S i Capital Times Vol. 21, No. 9 Blumberg Bombarded at Business Forums By Kathleen Riley-King The Business division recently held two open forums, one on February 2 and one on February 4. Dr. Melvin Blum berg, division head, addressed recent complaints about the division. Attendance at the Feb ruary 2 forum was sparse, with approximately six students present. The February 4 forum had a better turnout. Approx imately fifteen students appeared.' The first complaint during the February 2 forum dealt with the frustrations of registration. One student claimed' that when he had taken his schedule upstairs to get it stamped, he had been told the classes were open. However, when he had gone downstairs, he had been told that several of his classes were closed. "There's no information flow from upstairs to downstairs, H he said. "I had four schedule changes in ten minutes. I had no idea what I had.. .. It's really hectic. I had no idea when 1 was standing in the office here what classes I actually had by the time I got i done.” Furthermore, he said that ! he had talked to other students, and he had found registration to be a "hit-or-miss" situation. Dr. Blumberg made note of this complaint. Another student said that a question he has always had is: Why does registration have to be so complicated just to simply sign up for four or five courses? He also said that he feels that if it is your first semester, pre registration is a problem. Dr. Blumberg responded that the reason for pre-reg istration is to get an idea of how many students need each course'. "Part of the problem, I think, is that we’re growing," he said, and pointed out that it’s easier to increase enrollment than to increase the number of faculty and the number of sections of courses. Furthermore, Blumberg stated that since a number of non-Business majors decided that taking some Business courses would be beneficial, Business courses were filling with non- Business majors. As this began to happen, said Blumberg, the division first had to realize that it was happening. Courses were closing and seniors were com plaining that they could not get these courses; Dr. Blumberg had to find out the reason. Much of the problem had to do with the registration procedure. Previously, students registered by division. "So, [for example] if the engineers got to register first . . . they would come piling into Marketing 370, for example, fill up all die seats, and then we'd look around and there were no seats left for our majors. So what we've had to do is say, We don't care who gets to register first; our majors register first for our courses.'" Although this has helped to alleviate the problem, it has caused other problems, said Blumberg. "So there's a very strong pressure on us to supply courses for students from other majors." Blumberg said that the division is faced with the al location of scarce resources, and, "We just can't run out and hire ten new professors on two weeks' notice . . . [not] even part-time people, because we've got to maintain quality, too. Which means that we have to sometimes expand class size more than we want..." Seniors need not worry about getting classes. "If some one needs a course to graduate and has to graduate that semester, we find a way to get them a course they need," claimed Blum berg. He said that, to his knowledge, no one has ever been held up on graduation by not being able to get a course "and will never be held up" as long as the student is not unreasonable i.e. deciding that he or she wants to graduate at the end of the semester and needs six courses immediately. One student raised the problem involving requirements for a major where the student must pick, say, two out of four possible courses. She said that Penn State University at Harrisburg Model United Nations Program Completes Its 15th Year By Jan Travers "You people must encourage your government to let South Africa have peace. The only chance for our freedom is to get companies to divest from South Africa." These were the words of David Tehobo Mofokeng, a South African political refugee, when he spoke at the opening ceremonies of the Model United Nations Program held at Penn State, Harrisburg this past weekend. Mokofeng, who came to the United States in 1986, was part of the 1970 s South African Black Consciousness Movement under the leadership of the late Steve Biko. After being arrested and detained for 190 days during the Soweto Student Uprising, she had heard seniors complain ing because only two of the courses were offered; conse quently, the students had no choice. "Low number of course offerings in terms of variety of courses," said Blumberg. "That's a fair complaint." Blumberg stated that the problem with the variety and number of courses goes back to the problem of scarce resources. Since enrollment is increasing faster than the number of faculty, class size must be kept at a reasonable size. To do this, the division must offer more sections of the same course. "Where do you get the staff person, the faculty, to cover that Mofokeng illegally left South Africa and lived in Swaziland and Tanzania. He later became public relations officer for the Pan Africanist Congress, an anti-apartheid liberationist movement based in Tanzania. Mokofeng is unsure that the American media is portraying the true picture. In the four months he has lived in the United States, he said he has never seen what is happening in South Africa as being accurately portrayed. Presently the problems in South Africa are not the concern of just Black people, said Mokofeng. "All people would benefit by demonstration against the government," he added. extra section is you have to give of course, is, like everything up an elective." Blumberg said, else, there's never enough money "We're trying to increase our to go around, and Penn State's faculty resources." no different from anybody else in To do this, a process that you don’t always get what called "strategic planning" is you ask for . . p en n State, employed. In this procedure, overall, does strategic planning student enrollment must be j n which we have to justify, on forecast, then the number of gome rational basis, our requests professors needed to teach the for additional resources, and then courses must be approximated, jiis gets aggregated here at the Next, the division must ask for college and then it goes forward the authority and the funding to hire the extra faculty members. "The problem with that, INSIDE: BSU President profile Calender for Women's History Month Spring Break/Russia Feb. 25,1987 (continued on pg. 6) (continued on pg. 7)
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