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SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

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Chairman of Senate

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Copy to the Registrar, to Dr. Cunningham,

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Upper

mont--Spring

. . 968

Date................

17.1968

I. General

Simon Fraser University was opened with the Intention of

attaining standards of academic excellence. With this Intention the

policy was laid down of lectures coupled with 'tutorials', set at a norm

of fifteen students.

Faculty were engaged to this end.

Because of financial constraint primarily and space constraint

secondarily, faculty strength in all departments has been limited. In both

the History Department and the PSA Department and possibly in others, certain

upper level courses can only be given adequately by one member'of faculty.

He has to lake the lectures and all tutorials. If an extra tutorial Is

added, he mustaccept an excessive teaching load unless he can be relieved of

some other work such as a lower level course commitment.. If the rest of the

department is, as was supposed to be ensured by the budgetary constraints,

carrying a full load, there is no one to whom the additional work can be

given. It Is true that additional teaching assistants can be negotiated for

but this will not answer the particular problem.

Any other solution--expansion of tutorial size or use of

teaching assistants in these upper level courses--entails a reduction in the

standards aimed at for the University.

Furthermore any interference with

departmental decisions, as to how academic excellence Is to be, achieved is not

only presumptuous but Infringes upon the department's right of judgement In

its own discipline. It also throws doubt on the competence of the Head.

Overloading of faculty will cause further discontent and faculty members will

be looking for positions elsewhere.

It Is for Senate to decide whethr this Is indeed to be the

University's policy in the face of present constraints. The £4ternative Is to

admit the necessity for restraining students from entry' info certain upper,

level courses in a particular semester.

2.' Report on Current Enrolment in Upper Level Courses

The PSA Department allowed pre-registration for Its own Honors

students,for whom these courses were essential ,

while keeping a few places open

for students from other departments. The History Department restricted entry

beyond thirty In four. 400-level courses until all four reached this point.

Policy in the History Department Is not to allow their-own students to limit

their study of History to a narrow field. Students from other departments who

wished to take one of these courses were directed,where it seemed reasonable,

into one which had not reached this limit of thirty.

-1 am Informed that in neither of these departments was any

student turned away absolutely.

If the course he asked for was full, he was

either persuaded to take another course or it was agreed that he should have

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priority in the next semester. While It cannot be claimed that all

students so re-directed were satisfied, It appears that they recognized

the difficulties which departments are contending with at the present

time and have accepted the situation. No student

has come to the with

any complaint.

Current enrolment In upper level courses

History were In

fact allowed to go up to 32 and 34 in two courses. Others did not reach

the 30 limit.

There Is concern In the PSA department over the problem of

meeting, with the present faculty establishment, the upper level commit-

ments In the Fall of 1968,'because of both the number of students

listed as awaiting opportunity to take these courses, and also the

department's own major and honors students coming through. The Depart-

ment is Investigating this problem.

Student senators are making their own inquiries.

I have

heard through them that many students are reluctant to lodge complaints

either to a department head or to myself, for fear of retaliation.

Members of faculty, In the student's view, hold his fate In their hands.

Groundless as such fears may be, they may account for the. absence of

complaints.

I have had no final information at this date as to the

results of these inquiries.

JM:eis

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SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

MEMORANDUM

Paper S-98(b)

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Registrar,

Senate

From ... . ......

...

Allancu

n,inghar .........................................

iead, Departm ent

...of....Histor.y

......................

Subject

Enrolment. in 400-level courses

Date .. ...... ....,.iaXy ...

12th, ..... 1.968

14733-PC

Dear Registrar,

In your capacity as secretary of Senate, would you

that

lay the

body.

appropriate number of copies of this

paper before

Registration is with us again, not, for the first.

time without a Registrar. At such times, stud.ents

frequently complain that they receive a substantial

amount of mis-counselling

from

members of faculty. As

departmental practices appear to

be diverging

accelerating rate, the amount of mis-ounselling which

takes place at, each registration period, can be expected

to increase accordingly, unless the different practices

of individual departments are candidly acknowledged. in

the University calendar. Obviously, where these practices

are at. variance with overall University interest, they

should cease. When they represent no more than a reasonable,

practical interpretation of the University calendar, they

should be described, with some care in t.hatcalend.ar

The purpose of this paper is to

invite

Senate to

recommend to departments an optimum enrolment figure for

their upper level courses, an issue upon which the University

might. reasonably hope to exact some uniformity of practice

at least for sometime to come. While the present. invitation

comes to Senate only from the undersigned. department, Senate

has the power to take up this subject if it so chooses,

and I believe the subject has become of paramount importance

to us all. Very simply, the History Department believes

an optimum figure for 400-level courses to be thirty

students (assuming the Professor has other teaching

commit.trnent.s also), but, some departments deny the need for

any ceilings whatever.

