During finals week of the fall 2015 semester, NMU AAUP faculty provided free cookies and coffee to students passing by in the lounge area of the Jamrich Building. The students were also asked to fill out an informal survey about course availability. They were also asked to respond with written comments concerning things that should or should not be cut from the budget.
Of the 187 students who participated in the survey, 25% said they were at least somewhat dissatisfied with their ability to get into classes they wanted for winter 2016. Two out of five students indicated they were unable to get into all the classes they wanted. Of the 78 students who were unable to get all of the classes they wanted, half of them said these courses were necessary to graduate. Nevertheless, 68 % of the respondents said they were at least somewhat confident they would get the courses needed to graduate within their timetable.
Written comments reflected widespread criticism of the extra fee charged for online courses. Another theme was the concern over cutting too many classes out of the schedule. Students also expressed concerns that cuts to the educational offerings at NMU would further impact enrollment in the future. One student wrote, “I used to be very confident and sincere in recommending high school students and friends come to NMU because of all of the amazing opportunities I have had while here (field trips, small classes, ability to do research as an undergraduate, funding to travel to conferences, scholarships for summer internships, scholarships for an education here, leadership development programs, other support for extracurricular activities, etc.). Although none of these programs (funding for the Harden Scholarship, for the honors program, for SLFP, for freshman fellows, from individual departments to travel for research, etc.) have specifically been cut, I seriously fear they will be. These are the things that made NMU stand out for me, and these are the programs that made this university for me. If the programs get cut, I won’t be able to tell people to come here because I know they won’t be able to have the same small school with many opportunities experience I had.”
To view all of the written comments from survey respondents, click here. NMU faculty members Lynne Johnson, Bonnie Betzinger and Jamie Kuehnl contributed to this article through data collection and/or data entry along with our NMU AAUP secretary Andrea Jordan. NMU student Joe Rowles assisted with writing the article and reviewing the data.