Three times a week, more than 700 students file into the Bo Campbell Auditorium for biology with associate professor Bill Wischusen. They find their professor standing outside the door waiting to greet them.
“I try to say good morning to as many students as I can when they come in,” Wischusen said.
Wischusen teaches one of the largest classes on campus every fall. His biology class has 717 students enrolled this semester. Wischusen said enrollment often exceeds 900 students.
“I’ve taught large sections, I’d say two-hundred plus, since I first came here,” Wischusen said.
That was 23 years ago. When the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes opened in 2002, Wischusen was among the first instructors to use the Bo Campbell Auditorium.
“A section of seven or eight hundred feels a little bit different, but I’m not sure how big the difference is,” Wischusen said. “What you say isn’t any different depending on the size of the room.”
Wischusen said teaching nearly 1,000 students imposes some practical limitations on the classroom. Classes tend to be less writing-intensive because of the time involved in providing feedback on so many assignments. Students may be broken into small groups, but group projects are rare in classes the size of Wischusen’s.
“The complexity of the logistics of managing the course increases,” Wischusen said. “I view part of it as sort of a challenge. You have to sort of be more prepared when you walk into a really big class.”
Wischusen said large courses may be more challenging for some students.
“There’s a little bit of extra burden on the student to say ‘I’m not getting this. I need to take advantage of whatever resources there are,’” Wischusen said.
Instructors in larger classes tend to work with graduate assistants who have their own office hours and review sessions. This is intended to provide more out-of-classroom support for students.
One of the more difficult hurdles to overcome, according to Wischusen, is forming connections with students in large classrooms.
“In a small class, you have face recognition, you have name recognition, you have some sort of contact with every student,” Wischusen said. “In a large class, the question is ‘how do you generate that same level of contact?’”
“I think you have to try as much as you can to take advantage of little ways to just sort of make a connection,” Wischusen said. “All of that leads to [students] doing better.”
So when Bill Wischusen greets his 717 students at the door three times a week, it’s because he wants them to succeed.