By Timothy Kudo
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Citing a recent survey of English classes showing a higher
workload than the 12 hours per week prescribed in a four-unit
class, the English department has changed many of its classes to
five units.
The classes to be changed starting Fall 2000 are English 80, 85,
90, M101A-M107C and 133-199. They will join the lower division
English 10 series which was changed to five units several years
ago.
“We ask our students to read 6,000 pages of fiction in six
weeks,” said Thomas Wortham, chair of the English department.
“I’m not sure someone would be reading that much
material in another department.”
The survey of English classes found that students spent anywhere
from 12.8 hours per week, including class-time, to 19.3 hours per
week on each class with an average time of about 16.9 hours a
week.
Additionally, many students who were asked to compare their
classes with others said English classes required more work.
“Surveys of our students were showing they were spending
15 or so hours on English classes,” Wortham said.
“Allowing for exaggeration, it still seemed that 15 was close
to the number that students were spending.”
But the change doesn’t mean the English major is more
difficult than other ones, said Karen Rowe, an English professor
and chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, which along with the
Undergraduate Council of the Academic Senate approved the
change.
“The student taking clinical psychology who spends time
working interactively, or doing observational studies, may be
spending hours that are equivalent in difficulty to the four hours
that an English student spends reading chapters in a novel,”
Rowe said.
According to Judith Smith, vice provost for the College of
Letters and Science, one unit equates to four hours of time spent
on a class. So, a four unit class would require 12 hours of study
and class time a week.
Since the classes required more than 12 hours of work, students
were being “paid” less units than they should have,
Wortham said.
Smith also said a major is defined as 60 upper division units
or, if classes are four units, 15 classes. Currently the English
major is 12 classes but with the increase it will now meet the unit
requirement set by the college.
Though the English department is one of the first to make so
many of its classes five units, other departments may consider such
a change in order to graduate their students faster.
“It’s a response to the enrollment plans that need
to go in place to meet the Tidal Wave of new students that will
come to the campus over the next 10 years,” Rowe said about
the influx of around 60,000 students expected to enter the UC in
the next 10 years, nicknamed Tidal Wave 2.
Currently, the average UC student graduates in just over four
years, according to officials.
The university’s goal is to graduate students in four
years so there is a higher turnover and campus populations will be
somewhat smaller.
Since many students only take three classes, or 12 units, the
unit change will force students to take about 15 units a quarter,
Rowe said. Over four years, students will have taken the 180 units
required for a degree.
Though taking more than 18 units requires petitioning the
college, Rowe said she didn’t think the unit increase would
affect most students in that respect, because many don’t take
more than three classes.
She added it’s rare for students to be denied taking more
than 18 units, but her committee may re-examine the issue at a
later time.
HOURS OF WORK IN ENGLISH CLASSES Surveyed
students were asked to comment on whether they felt certain classes
require more work, less work, or the same than other classes.
*indicates that one student considered the class to be less work.
No other classes had responses of less work. SOURCE: Departmental
survey of English classes
Original graphic by JACOB LIAO/Daily Bruin
Web adaptation by CHRISTINE TAN