In CLAS, courses need to meet minimum enrollments in order to be taught.
The deadline for canceling or adding classes without additional pay for contingent faculty is always 2 weeks prior to the first day of classes each semester. For Spring 2026, the deadline is January 6. Chairs are expected to be available on January 5 to make decisions, per a policy enacted a few years ago.
If you have courses significantly below minimum enrollment—even those taught by rostered faculty—please cancel and adjust assignments now or intensify recruitment efforts. Due to current budget pressures, we must strictly adhere to minimum enrollments for class cancellation this year, even for rostered faculty except in exceptional and rare circumstances.
Minimum Enrollments
- lower division course - 15
- upper division course - 10
- upper division/graduate course (4000/5000 level) - 10
- graduate 1 course (5000 and 6000 level) - 7
- graduate 2 course ( 7000 and 80000 level) - 3
- In the case of team taught courses, minimum enrollments are doubled.
The Decision to Cancel
The Dean's Office will contact Chairs about early course cancellations (for classes with little or no enrollment) about 3‐4 weeks before the term starts. The Dean's Office will consult with Chairs in arriving at final cancellation decisions two weeks before classes begin.
Reassigning Faculty
Tenured and tenure‐track faculty will be reassigned to other courses if their courses are cancelled. The contracts of Instructors, Senior Instructors and Lecturers state that their appointments are "contingent on the required number of enrollments in your tentatively scheduled course(s), availability of funding and the Dean's decision regarding effective use of College resources."
Department chairs may elect to bump Lecturers, senior instructors, and instructors to accommodate tenure/tenure track whose classes have been cancelled. Lecturers may also be bumped from classes to accommodate senior instructors and instructors who have had classes cancelled.
Exceptions
Exceptions to these policies may be granted to undergraduate core curriculum courses, core courses in degree programs, team taught courses in their first three years of being offered, and to tenure track faculty in their first year of teaching contingent on the availability of funding.