Table 4  Administrative and Instructor Issues Comparison 

 

Aspects Compared

Stand-alone Chem. 100

LC  Chem. 100 + English Comp

Registration / scheduling

·       Well established procedures for class scheduling, student registration, add-drop and grade records, etc.

·       Minor add-drop adjustment as a five-credit course.

·       Implement modified procedures in all areas listed and trouble-shoot as numerous problems arise.

·       Major add-drop adjustment as a ten-credit course.

Workload1 / Cost

·       Normal cost:

o      Instructor contracted to teach one course.

o      Student-to-faculty ratio for a full section of 40 students = 26.7.

·       Regular instructor workload as specified in the Master Contract.

 

·       Higher cost:

o      Each instructor contracted to teach both courses1 in the LC.

o      Student-to-faculty ratio for a full section of 45 students = 18.0

·       Each discipline belongs to a different workload category; special care needed to resolve contract issues.

Instructor Issues

·       Sole control in course design and implementation of course syllabus

·       Regular time commitment 

·       Discipline specific

·       limited options for curriculum innovation

·       Shared control / lack of full control.

·       Extra time commitment [planning, grading, curriculum development].

·       Interdisciplinary on a daily basis

·       More options for curriculum Innovation

1  At SFCC, Chemistry faculty belongs to the “lecture - lab” workload category, in which full load is 18 contact hours per week. English instructor belongs to “lecture only” workload category with 15 contact hours per week being the full load. Student – to – Faculty ratio is defined as Full-Time-Equivalent-Student (FTES) divided by Full-Time-Equivalent-Faculty (FTEF).

FTES is calculated based on 15-credit being full load for a student. For a LC with class capacity of 45, FTES = 45 × 5 / 15 = 15 for the 5-credit chemistry portion, and that of the stand-alone with class capacity at 40, FTES = 40 × 5 / 15 = 13.33.

The FTEF for the chemistry portion of the LC = 0.5 (Chem. workload) + 0.333 (English workload) = 0.833 FTEF. In contrast, stand-alone Chem. 100 has 0.5 FTEF.

Therefore, the LC Student – to – Faculty ratio = 15 ÷ 0.833 = 18.0, and the stand-alone Student – to – Faculty ratio = 13.33 ÷ 0.5 = 26.7.