductory requirements, so that concentrators often displace those students forced to take the classes simply to fulfill Core requirements.

Clearly the simplest and most effective way of solving the problem of overcrowded Core courses, therefore, would be to increase the number of courses offered. Even if demand for Literature and Arts B or other Core areas is not as great next year, students could only benefit from a greater variety of courses and from smaller Core classes.

But the possibility of a lottery will always exist, and other changes must be made. Shopping period should be restored to its original two-week length. Not only could everyone use the extra time, but since course lotteries generally take a week, students do not have enough time to sort out their schedules and find courses that can accommodate them.

Even when a lottery does not seem necessary, professors or representatives of the Core Office should warn students early on when other classes in the same Core area are crowded. Clearly, all those lotteried out of "Jazz" and other courses were going to be forced to move into other classes.

Both students and professors would prefer not to have lotteries, and increasing course offerings is clearly the best answer to this problem in the long run. But if professors need to limit enrollment, they should only be allowed to do so by lottery. Juniors as a class were dismissed from Science B-29, "Human Behavioral Biology," this year after having been dismissed from Foreign Cultures 48, "The Cultural Revolution," as sophomores last year. The only fair way to reduce enrollment is to establish a standard procedure, so that students are aware of what faces them when they walk into a crowded Core class.