UW Oshkosh has recently finalized schedules for the spring semester across campus. Despite the completion, it raises concern among faculty about the length of the process and its permanence.
Advertising, Multimedia Journalism and Public Relations (AMP) department associate Cindy Schultz said that the late course registration is due to budget cuts and layoffs, which have affected the schedule as recently as last week.
“Everything has been pushed back because of budget cuts and impending layoffs,” Schultz said. “It’s much later than usual. … People as late as last week were changing the schedule for spring 2024 because with the budget issues the university is facing, academic staff members are being let go.”
Schultz said that the constant shift will force courses to be affected by faculty availability.
“So we’re trying to figure out who’s going to be teaching those courses,” she said. “Or [we will be] canceling them because [we] don’t have enough people to teach them.”
With constantly changing workloads and staff employment, Schultz said that the situation is unstable, volatile and that it could affect availability of important courses that are required for majoring students.
“The situation is volatile,” she said. “The university has increased faculty workload and they’re watching closely whether classes are filling or not. In the past classes needed at least 12 enrolled… now they bumped that minimum up to 15. … Upper level programs are not always filled, and so there is a possibility that you will find more courses canceled, so you’ll have to scramble to replace it.”
In response to the situation, Schultz said that the AMP department will not release any courses for the summer term in order to not risk low enrollment in fall courses.
“It was determined that [the AMP department] will not put up any courses for our summer program,” she said. “If it jeopardizes you filling a class for the fall semester, why are you teaching it in the summer?”
In order to increase class sizes, the AMP department has opened their doors to classes that originally required prerequisites and adviser permission. Although this may allow classes to run, Schultz said that this may threaten students who need to complete these courses specific to their major.
“Our (AMP) program is changing the way we do our advising and registration,” she said. “We’re trying to open our classes to make it available to more students. It concerns me because it’s a big change from the past. Now, our students will clamor to get into classes that the John Doe public can get into, if they decide they want to take Writing for the Media to write better, it may bump a major or minor out of that spot. … I worry how it will affect students who signed up for our program.”
The current scheduling issue is symptomatic of larger issues within UWO and its ability to penetrate the student academic experience.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect that the Department of Journalism is now known as the Department of Advertising, Multimedia Journalism and Public Relations (AMP) as of earlier this semester.
