The Price of Cutting Course Loads

Faculty members at Vassar College generally agree that teaching five classes per year makes it hard to keep up with research and the one-on-one interaction that students expect. Many professors also worry that students are taking on too many courses at one time. So a new proposal to address the issue -- shrinking the teaching load to four classes per year while adding a new student supervisory component, and cutting the number of units students need to graduate -- has attracted significant faculty support. Yet others remain wary of cutting course offerings -- and not adding new faculty members -- to accommodate the plan.