When picking a college, students are often asked to consider class sizes. Some colleges brag of small teacher to student ratios in classrooms. At IVCC, the average student to teacher ratio is about 20:1. While much is made of small class sizes, little is made about classroom quality.
Classes are typically help in small rooms with high ceilings or lecture halls with auditorium seating. With the enrollment up 12.5 percent at IVCC (see page 9) some classes are held in less than desirable places.
Take for example, the seminar room. We are baffled at the architect that would make the bathrooms bigger than lab seminar classrooms.
Seminars typically hold about 15 students per class (more than are typically in one bathroom at the same time), while the boardroom style tables seat only about 10 people comfortably and about 14 people uncomfortably. Any extras are forced to sit in the corners, at regular chairs, taking notes on their laps.
And oh, yes, then there are the instructors’ offices located within those classrooms. They are virtually inaccessible to instructors and other students, with even the most minimal of interruptions being inevitable.
We just hope with the new construction designs they are planning, science seminar classrooms are taken into consideration, and those rooms are used for the only thing they’re really good for…closets.