Preregistration for Spring 2022 (#1171)

Topics/tags: Registration, Grinnell, assorted data, rambly, long, end-notable

Warning! As is normally the case for my not-so-legendary preregistration musings, this musing has received almost no editing or rewriting. Writing what you see already took too much of my life.

Apologies: While I had hoped to get this out at about the end of preregistration, I had too much going on. It’s only four or so days late.

Yes, it’s that time of the semester again. Preregistration time! What’s preregistration time? It’s the time when students preregister for courses. Why preregister and not register? Because we don’t guarantee that students who preregister actually get the courses. If courses over-enroll, we adjust. Adjusting can mean cutting students. It can mean shifting them to other sections. It can mean finding ways to add other sections. But, in the end, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get courses you preregister for.

Okay, it’s not as bad as it sounds. Or at least it shouldn’t be as bad as it sounds. As far as I can tell, it’s potentially fairer than first-come, first-served or priority by class year. And most students get most of their courses. But it’s a lot of work. And it confuses people who are not steeped in it.

And maybe it is as bad as it sounds. By the time a student gets cut from a class, there may be few classes left. Or, more accurately, perhaps there may be few classes they want to take left. I know that some students struggle to find another class [1,2].

So changes are in the works. No one quite knows what they are, but it’s likely that the current system will be gone next year [5]. For now, we have a few updates. First, departments and faculty have been asked to provide cut criteria to the Registrar’s office in advance, so the Registrar’s office will be doing the first pass at everything. Second, the software that automated some aspects of the process is no longer functional. So the always overworked staff of the Registrar’s office gets to do more work.

Oh, they also shortened the length of time that students could click the Register button that doesn’t mean what it says. It used to be eleven days. This year, it’s eight. Some faculty tried to do all of their registration meetings in the shorter period. I just started mine at the same time. So the effects were comparatively minor, mostly could not click Register when we met. The other effect I noticed is that more students seemed to still have holds when we met. But that could be random variation.

I’m sad that this is the penultimate session for this form of registration. The new model will almost certainly be very different. It will be harder to look at the kinds of patterns I observe. I still don’t understand how we’ll identify the need for extra sections of some courses; perhaps we believe that adding extra sections isn’t necessary. I don’t know what will happen with under-enrolled classes. Of course, I don’t know what happens with under-enrolled classes at present.

I’m also happy about some of the positives, or at least I’m happy about what I hope are positives. CS is no longer responsible for figuring out what cuts are appropriate for ensuring that all of our majors make forward progress. At least it’s not supposed to be our responsibility. Perhaps that’s a work in progress. I seem to recall that the presentation on this suggested that this semester, the Registrar’s office would do a first pass, and then it would head back to the department. In any case, I’m not chair, so I don’t have to worry.

But you don’t want my ramblings about the process, at least not in this musing. You want to hear what the state of classes are today, at the end of preregistration. At least I think you do. Why else would you be reading this musing?

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So let’s grab the data. Our old all-course report [6] is about to go away. Fortunately, ITS put in a new all-course report [7,8]. The best thing about the new report? You can download it as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV! It makes my analysis much easier. I encourage you to download it yourself and see what you can discover.

I appreciate the easy access to CSV files. It makes it much easier to track changes. For example, I downloaded one set of data at 9:45 p.m. [9] on Wednesday evening and another set of data at 7:15 a.m. on Thursday morning. There were 185 changes in that time, more or less. I see, for example, that four more students added Intro Studio.

Whoops. Strike that. It appears that the new report system conks out when we switch from 100 available slots to the correct number of available slots. Because of that, I’m going to have do some estimating. Fortunately, I downloaded the data as of 10:30 or so on Thursday night, which gives me a good starting point.

Note: If you don’t have a Grinnell login, you can’t get the collected data all at once. However, you can search by department, instructor, and such. Just go to the search schedule of courses link [10]. I’m sure that with careful Web scraping, you can gather you the full data set.

