More students than ever locked out of required classes

One week before classes started, all 1,600 seats in two required English classes were full, and the department has no plans of adding more.

All 752 seats of English 1A are filled and nearly 1,300 students requesting the class through CASPER have been rejected.

Demands for English 20 were similar with over 1,500 students being rejected and only 850 lucky enough to enroll.

"But the number of rejections can be misleading because many students try multiple times a day," warned Mark Hennelly, Jr. chair of the English department

The 27 sections of English 1A, College Composition and 36 sections of English 20, Expository Writing were filled by Monday, the first day of CASPER Plus registration.

Both classes are requirements to graduate, and each semester all sections fill up, according to counselors in the Academic Advising Center.

"You’ll likely be able to add in the spring," said Cecilia Gray, associate VP for academic affairs.

"The goal is to have enough classes offered throughout the entire year so that if students are unable to get it in the fall, they'll be able to in the following semester," said Gray.

Freshman and Sophomores have first priority when registering for English 1A and Gray said most students are able to enroll in English 1A either the first or second semester at CSUS.

Unfortunately, Gray didn't have the same advice for students trying to enroll in English 20.

"The problem with enrollment of this class is that there are just too many students," said Joan Bauerly, a writing program coordinator.

"There are an abundance of students transferring to CSUS that have yet to complete English 1A and 20. This creates too many students who need the class and not enough teachers to teach them," said Bauerly.

Bauerly suggests students to either take the equivalent of English 20 - English 1B or English 1C - at a junior college, or enroll in English 20 here in the summer.

The main problem with taking the course elsewhere is that by the time students’ figure out that the class is full here, Sacramento City College is already two weeks into the semester.

There are still seats available in three English 1B classes and in two English 1C classes at Sac City as of August 27, 1999.

"Of the 36 English 20 sections offered each semester they are generally filled by seniors that have been trying to enroll since they were sophomores," Bauerly said.

Each of these classes is reach maximum enrollment at 25 students.

"Sure, the department could do a better job to meet the needs of students if we had more money, but that isn't the case," Hennelly said. "The problem is with university resources. There isn't enough money to hire more professors."

Bauerly advises students to either wait until their senior year to enroll in English 20, or take it at a junior college and transfer over the units.

English 20 was designed as a preparatory class for the Writing Proficiency Exam, another requirement to graduate. Many students are taking the WPE prior to completion of English 20 because they can't enroll in English 20 until their senior year.

To complicate things further, another requirement of general education is for each student to take an advanced study course before they can graduate. But before enrolling in an advanced study course, the student must pass the WPE.

"The university’s goal is to have each student complete remediation within their first year of attendance at CSUS, and believe it or not, things are getting better," said Gray.