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Most Faculty will agree that enrolment in an upper

•

level

course should be virtually unrestricted if such a

course were based, as most. lower level courses are, on large.

formal lectures with Teaching Assistants to.help with the

associated. tutorial groups. However, the Teaching Assistant

has no place in 400-level work where Faculty should. teach

students exclusively, ideally in small groups in which the

teaching and tutoring functions are often merged. The

Department of History believes that such a course, since it

carries five credits for the successful student, ought to

require four contact hours per week between the students and

the Professor. Thus, Professor X would, spend. six

hours per week with this upper level class. The balance of

his teaching responsibilities could consist of a lower level

course, requiring two hours of lectures from him, or the

addition of a further fifteen students to the said upper

level course, which would likewise ad.d two hours to his

original teaching commitment of six hours. And so the

only reason for raising the enrolment of Professor X's

upper level course to forty five students is in the event.

that Professor X has no other teaching commit ménts.

Only this week however, the Dean of Arts has informed.

me that the History Department has come under some criticism

from other departments in the Faculty of Arts, because it has

sought to limit their course enrolment to thirty students in

each. Our critics apparently claim that when students are

denied admission to the upper level history courses on the

grounds that the said courses have reached. their thirty member

ceiling, that other departments have to carry the extra

burden of student numbers.

I would challenge this criticism on four counts. Firstly,

any department which grumbles at the additional burden of

students thrown upon it when 'a neighbouring department. closes

off its courses, is in effect admitting that. there should. be

a ceiling set to course membership after all; otherwise, there

would. be

no need, for grumbling. Secondly, other departments

practise enrolment limitation in other ways; for instance,

one Arts Department operates a pre-registration system of

its own and. this too is a restrictive system. Thirdly, so

long as the Department is-teaching the overall number of

upper level students which it has contracted to teach, and. for

which

it has received budgetary provision, it hardly seems

reasonable for its enrolments in upper level courses to be

determined by pressures from students or other departments,

since

the department alone can say with precision how the total

number of students accepted at the upper level should be

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dispersed through the upper level courses offered..

Fourthly, and much the most. important. point, the

departments are only staffed and equipped to teach so

many students. Each year, the departmental budget

proposals are scrutinised in their preliminary stage by

the President, who uses independent. forecast.,of probable

departmental eiirolment which are prepared for him by the

Director of University Affairs. Relying upon these latter

forecasts as well as upon other criteria, we are all used

to that process by which the President

paYcs

down new

Faculty requirements and trims away operating money to an

absolute miriimuni - a minimum which many of us, who care

for academic standards, often feel comes well below an

acceptable minimum. It therefore seems to me extremely

odd that when registration periods come along, departments

which have had budget cuts imposed upon them should carp

atone another for not accepting their enrolment. Our

budgets are regulated. to permit us to teach only so many

students: so long as we are teaching the numbers of students

at both the lower and the upper levels which we are equipped

to teach efficiently, why should we pretend that we can

teach more when registration time comes? Logically, departments

which claim to be in a position to accept. students in unlimited

enrolments at the upper level must somehow have escaped the

President's axe, for the implication of their policy is that

they have money and Faculty in reserve.

The real question here is one of standards, in which

the departments are anything but. uniform. We can teach

any number of students at Simon Fraser University if we

are ready to lower standards indefinitely, and one of the

most distressing features of our publicity as an institution

is the minimal prominence given to this question. Fortunately,

it is Senate's prerogative to speak out. on standards, and I

hope it will agree

That ceilings on courses be legitimate.

b) '

That no department shall be coerced into accepting

excessive numbers into its upper level courses, if it.

is already able to meet. the President's Teaching Cost

Index criterion.

That thirty is a. reasonable membership for

. upper level course for a Professor teaching a

course 'also, while forty-five is a reasonable

for an upper. level course for a Professor who

no other course at that. time.

lower level

membership

is teaching

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