College is a constant change of students, classes and professors. As professors leave or retire, departments become smaller, just as the history department has at Blackburn College. Now with only one history professor and one adjunct professor, the number of history classes being offered is too much for the department to bear. The only solution is to start cutting classes.
History majors and minors shouldn’t fret; the classes they need for their programs will still be available, but instead of multiple choices of which class to take that semester, options will be limited. Instead of there being multiple 300-level classes to choose from, there may be only one or two. This will be dependant on the number of majors incoming to the program and currently in the history program. The general education classes will still be offered during the semesters as normal, but the higher level course will most likely be cut down to a more manageable size. This is due to the small class sizes that have been seen in recent semesters. One class may only have four students for each higher level class, and those numbers will be more manageable if the number of classes was cut down to increase the number of students in each class.
As classes are cut, some of the remaining classes may be combined, depending on the course material, to better fit the requirements of a history major. Instead of having two different classes focusing on the same time period from different areas, they may be combined to ease the number of classes taught. That is just one way the classes may be cut at this point in time. No permanent changes have been made yet.
The number of history majors has increased in the last few years and hopefully will continue to rise, but until then, the new cuts and classes will fix the overwhelming amount of classes. If the number of history majors increases, then maybe more classes could be offered in the future, but until then this is the only solution for the department.