Writer’s Block: Trading an intimate Oxford education for BU’s huge lectures

At first I thought nothing good could come from a country that didn’t market Nacho Cheese Doritos.

Neither, I thought, should a people who routinely put cream cheese in their sandwiches, drive on the wrong side of the road, subscribe to an archaic — and oftentimes chaotic — form of government, eat beans on toast, frequently use “quite” as an adverb, and stand patiently in “queues” for public transportation rather than simply pushing their way onto the bus, be taken seriously.

Granted, I did crave Doritos, but after a few weeks of schlepping through the cobblestone streets of Oxford last semester, I realized that while the British have yet to master fine dining or discover that both hot and cold water can flow from the same faucet, when it comes to higher education, they’ve got the United States beat worse than an American baseball player on the pitches of Eton.

I was absolutely amazed by the prestige and environment the colleges at Oxford offered. For a semester I traded Mugar’s picked-over stacks for the Bodlian Library, where exclusive copyrights and a no borrowing policy ensure that every book ever printed in the United Kingdom is always on the shelves; I swapped meals in the GSU for black-tie dinners with my professors; and I spent my weekends pub-hopping among the old watering holes of T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis, instead of the streets of Allston and Brighton.

Yet it was not the old buildings, world-class reputation, amazing amenities or low drinking age that impressed me the most about Oxford. What impressed me the most were the sheer numbers.

Oxford and Cambridge have even the most impressive American universities beaten when it comes to numerics. That is, while the ideal learning situation in America may be classes with 15 to 30 students, in England, anything more than three or four students is considered excessive.

Instead of lectures and big group discussions, British universities rely on small groups — often one-on-one or two-on-one situations — where maybe once or twice a week, a student will present a paper and discuss relevant independent research with his or her professor.

And after spending a semester enjoying Oxford’s small classes and weekly tutorials, it seemed ridiculous to me when I read President Silber’s plan to fire professors and increase class sizes.

With BU’s endowment losing more than 37 percent of its value in the last two years, our president has started sharpening his proverbial butcher’s knife for some much-needed university “fat trimming.” Silber estimates that the University budget stands to take a $25 million cut, with much of the savings coming from the 450 lay-offs he plans to make — layoffs that will reduce faculty inefficiency, increase class size and eliminate “excess.”

But is this our fault? Why are we bearing the brunt of the cuts simply because Boston University has made some bad investments over the past two years? Our tuition is paid with the guarantee BU made us as prospective students — a guarantee that included a commitment to small class sizes.

Has Silber even contemplated the repercussions of what he’s doing?

First, has he realized that Boston University might be the first university to ever publicly announce its intentions to inflate class sizes? With every other university scrambling to promise smaller and smaller classes to prospective students, won’t this affect BU negatively when applications are due in the spring? And what about college rankings? Silber, who prides himself on raising the academic caliber of Boston University 20 years ago, is a massive hypocrite in now jeopardizing the rankings he once so stridently fought for.

Second, has President Silber ever sat in the balcony of the Tsai Auditorium or in the back of COM 101 and attempted to pay attention? I doubt it. From firsthand experience, I know how hard it is trying to listen to a professor speaking a quarter of a football field away. Albeit, large lectures are a necessary evil of college, but shouldn’t BU be advocating to offer less, not more of them?

And third, shouldn’t some classes be inherently small? Five hundred-level classes — especially in the humanities — hinge upon intricate discussions of readings. For example, I’ve just started a 500 level editing class in the Editorial Institute, which requires significant close reading, attention to detail and individual work with the professor — and I doubt the class would be equally beneficial if class size weren’t limited.

Silber has undoubtedly heard the critics — but despite the lack of support from students and faculty, he is confident that increasing class sizes will increase University revenue while not compromising academic quality.

If Silber isn’t listening to anyone but himself, it seems to me that our newly, reinstated president does not only fail to take into account the interests of the community he represents, but also seems to have started off his term like a raving, press-hungry lunatic who will say anything — however offensive — to make front page news. In addition to announcing an increase in class sizes, he’s made insidious remarks about women in the pages of The Boston Globe, verbally chastised professors, disbanded the Gay-Straight Alliance at Boston Academy, and embraced discrimination in Friday’s lecture to the University Professors Program.

And with our tuition being spent to support the whims of a madman, who is hell-bent on dragging the reputation of Boston University with him — class sizes and all — my only advice to you underclassmen is to get out. Pack some Doritos and study abroad.