For many, registration is a quick, painless, and rather exciting time when we begin to think about new classes, professors, and topics of study for the coming semester. For most of the quantitative economics majors, international relations majors, and we economics majors, however, today was a day of frustration and anger. As you may have heard, by 4 p.m. on November 14, seven of the twelve upper level economics courses offered next semester were closed.
While Tuesday was a day for registration for most seniors and some juniors (myself included), not even every senior made it into the classes of his or her choice. When the majority of juniors registered yesterday, they had four options: "Intro to Econometrics," "Applications in Econometrics," "Topics in Industrial Organizations," and "Economics of Man and Strategy." I know that while being an invaluable course for an economist to take, not every student cherishes the thought of taking econometrics his senior year of college. However, when most of the other choices are gone, students are forced to take classes they do not want to take, or else... or else what?
One student in my microeconomics class said that at this point his options are to be forced to take a class he doesn't want, or to take a leave of absence from school until Tufts can actually offer him the classes he is paying $35,000 per year to attend. He may have said this in jest, but right now there are just far too many frustrated economics and IR students who are in the same situation.
Tufts cannot and will not survive as a leading undergraduate academic institution and continue to claim it is a school where personal attention to students matters when classes for two of its most popular majors are not made available to everyone who wants to take them. I do not blame the economics department in any way for this problem. The economics department has spent hours (that should be used for research) on search committees to find part-time faculty to teach some of the courses in order to try to alleviate some of the demand.
Nearly every economics professor with whom I have spoken says that the problem lies in the lack of funding and approval by the administration for hiring tenure-track faculty members in the department. The professors of the department are too taxed with teaching two courses, advising students, and dealing with so many other administrative issues as it is. What this issue really comes down to is how we, the tuition-paying students, can bring this issue to the forefront of the agenda of Tufts administrators who seem to have overlooked the small crisis transpiring in the economics department.
I serve on the executive board of the economics society, which has decided to research this issue and to present the results to the administration. We will be surveying students and comparing the professor to student ratio in the economics department with those of other departments. We will compile other research, as well, and present it to the administration with the hopes of receiving a receptive response.
To those frustrated students reading this article: I hope you feel motivated to pick up a phone and call your favorite administrator regarding this issue. Talk to your classmates and see how they feel about the issue. Call your parents and ask them to make a call to the school on your behalf and on behalf of everyone who was shut out of their economics classes. Contact any of my colleagues on the economics society board and get involved in our efforts.
To the Tufts administrators who may actually care to listen to what students have to write in the Daily: I chose to attend Tufts over MIT because it claimed to offer a personal, caring, and intellectual environment unlike that of a large Institute. I ask you consider how many students like me feel having to compete with fellow classmates just to get into a class needed for graduation. I ask you to consider how your children would feel if they had to sit on a windowsill during a one and a half hour economics lecture just because there are not enough seats in the classroom.
Then I ask you: what will you do to make the more than 1,500 students who want to take an economics course next semester feel that their $35,000 of tuition is justified?
Manijeh Azmoodeh is a junior majoring in international relations and economics. Azmoodeh serves on the executive board of the economics society.