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Unsurprisingly, many of the normal set of courses over-enrolled. There are too many students who want to take introductory courses in Studio Art, GWSS [12,14], statistics, and, um, Computer Science. Where do things stand for introductory courses in those four departments?

• There are three sections of ART-111, Introduction to the Studio, capped at 15 each [15]. Enrollments are at 16, 46, and 39 [16], for a total over-enrollment of 56. It seems that they could easily offer three more sections [17].
• Art-134, Drawing, is over-enrolled by 25 students, enough for nearly two more sections. I believe another section was on the slate, but had to be canceled when a faculty member resigned.
• The two sections of GWS-111, Introduction to Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, were over-enrolled by 26 and 6 as of 10:30 p.m. on Thursday evening. Amazingly, they are already cut to capacity. I’m impressed that the Registrar’s office was able to do the cuts that quickly. Perhaps the policies were straightforward, such as cut randomly.
• SST-115, Introduction to Statistics, had been over-enrolled by twenty-three students. If I had written about it a few days ago, I would have said, I wonder if they can add another section. Now I see that they have. However, it appears that they have not yet balanced the two sections. And, surprisingly, they haven’t cut the corresponding section of STA-209. I don’t think Chris Olsen can teach two classes at the same time. I hope he won’t be teaching four classes.
• STA-209, Applied Statistics, seems to have about the right number of offerings. The five sections have 3, 4, 5, 10, and 4 slots available, respectively, for a total of 26 available slots [19]. However, as I said, it looks like one of those sections is being converted to SST-115 [20].
• Section 2 of STA-230, Introduction to Data Science is over-enrolled by sixteen students. Section 1 has two slots available. I expect two students will be swapped and fourteen will be cut.
• Section 3 of CSC-151, Functional Problem Solving, is over-enrolled by fifteen students. Sections 1 and 2 have one and four slots available, respectively [21]. I’ve forgotten our priorities here, other than first-years get top priority. I’m pretty sure we’ll have slots left over after that cutting.
• Section 1 of CSC-161, Imperative Problem Solving, is over-enrolled by seventeen students. Section 2 is over-enrolled by ten. That’s enough for another section. I wish we could offer another section. But we don’t have the teaching capacity for that. We will likely cut all third-years and seniors, except those who need it for, say, admittance to grad school. But I don’t think that will be enough. What will happen next? I’m not sure.
• The one section of MAT/CSC-208, Discrete Structures, is over-enrolled by ten students. The faculty member who teaches that class is as crazy as I was at their age. So it may stay over-enrolled. That’s not the way to go, though. Of course, cutting students is also not the right thing to do. Bleh!

Why do we see such disparity in enrollments in some popular classes? Sometimes, it’s the time of the class. Many students try to avoid 8:00 a.m. classes. Some try to avoid late afternoon classes. In the ART-111 disparities, I expect that it’s that section 1 is a MW class, which means that it conflicts with three different MWF slots. I won’t comment on those here. Sometimes, there are explicit differences between sections. For example, section 2 of GWS-111 is marked as a writing intensive course, but section 1 is not. Sometimes it’s the instructor. While most Grinnell faculty are excellent, some have especially strong reputations [22]. And this year, special advertising went out about some faculty; in particular, UMOJA [24] posted signs around campus advertising courses taught by Black Faculty. The advertising makes some sense; there’s evidence that Black Students benefit from having Black Faculty, and it seems that not all Black Students know about all of the Black Faculty on campus. Did the signs have an effect? I don’t think I want to explore that right now.

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Let’s instead turn to some of those teachers whose courses always show up on the top of my most over-enrolled lists. Three immediately come to mind.

Monessa Cummins. ARH/CLS-234, Greek Archaeology and Art, over-enrolled by four students. That’s fewer than normal. Strange.

John Garrison. ENG-223, Tradition of English Lit I, is over-enrolled by sixteen students. I assume those will be shifted to another English class. PCS-230, Conflict Analysis, is exactly at capacity. But PCS-230 is a course with a special study-abroad component and required advance application. It makes sense that it’s not over-enrolled.

