TEACHSOC: SOTL on ideal class sizes?

[Roberts, Keith]

We may not like it, but class sizes can not be discussed outside of budgetary constraints. Harvard U has plenty of money:  it can have smaller classes.  What about other institutions that are not as well financially endowed?     Yes, this is obviously true.  But the question was--what arguments and evidence we can put forth to justify smaller classes.  Universities often claim class size must be larger as a matter of accountability to tax payers or other constituencies.  Yet schools that argue that they are “student-centered” and “teaching oriented” need to be held accountable to that claim as well.  There is more to “accountability” than just financial accountability.  Without ignoring the financial constraints, we still need to hold up another set of values that counter-balance the financial issues.  If we fail to do this, we allow finances to be the only value governing the academy.   Keith