Warring in the biology department. Why is this my problem?

Cassandra Frechette

Art Director

Every student at Rhode Island College is familiar with the general academic requirements needed for graduation. Every one of us has stared at that list of courses to pick either the most interesting or the least difficult-sounding of classes. After whittling down the list of required credits over the last five years of my college career, my only remaining course of action was to decide on a natural science for the general education requirement. 

I chose to go with “BIOL 100: Fundamental Concepts of Biology” and its accompanying lab. Much to my chagrin, the lecture and lab portions of the class were each taught by a different professor. BIOL 100, as described by RIC, is a course for students pursuing studies other than the natural sciences. Meaning that non-biology majors are taking this class mainly for the required credits. It is an extremely beginner-friendly course and should have been a breeze. The issue with this course was one I had not foreseen. Instead of being minorly stressed about my grades and the workload, I ended up stressing over a lack of communication between the two different professors who teach the lab and lecture sections of this two-part course. Since this is, in my opinion, a fault of the college's handling of lectures and labs, I will refrain from naming the two faculty members. 

Image by Cassie Frechette

The lecture portion of the course is fast-paced and spent quickly jotting down notes while the lab is slower and more intimate. For the first couple of months, there was a clear separation between the two portions of class, the syllabus laying out certain expectations for both the lab and lecture. But the larger issue lies in scheduling: the lecture takes place twice a week while the lab only occurs once a week, leaving a wide gap in pacing that I found difficult.  

I reached out to the biology department's chair, Dr. Dana Kolibachuk, with questions via email. I asked for insight as to why the lecture and joined lab are taught by different people. In essence, it comes down to a common issue at most schools: being understaffed. Dr. Kolibachuk wrote: “While it would be much better in many ways for students to have the same instructor for the lecture and the laboratory, we simply don’t have enough faculty to make that happen for these larger courses. In contrast, the demand is much smaller for upper-level biology courses, and it is easier to have the same instructor teach both the lecture and laboratory if only 1 or 2 sections are needed.” 

This makes sense and I can understand why the college has it structured this way. The schedule for labs are determined prior to the start of the semester and apply to all sections of the lab, leaving little wiggle room for lab instructors. This is something the class became aware of during the first few classes, and is reiterated in the email from Dr. Kolibachuk who goes on to write “Once the laboratory schedule is determined, this schedule is provided to the lecture instructors so they may use this information to organize their lecture sequence.  Instructors have academic freedom to present the course material in an order they deem appropriate and, unfortunately, this doesn’t always align with the order of the laboratory exercises.”

This academic freedom given to lecture professors eventually caused a speedbump in our education as confusion arose. On the day that the two sections of the course both were scheduled to occur, the lecture professor announced to the class that there had been a change to the syllabus and a new set of unknown assignments that heavily rely on the lab. Given only a couple of hours to process this change with no real understanding of what was expected of us, this assignment derailed the lab. In the next lecture we as a class expressed our confusion and wasted lab time. Discommunication between my two professors would continue to occur. It would seem that RIC’s inability to hire one professor for an adjoined lecture and lab causes trouble between a lab that has limited options on how it carries out lessons and a lecture that has more freedom to dictate content. 

Attempting to make such an involved course with two different professors work is like trying to force the square piece through the circle hole. The lecture and lab are out of sync and not designed to work if there is not succinct communication between the two. After talking with other students, it seems that my class might not be unique in this.

Riley Jackman, a student here at RIC is taking CHEM 105, another course that has separate instructors for the lab and lecture. Jackman was asked if it negatively affects the class in any way, and she responded:  “It's weird for sure and sometimes feels like the lecture and lab are not in sync, but I feel like my professors communicate with each other to make it less confusing. I would prefer to have the same professor for both though.” Jackman also expresses that she feels that she doesn't have as much of an issue with this setup as other students might have. Some students can adjust enough to stay on top of things, but many cannot due to several factors such as other classes, life outside of school and different learning styles.

This issue does not foster a healthy learning environment for its students. Communication does not seem to be encouraged among staff and even when it is, it’s out of sync. The lectures and labs for the largest courses are not crafted to work together and the friction is visible to the students who are stressed out enough trying to pass their classes. I pay to be here and have an education, so why am I fighting to learn? Why is this a problem?