Carolyn Herbst Lewis. HIS-195, ST: Comparative Herbalism, may have set a new record for over-enrollment, with ninety-one students pre-enrolled in a class with a capacity of ten. It doesn’t set a record for pre-enrollment, since there was an Intro Computing course in the distant past that, in the words of my colleague Henry Walker, had an enrollment greater than its course number. But it’s still insane. I hope the College finds a way to clone Carolyn. And I’ll admit that I’d been hoping that more than one-hundred students would try to pre-enroll, so that we could break the system.

What about Carolyn’s other classes? HIS-223, Health and Medicine in American History, is over-enrolled by twenty-two students. HIS-224, Sex in American History, is over-enrolled by seventeen. My, students are interested in American history, aren’t they? Time to clone Carolyn again.

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We’ll get to the over-enrolled courses in a bit. First, I’d like to look at my department. I may not be Chair anymore [24], and the Registrar may be taking over our department’s cut, close, and balance process [25,26], but I still like to know where things stand.

I’m not that worried about CSC-151, Functional Problem Solving. After balancing and with the normal melt, I expect that most students who want CSC-151 will get it.

I’m very worried about CSC-161, Imperative Problem Solving. As I said, CSC-161 is over-enrolled by more than one section’s worth of students. First-year students who might want to major in CS should be able to take it. Second-year students who might want to major in CS should be able to take it. Students with special circumstances, such as those who need it for graduate school, should be able to take it. I’m pretty sure keeping those groups enrolled will keep us significantly over-enrolled. The Registrar can’t solve that problem. The only solutions I know to that problem involve a faculty member adding an overload. Bleh.

CSC-207, Object-Oriented Problem Solving, Data Structures, and Algorithms, seems to be a bit under-enrolled. We have three slots available in one section and eleven in the other section. It’s enough to offer both sections, but not so many that students will be cut. That seems good to me.

As I mentioned earlier, MAT/CSC-208, Discrete Structures, is over-enrolled by ten students. That’s a problem. 208 is required for two core upper-division courses, and we like students to be able to take it as early as possible. And it’s not like we can easily push them to next semester; this fall’s section over-enrolled by four students [27]. Maybe we can just plan for two sections in the fall. Maybe we can a mathamagician [29] from somewhere to teach it.

CSC-211, Computer Organization and Architecture, has nine slots available. We’ll need those for students who have to shift out of other classes.

CSC-282, Thinking in C and Unix, has five slots available. It’s a one-credit course, so it doesn’t relieve any over-enrollments elsewhere, and cutting it wouldn’t give us additional capacity.

CSC-301, Analysis of Algorithms, is over-enrolled by fourteen students, enough to offer another section. Cutting this will not be fun. I hope that we have enough students trying to take two CS courses who don’t need two CS courses that we can cut them.

CSC-324 and CSC-326, Software Design and Development and Software Development Leadership, potentially have about six slots available between them [30]. I suppose some of the Algorithms folks could voluntarily switch there.

CSC-341, Automata, Formal Languages, and Computational Complexity, has two open slots. Another place to shift students.

Unsurprisingly, our special topics courses are over-enrolled. CSC-395-01, ST: Advanced Operating Systems, is over-enrolled by six. CSC-395-02, ST: Introduction to Reinforcement Learning and Multi-Agent Systems, is over-enrolled by five. I expect that we’ll have to cut the students who do not strictly need these courses in order to make forward progress in the major. I just wish they had something else to take.

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On to the discussion of over-enrolled courses. I’m doing my best to go through the courses over-enrolled by ten or more from most over-enrolled to least.

We’ve already seen that HIS-195, Comparative Herbalism [31], is over-enrolled by an amazing 81 students. I do hope the College is working with Carolyn and the Department of History to explore how we can offer more sections in the future.

