More classes for freshmen

In an effort to ensure that Cal State Long Beach freshmen get the courses they need, President Maxson has allocated $550,000 from the 1994-95 General Fund Support Budget to hire new faculty members.

Gloria Carver, assistant vice president of academic affairs, said that roughly $170,000 went into a budget for hiring full-time faculty members, while $380,000 went into hiring part-time faculty. $120,000 of the part-time money went to the English depa rtment.

According to CSULB Vice President Karl Anatol, Maxson originally authorized only $170,000.

"But once we found our target enrollment of 19,208 full-time students, President Maxson increased the funding," said Anatol.

Maxson explained that the budget reflects the English department's concern that freshmen are able to take their writing courses during their initial academic year.

"In order to ensure that students get the proper foundation for all their other coursework, there was a major attempt this year to try to provide enough English composition classes to accommodate all of t he students," said Sharon Olson, director of university academic projects.

The need for more English 100 (Composition), 001 (Writing Skills) and Intensive Learning Experience Program 010 (Strategic Reading and Writing) classes became evident in the summer of 1994, Olsen said. A freshmen academic program, Learning Alliance and Linking Interests, Needs, Knowledge and Strategies (LINKS) assisted students in registering for fall classes.

LINKS has a special arrangement with the English departmen t in which a certain amount of classes are reserved for LINKS freshmen only. But according to Olson, all the designated LINKS classes were filled as of July 12.

LINKS then informed the English department as to how many more students needed to get into a class, what particular classes were needed and what the respective demands for each were. The English Department then coordinated a funding campaign with the College of Liberal Arts to hire additional instructors.

Their cooperative effort met with success. According to Patricia Aleman, an administrative aide in the English department, the money granted by Maxson increased the number of ILE 010 classes from 13 to 31 and the English 001 classes from 17 to 20.