This school year, the University of Oregon welcomed its largest freshman class ever. 5,338 freshmen reflects a 16% increase to freshman enrollment from the previous year, which also had a record-breaking number of freshmen for UO.
The record enrollment rate outsized UO housing and caused a housing shortage early fall term 2022. As a solution, community rooms in dorms were converted into temporary dorm rooms. Unfortunately, the effects of over enrollment haven’t been isolated to the dorms.
The sizable freshman class has already caused large classes to get even bigger, according to Graduate Educator Nahla Bendefaa.
Dining halls are seeing massive lines and waiting times due to chronic understaffing, according to UO student dining worker Alex Goodwin.
UO’s increased enrollment comes at an odd time when college enrollment rates around the country are down, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Oregon is not an exception to the decrease, according to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
UO is one of the few schools in the country that has seen a rise in enrollment rates following the pandemic. In Oregon, overall enrollment at public institutions — two year and four year schools — dropped by 1% this year.
University of Oregon and Oregon State University were the only two Oregon schools to see an increase in full time enrollment according to the HECC.
According to Roger Thompson, Vice President for Student Services and Enrollment Management, each year there are students that accept a spot at the UO that don’t show up. This year, the rate of no shows was much lower than normal.
Despite the problems caused by over enrollment, Thompson sees this year’s enrollment rates as a major success.
“We’re really proud of this year’s entering class,” Thompson said. “This group brings a 3.76 high school GPA; that’s the highest on record ever at the University of Oregon.” He added this is also the most diverse class in school history.
He said his positive outlook on this year’s enrollment is largely impacted by something called the demographic cliff — the idea that college enrollment will drop as national birth rates slow. Thompson hopes this year’s enrollment numbers are a sign that UO can weather any potential storm.
Thompson said he expects UO will have to become more competitive with other schools in order to maintain current enrollment levels.
“I think a lot of universities are trying, including ours, to position ourselves for the demographic cliff when it comes,” Thomson said. “Having nicer facilities to live in, academic facilities, recreation are very important because there will be fewer students from which to choose.”
As the university focuses on preparing for an expected drop in enrollment, students and staff are adjusting to the impacts on campus.
Two weeks before the fall term began, GE and PhD student Nahla Bendefaa found out the cap size for the class she would be teaching, J201, was raised from 200 to 220.
Bendefaa and the other GE for J201 would split the grading down the middle, meaning for her first term as a PhD student Bendefaa would take on grading the work of 110 students, who were mostly first years, according to Bendefaa. She was originally told she’d be responsible for 70 to 80 students.
“Being a PhD student in and of itself is a full time job,” Bendefaa said. “The workload can be anywhere between 20 to 40 hours just for your coursework itself.” On top of the class work graduate students are also expected to be conducting research toward their final thesis.
Many graduate students, like Bendefaa, also take on positions as GEs. They are expected to spend 16 hours a week in class, holding office hours and grading assignments, and that commitment can fluctuate by about four hours week to week, Bendefaa said.
She said the spikes in work are normally during the busiest times of the term. “Whenever we have grading, those are the points in the term when we also have our assignments when we are in coursework,” Bendefaa said. “If I’m grading your finals, I’m working on my finals.”
As grad students are dealing with larger work loads from higher than expected class sizes, UO dining staff is now dealing with serving the largest freshman class in UO history.
Alex Goodwin is a UO senior who has worked in UO dining for four and a half years. He is a fifth year UO Honors College student studying sociology with a minor in race and ethnic studies.
Goodwin has experience working in nearly every part of UO dining, including the former Hamilton dining hall, the dining department offices and the new Unthank dining hall. Goodwin even came back after being part of a massive layoff of dining workers at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Currently Goodwin works at the PNW Public Market dining hall in Unthank. The PNW Public Market has seven dining venues for students. According to Goodwin, Unthank rarely has the staff to open all of them at once.
He said dining has always seemed to be a bit short staffed even when he worked at Hamilton dining before the pandemic: “We were always kind of short, but the differences compared to now it just seems like it was a cakewalk in hindsight.”
While Goodwin said dining workers have often been overworked and lines in Unthank seem longer, there has been one benefit to a large freshman class: more potential employees.
“It’s gotten a bit better. But that’s only because of the people that we’ve been able to get from the freshman class,” Goodwin said. “The only benefit of such a large quantity of new students coming in is that there’s more students to recruit to be workers.”
