To the Editor:

This alum has been, and continues to be, absolutely opposed to the expansion of Yale College. If the University really cared about the quality of undergraduate education, they would squeeze enrollment in the College back toward 4,000 students. This would bring enrollment back into balance with the current capacity of facilities in the college, both libraries and residential facilities. Facilities which should have been expanded in response to the added enrollment brought about by the addition of female undergraduates. (An unmitigated blessing I might add.)

Don’t believe for a second that Yale University will expand the ranks of faculty to handle the extra enrollment in the college. Administrations since Bart Giamatti’s have been shrinking faculty numbers since 1981, the year graduate students were allowed increased teaching responsibility. Check the numbers for yourselves to prove it. I do not believe that trend will end. As a result, I am convinced that today’s undergraduate does not receive the same caliber of class instruction received by those in classes prior to the mid ’80s. Even the world’s best graduate assistants can’t equal a regular faculty member with 10 years of classroom experience under his belt.

So, the expansion will proceed. In a few years, Yale will be bigger, but not better. Just wait.

Robert Schneider

Feb. 19

The writer received his doctorate from Yale in 1982.