Section 15 of FYE-100, First-Year Experience: Connections, is close behind, it’s over-enrolled by 71 students. Since it has a capacity of 25, it is the course that actually came closest to breaking the system. This is the first year that students have been able to pre-enroll in the FYE course. Given how things worked out, I wonder if we’ll try something different next year.

The next course in our list, PSY-248, Abnormal Psychology, is over-enrolled by a mere 41 students. (It is, of course, mere only in comparison to HIS-195 and section 15 of FY-100.) I count only four other slots available in 200-level Psychology classes. That’s likely to be a major problem. I have no idea how Psych will handle it.

Section 18 of FYE-100, First-Year Experience: Connections, is close behind [32], with a pre-enrollment of 65, and an over-enrollment of 40. How do the other sections look? There are a lot. Counts of slots available, 18, 21, 10, 0, 3, 2, 18, 24, 20, 18, 4, 18, 23, 25, 18, 21, 2, (over-enrolled by 5), (over-enrolled by 3), 17, (over-enrolled by 18). Yeah, that’s a strange distribution. I assume some of it is people and some of it is times.

THD-195, ST: Costume Crafts/Construction, is over-enrolled by 33 students. It has a moderately small capacity of nine students. But forty-two students pre-enrolling suggests strong student interest.

MUS-201, Digital Music Making, is over-enrolled by 32 students. I think it’s over-enrolled in recent years, but rarely by this much. The over-enrollments in this, THD-195, and various art courses should remind us that our students want to create art, and that we need to provide such opportunities. Maybe I’ll return to my Craft of Code, Code of Craft course as an SFS faculty member [33].

EDU-101-01, Educational Principles in a Pluralistic Society, is over-enrolled by 33 students, more than enough for another section. I’m a bit surprised that there is only one section of EDU-101 offered; I thought we normally try to offer at least two. However, I see that one is marked as Canceled, so perhaps we were planning another. I hope we find a way to restore it.

ART-111-02, Introduction to the Studio, is over-enrolled by 31 students. We’ve discussed the College’s need to provide more sections of ART-111 before [34].

PHI-121-01, Philosophy for Life, is over-enrolled by 28 students. I’m happy to see Philosophy starting to move back to its status as a subject that students really want to study. PHI-233, History of Early Modern Philosophy, is also over-enrolled, although by only nine students. There are only three available slots in PHI-111, Introduction to Philosophy, so I suppose a bunch of students will need to delay their study of this core area.

GWS-111-01, Introduction to Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, was over-enrolled by about 26 students. It’s already been cut to its capacity of 25.

SMS-150-01, Introduction to Science, Medicine, Technology, and Society, was also over-enrolled by about 26 students. It has also been cut to its capacity of 25. I recall the old TEC-154, Evolution of Technology, as being popular, but not this popular. Are we offering SMS-150 every year? Every-other year? It looks like it will be a popular concentration. I wonder how the cuts were made. I would have prioritized first-year and second-year students, since they are potential concentrators. However, I can see reasons to prioritize upper-division students, since they may not have another chance to take it.

As we’ve already seen, ART-134-01, Drawing, is over-enrolled by 25 students. I think I’ve said enough about our need to better support the creative arts [35,36].

ANT-104-05, Anthropological Inquiries, is over-enrolled by 24 students. Fortunately, there appear to be some slots in other sections. If I count correctly, the five sections of ANT-14 are over-enrolled by eight students total.

Back to Studio Art! ART-111-03, Introduction to the Studio, is over-enrolled by twenty-four students.

Our next CHL course! HIS-223-01, Health and Medicine in American History, is over-enrolled by 22 students. It doesn’t look like there are many other 200-level History classes with space, and those that do have space are not American History classes.

We’ve covered MAT/SST-115, Introduction to Statistics, already. Although it’s over-enrolled by 23 students, it looks like we’ll be offering another section.

