Lotteries to Limit Two Lit-B Class Enrollments

If you want to hear the music of Satchmo or view the paintings of Rothko for Core credit this semester, your fate may be determined by a roll of the dice.

After lotteries next week, less than half of those who wish to enroll in Literature and Arts B-71, "Jazz: An American Music," and Literature and Arts B-16, "Modern Art and Abstraction," will be able to do so, said Susan W. Lewis, the director of the Core Curriculum.

Andrej Smrekar, head teaching fellow for "Modern Art and Abstraction"--better known as "Spots and Dots"--said only 280 of the approximately 700 students who came to the first meeting Thursday will be allowed to enter.

Assistant Professor of Music Graeme M. Boone, who teaches "Jazz," said more than 1000 students tried to cram into Paine Hall for the course's first meeting Thursday. Enrollment in the course is limited to 400, Boone said.

"It was so crowded that when I tried to get in myself I couldn't," said Boone, who is teaching Jazz as part of the Core for the first time this spring. Three hundred students took "Jazz" last year when it was offered by the Music Department.

Boone said he regretted having to limit enrollment but said that the quality of the course would suffer otherwise. "When you have too many students, the student is no longer a factor," he said, adding that going to lectures would start to resemble "going to the movies."

He also said it is difficult to find enough section leaders "who can communicate the significance of the music."

Boone said the lottery for Jazz will favor juniors and seniors but will otherwise be random. Boone is taking a sabbatical next year. but students losing out in the lottery this time around can try their luck again two years from now.

According to Smrekar, every year Assistant Professor of Fine Arts Anna C. Chave has taught "Modern Art and Abstraction," it has held an enrollment lottery. And Lewis said, "As long as there's been a course in Expressionism or Impressionism, it's been oversubscribed."

Michael B. Dorff '92 said he doubted his chances of surviving the lottery and said he wishes the art course could be moved into Sanders Theater. "For some reason she feels she has to teach in the [Sackler] Museum," he said.

The lottery for Chave's course will favor juniors, seniors and Fine Arts concentrators, according to Smrekar. "We don't have any choice," he said.

Professor of Anthropology Irven De Vore decried lotteries as "barbaric" in class yesterday, and said he would not hold one for Science B-29, "Human Behavioral Biology"--also known as "Sex." The course is co-taught by Assistant Professor of Anthropology Terrence W. Deacon.

So many people showed up for "Sex" at 1 p.m. yesterday that many students had to move to an adjacent lecture hall and watch the lecture on a video screen.