enrollments

[Robert Beard]

        Are freshman seminars a new plague sweeping the hemisphere?  Our
administration assures us that our program distinguishes us from other
institutions.  Bucknell introduced them in 1993 and our freshman
enrollments plunged from 18 to 6.  Prior to that, they had been slowly
decreasing (from around 25 per year) but with a concomitant increase in
retention (80% continuing to 3rd year once). Even this year our number of
majors is double that of the halcyon days past.  We have had difficulty
convincing our dean that the freshman seminars contributed anything to the
decrease since she hears about drops at other universities.  Last year,
enrollments turned up (14) for reasons unknown (2 of which continued to
2nd-year) and this year we have 9.   In the spring we will begin offering
the first semester in the spring to test our hypothesis that the seminar is
drawing off some students.  Part of the problem seems to be Spanish, which
overfilled both its sections of the first semester course with
upperclassmen last spring.

It would be interesting to know if schools which introduced freshman
seminars suffered greater drops than those which did not.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Beard                                     Telephone: 717-524-1336
Russian & Linguistics Programs                         Fax: 717-524-3760
Bucknell University                                  Lewisburg, PA 17817
RUSSIA AND NIS Web Site:     http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian
MORPHOLOGY ON THE INTERNET:              http://www.bucknell.edu/~rbeard
------------------------------------------------------------------------