PHE-100-19, Rock Climbing, is also over-enrolled by 23 students. I tend to focus on four-credit classes, so I don’t know how much Rock Climbing normally over-enrolls by. However, I’m pretty sure that it always over-enrolls. I’ll admit that I’m a bit sad that PHE-100-05, has also over-enrolled. When there’s room, Coach Jaws usually lets me sneak in to the course. I am glad to see students registering for Physical Education courses. As I tell my students, physical wellness contributes to intellectual wellness [37].

ENG-120-03, Literary Analysis, is over-enrolled by 21 students. There are certainly enough slots in the other sections. However, ENG-120 is one of those courses in which every section is different. I hope that students still manage to find a way to study Literary Analysis that engages them appropriately.

SOC-265-01, Sociology of Health and Illness, is over-enrolled by 21 students. Courses on health and medicine are definitely popular these days! I don’t think it’s just the pandemic; SOC-265 has always over-enrolled, just not necessarily by this much. Are there other 200-level courses for students to take? Um, not really. There are 4 slots in SOC-291-01, Methods of Empirical Investigation, 2 slots in SOC-295-03, ST: Environmental Sociology, and 4 slots in SOC-295-04, ST: Sociology of Food and Agriculture. On the other hand, SOC-295-02, ST: Sociology of Robots, is over-enrolled by sixteen students [38].

Those are all the courses that are over-enrolled by twenty or more students. At least I think those are. What about the courses over-enrolled by ten or more? If I use my 10:30 p.m. Thursday log, I get the following list (in alphabetical order by abbreviation).

AMS-130-01  Intro to American Studies
ANT-104-04  Anthropological Inquiries
ART-240-01  Ceramics
BIO-150-03  Intro to Biolgcl Inqry w/lab
BIO-240-01  Animal Behavior w/lab
BIO-364-01  Animal Physiology w/lab
CHM-129-02  General Chemistry w/lab
CHM-210-01  Inorgnc & Analytcl Chem w/lab
CHM-210L-01 Inorgnc & Analytcl Chem Lab
CSC-151-03  Functional Prob Solving w/lab
CSC-161-01  Imperative Prob Solving w/lab
CSC-161-02  Imperative Prob Solving w/lab
CSC-208-01  Discrete Structures
CSC-301-01  Analysis of Algorithms
ECN-111-05  Introduction to Economics
ENG-205-01  The Craft of Fiction
ENG-223-01  Tradition of English Lit I
ENG-395-01  ST: Queer & Trans Literatures
FYE-100-23  FYE: Connections
GWS-395-01  ST: Queer & Trans Literatures
HIS-224-01  Sex in American History
MAT-131-01  Calculus I
MAT-208-01  Discrete Structures
MAT-322-01  Representation Theory
MUS-120-94  Perf: Voice
PHE-100-41  Beginning Weight Lifting
PHE-202-01  Coaching Methods
PHY-116-01  Universe & Its Structure
SOC-111-01  Introduction to Sociology
SOC-111-02  Introduction to Sociology
SOC-111-03  Introduction to Sociology
SOC-295-02  ST: Sociology of Robots
STA-230-02  Introduction to Data Science

I think that’s it. I apologize to anyone whose course I missed. But it’s a lot. Or at least it feels like a lot. About thirty courses with at least ten students per course means that we’ll be cutting or shifting a lot of students! Some will be easy, such as those in FYE-100-23. Other will be hard, like those in CSC/MAT-208.

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You know what? I’ve found something else that worries me a bit. In the fall, we didn’t have enough slots in 100-level courses. We’ve already seen problems in 100-level Studio Art, CS, Anthropology, GWSS, Education, Philosophy, and, if I glance above, Sociology. What 100-level courses are still available? Let’s go through the departments and see. I’ve boldfaced those that seem to have available slots. (And, as always, I apologize to those I’ve missed or misrepresented [39].)

American Studies: AMS-130-01, Introduction to American Studies, is over-enrolled by eleven students.

Anthropology: While some sections of ANT-104 have room, the overall number of students pre-enrolled exceeds the number of slots.

