Communications of the ACM
Computer Science Department Faculty Is Stretched Thin
Georgia State University's Computer Science Department has experienced a sharp increase in enrollment for the fall semester, but its faculty and resources are stretched too thinly.
According to Associate Chair and Director of the Computer Science Department Raj Sunderraman, his department has experienced rapid growth in its undergraduate computer science program. "We've been struggling with this high enrollment," he says. "Ten years back we had 300 majors and right now we have 1,400 majors.
As the Computer Science Department has blown up, faculty growth has mostly stagnated. From 2009 to 2015, the department's faculty grew from 342 to 378, but over that six-year period, the undergraduate population grew from 415 to 1,227.
The graduate population has grown as well. "Right now our student to faculty ratio [is] at 50 or 55 students to one," says Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Computer Science Department Anu Bourgeois. The department has increased class sizes to cope with the faculty disparity, Bourgeois says.
From The Signal
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