A teacher in the math department at Memorial University says the effect on students will be enormous as the administration prepares for changes to first-year math come September.

Dr. Shannon Sullivan, a teaching associate professor in the department, says the six contractual teachers have been told that five of them will not be back in the fall.

Sullivan told VOCM Open Line that will place more of the teaching burden on faculty, who have many other duties on their plate whereas contractual teacher, who are hired on three-year contracts, are focused solely on teaching.

Not only that, but Dr. Sullivan says the new schedule for first-time math calls for classes at 8:00 in the morning and 5:00 in the afternoon, not exactly desirable times.

“They’re not going to have these experienced instructors in the classroom who know the courses and know the kinds of struggles some students have in making the transition from high school math to university math,” says Sullivan. “And they’ll be put in much larger classes. Right now our classes tend to be between 100 and 120 but the plan now seems for that to go up to 200.”