Art History: There is room in ARH-103, Introduction to Art History.

Biology: The number of students pre-enrolled slightly exceeds the number of available slots.

Chemistry: There are 17 more students enrolled in CHM-129, General Chemistry, than there are slots in CHM-129. But Chemistry usually finds a way to make things work out, often by adding an extra section.

Computer Science: CSC-151, Functional Problem Solving, is full. However, there are slots in CSC-105, The Digital Age. That’s a great course; I hope students will consider it. (And no, we can’t shift the person teaching that to another CS course.)

Economics: There are surprisingly many slots available in ECN-111, Introduction to Economics. Doesn’t that usually fill?

Education: Full. Overfull.

English: Even after balancing, there should be some slots in ENG-120, Literary Analysis. There are also a few slots available in ENG-121, Introduction to Shakespeare.

Global Development Studies: GDS-111, Introduction to Global Development Studies, has a few slots available.

Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies: As mentioned earlier, GWS-111 is over-full and has been cut.

History: HIS-100-01, The Prophet Muhammad, has room available. HIS-100-02, After the Great War, has one slot.

Humanities: HUM-101-01, Humanities I: The Ancient Greek World, is over-enrolled. HUM-195-01, ST: Material Culture Studies Introduction, is also over-enrolled.

Latin-American Studies: LAS-111-01, Introduction to Latin American Studies, has a few slots available.

Linguistics: LIN-114, Introduction to General Linguistics, has surprisingly many slots available. Doesn’t this usually fill? I know my students always feel like they have trouble getting in. It does appear they’ve added an extra section.

Mathematics: MAT-124-01, Functions and Integral Calculus, has space available. However, that’s the second semester of a two-semester course. I don’t think others can easily add the course. I worry that MAT-131-01, Calculus I, is over-enrolled by sixteen students. And Math doesn’t really have any place to cut to add something.

Music: MUS-116-01, Music, Culture, Context has available slots.

Philosophy: If the PHI-121, Philosophy for Life, students have priority for PHI-111, Introduction to Philosophy, then there are no spaces available.

Physics: PHY-131-01, General Physics I has a bunch of spaces available. The not-for-the-major course, PHY-1116, The Universe and Its Structure, is significantly over-enrolled.

Political science: POL-101, Introduction to Political Science, has room. I find that surprising. Given everything that’s happening in this country and the world, don’t students want to understand political systems better?

Psychology: PSY-113, Introduction to Psychology, is slightly over-enrolled.

Religious Studies: REL-103, Studying Religion: Middle East, REL-104, Studying Religion: India, and REL-105, Studying Religion, East Asia, all have space. What a great opportunity to learn about different cultures!

Sociology: Even with five sections, SOC-111, Introduction to Sociology, is over-enrolled by about ten students.

Studio Art: Hah! Funny. No, there’s no room. They could add three sections of ART-111 and one of ART-134 and there still would be no room [40].

Theatre and Dance: Although THD-195-02, Costume Crafts and Construction, is over-enrolled, there’s room in THD-111-01, Introduction to Performance Studies, THD-117, Introduction to Acting, and THD-195-01, ST: Tap is Music [41].

Do the available slots match with the over-enrollments? It’s not my job to check.

Why are there no language courses listed above? Because most language departments offer the first semester introduction in the fall, not the spring.

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This preregistration session seems particularly strange. I’m not used to that many over-enrolled classes. I’m not used to that few slots in introductory classes. I know that one thing at play is that we’ve asked students who are planning to study abroad in the spring to still pre-register, just in case their study-abroad program is canceled. When they enroll in those programs, space will open up.

I’m also not that worried about what seems to be a relatively small number of introductory courses available. Why? As I said, we’ll see some melt as students get approved for study-abroad programs. In addition, there are a wide variety of 200-level courses that don’t have prerequisites, or perhaps only have second-year standing as a prereq. I wonder if someone [42] will make a list.

