Implement Course Section Size Guidance

Priority for Current Fiscal Health Review: High
Savings/Revenue: $$$$
Time to Achieve: begin implementation immediately to affect fall 2025; achieve final goal by fall 2027, continue monitoring thereafter.

Five primary drivers of academic costs and capacity are: section offerings, course offerings, course completion rates, curricular complexity, and faculty course loads. These areas offer the greatest opportunities to preserve (realign, if appropriate) academic resources while maintaining or enhancing quality. Further, it is noted that analyzing the “microeconomics” of academic units in each of these areas can often identify targeted opportunities to realign costs in ways that can assist in avoiding across-the-board budget reductions or reduce the number of entire academic programs that might be eliminated.

In previous ECU fiscal health efforts such as the 2014 Fiscal Sustainability Initiative there was a recommendation to implement a policy that set out the minimum number of students that should be enrolled in each section of a course offering. The current working group determined that while a minimum course section size for lecture sections should remain a priority for implementation, a reconsideration of the minimums was warranted, and further guidance should be recommended. The AFH Working Group considered examples from other institutions, current ECU enrollment management strategies, the landscape of higher education, and other factors in arriving at this recommendation. An accompanying document is linked below and is titled “ECU Course Section Size Rule [Draft] ” with the intention that it be considered for editing and eventual implementation as a Rule or in some format that ensures consistent monitoring and action, when appropriate. Further, adding a link to that Rule in a section of the Office of the Provost’s website that provides meaningful communication related to academic affairs matters would be helpful.