High enrollment no burden

by A. John Garcia

Daily Lobo

With near record enrollment at universities nationwide, many schools are facing the problem of overcrowding in their core courses.

UNM officials insist, however, that congestion is not an issue at the University.

"There are a lot of universities around the country facing this problem," said Reed Dasenbrock, dean of UNM's College of Arts and Sciences. "This usually results from two things: increase in students and budget cuts."

Kathleen Sena, a UNM registrar, said records indicate that 2,901 new freshmen are expected to attend the University this semester.

"At this time enrollment is up," Sena said. "We have 25,007 students, which is approximately 1,300 more students from last year at this same time. We're up 5 percent from where we were last fall."

Dasenbrock said the University may have a record freshman class and near record University enrollment, but added the school's financial appropriation is larger than at this time last year, allowing departments to make the adjustments they need to accommodate everyone.

"My understanding is that while we are operating near capacity and most core classes are very full, all the key classes have some open seats in them," Dasenbrock said. "The open classes may not be at the student's favorite hour to take classes - maybe at eight o'clock in the morning - but we aren't facing a large amount of students unable to get the classes they need."

Peter White, dean of University College, agreed saying that UNM students need to manage some creative course scheduling and get advice from their advisers in order to get into the courses they need.

"Students should be able to fulfill all of their core course requirements," White said. "There are still seats available in core courses. There's a lot of dropping and adding going on at this time of the year. They need to rely on their advisers, who are trained to handle such situations, and more often than not, they should be able to help them get into the courses they need."