As I’ve said, there are things that worry me a lot (beyond even the over-enrollments in CS and in introductory studio art). A few departments seem to be full at the 200 level, which makes it hard for students to progress in the major. Fingers crossed that it all works out!

I’ll see you in a week or two for the post-mortem on CCB and then in about five months for what may be the last musing on preregistration!

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Postscript: Why did I feel compelled to stay up late to write this when I have kids home and grading to do and administrivia and more? That’s a good question. Maybe it’s that some folks tell me they count on this kind of rambling.

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[1] It’s much worse for the students who fail to preregister.

[2] I expect that priority systems are just as bad for students who have to register last. It’s just that we know in advance who those students will be. And the students who fail to preregister? They may still be screwed [3].

[3] That reminds me. I have one more advisee who needs to clear a hold [4]. I hope they manage to do so. I’ve just sent them a reminder.

[4] That comment was written at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday morning.

[5] Perhaps I’ll muse on what I’d like the future system to look like, especially in the context of some of the rumors I’ve heard about plans.

[6] Grinnell ID and password required.

[7] Grinnell ID and password required. You may have to enter them multiple times. At least I have to.

[8] I very much appreciate the hard work of the ITS staff who built this new report.

[9] Yes, I understand that I should have been asleep.

[10] Web Advisor is being decommissioned soon. I know what we’re providing for on-campus folks [11], but I’m not sure what we’re providing for off-campus folks.

[11] The search feature in Self Service, aka Academic Planning.

[12] Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies.

[14] Some pronounce it Gee Double-You Ess Ess. Some pronounce it Gwiss. Some pronounce it Gee Whiz. I’m sure that there are other pronunciations, too.

[15] I’ve heard rumors that some folks are pushing for the cap to be larger. I expect they’ve never taught or taken intro studio. There’s a lot of attention to be paid to students. Plus, it’s a six hour per week course.

[16] At least at the time I was writing this. There are still a few more hours of prereg to go.

[17] Some of these are students who were cut in previous semesters. Would demand continue at this rate if we covered all of the demand in one semester? I’m not sure. I expect some students give up on taking Studio, which is sad, since the fine arts are an important part of a liberal arts education. In any case, I’d like us to try the experiment of having enough sections to meet demand [18].

[18] For clarity, that’s a request to the institution. The Studio Art department doesn’t have much control over such things.

[19] Something that I find scary: As of 10:30 p.m. on Thursday night, there were 4, 4, 6, 11, and 6, for a total of 31 slots Five people enrolled in the course between 10:30 p.m. and midnight!

[20] The highly politicized question of why Introduction to Statistics is not listed in Statistics is left for another day.

[21] I’m a little sad that my sections didn’t over-enroll. It appears that I’m not as popular as I used to be.

[22] I won’t mention such special reputations. I will, however, explore instructors whose classes often over-enroll.

[23] I should know what this stands for, but I don’t.

[24] Yay!

[25] Yay!

[26] The Registrar’s office did quickly realize that they need additional information to make cuts, such as how essential it is that some students get two CS courses to make forward progress in the major.

[27] Did I mention that I have a colleague who makes similar decisions to those I would make when I was younger [28]?

[28] And, arguably, those I still make from time to time?

[29] Because it would be magical to find one.

[30] It’s complicated.

[31] Am I the only one who wants to call this Comparative Herbstalism?

[32] Didn’t I just write that?

[33] I’m not sure why I decided to include that in the primary text, rather than making it an endnote.

[34] That is, both earlier in this musing and in previous musing on preregistration.

[35] And no, that does not mean expanding the size of the classes.

[36] I suppose I had more to say.

[37] I need to tell myself that more.

[38] I hope Karla is able to keep some CS students in that class!

[39] Missed representing?

[40] I’m also not sure that there’s room in the building for that many more Studio Art courses.

[41] Damn! That sounds cool. But it’s only one credit.

[42] Other than me.

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Version 1.0 of 2021-11-21 .