The cancellation of a class within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has left its instructor and some students who were relying on the course confused about the college’s motivations.

The course, an upper-division English elective titled “Transgender and Intersex Literature” to be offered in fall 2009, would have fulfilled degree requirements for English literature majors, women’s studies major and minor programs and the LGBT Certificate offered through the College of Public Programs, said English department director of academic services Elizabeth McNeil in an e-mail.

Under a two-year-old policy, full-time academic advisers within the college are not allowed to teach courses supplemental to their jobs except under very special circumstances, administrators said. However, some feel that this policy was not communicated well to students and staff after the class was canceled as a result.

There were 19 students either registered for or applying for overrides in order to register for the course, McNeil said, and all of them will be affected by its cancellation.

“Some of the students were going to use the course as a springboard for completing aspects of their honors thesis or their capstone project in the LGBT certificate,” she wrote.

McNeil, who would have taught the course in addition to her full-time academic advising duties, said although she was warned the class may be canceled, she was not aware the decision was final until receiving a disappointed e-mail about the cancellation from a student.

Perhaps because of this lack of dialogue, McNeil and students involved with forming the course had the impression that a new policy had been recently implemented, disallowing her from teaching the course. McNeil wrote in the e-mail that she was left to assume that “the cancellation had something to do with budget savings.”

The root of this confusion may be in faculty and student misunderstanding of the policy itself, according to some administration officials.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has a general policy to not allow full-time academic advisers to additionally teach courses, but under some circumstances allows exceptions, which may include supplemental pay, said Alan Artibise, the college’s executive dean.

He said that advisers who are specifically qualified may be allowed to teach a course if given permission in advance from deans and academic unit heads, but this is a policy that was established two years ago and completely unrelated to ASU’s recent budget cuts.

While he was not personally aware of the cancellation of McNeil’s course, Artibise said the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences often discourages full-time advisers from teaching because they already have a heavy workload and are hired specifically to ensure student success in an advising capacity.

“As a professor of 30 years, I know how time-consuming and onerous [teaching] can be,” he said.

The college has invested heavily in academic advisement in the past couple of years, hiring as many as 20 advising staff, and Artibise said administration wants to make sure that investment pays off for students.

“It’s not a monetary issue — it’s a focus issue,” he said. “Some advisers may not like it, but I’m sorry. They have to make a choice.”

Beverly Tryk, an English literature junior who helped McNeil develop the transgender and intersex literature course as part of an independent study internship, said she feels the course should be an exception to the rule.

Tryk said McNeil has served as her adviser since 2006, in addition to being her instructor in a course last year titled “‘Freaks of Nature’/Freaks of Culture: Extraordinary Bodies,” which was their inspiration to forming “Transgender and Intersex Literature.”

Although “it’s an extraordinary undertaking for an academic adviser” to both teach and work full time, Tryk said getting to know students both in the classroom and through academic advising allows the instructor to relate more effectively to students and enrich the advising experience.

“I hesitate to say that that it would be too much of a splitting of resources, if they’re willing to undertake that anyway,” she said.
“They feel passionately [enough] about their careers that they want to reach out to students in a way past their current job.”

Reach the reporter at trabens@asu.edu.