Nearly one-quarter of the courses listed in the new course catalog will not be offered over the next four terms.
Of 1,678 courses listed in the Organization, Regulations and Courses bulletin, a count by The Dartmouth revealed that 417 will not be taught between now and next fall. Of these, 203 courses are not scheduled through Spring term 1995.
The number of unoffered courses, up slightly from last year, has angered students who feel the course book gives a misleading impression of the range of courses actually available to Dartmouth students.
In past years, the Student Assembly has asked the College to remove unoffered courses from the ORC.
Administrators yesterday said that the faculty's Committee on Instruction, which must approve all listings in the bulletin, had been working in response to the Assembly's request. The administrators said they did not understand why the number of unoffered courses had gone up.
College Registrar Thomas Bickel, whose office together with the Dean of Faculty office is responsible for the ORC, said he was surprised by the high percentage of courses not being offered.
"I would have thought it would go down," Bickel said, "because there has been an effort by the faculty committees to get departments to take courses out of the book if they don't plan to offer them ever."
Bickel said individual academic departments are responsible for removing courses from the catalog. But only two of 14 department chairs contacted last night said they knew how to have unoffered courses pulled from the ORC.
Bickel said departments should list courses they plan to offer them within about three years. "We're not trying to get them to take courses out if they think they're going to offer them but just not in the next two years," he said.
Bickel said he supports "a real effort to reduce the size of this book over the next three years."
The College's quarter sytem enrollment pattern also reduces students chances to take courses offered on a limited basis.
"Some courses not being offered puts unnecessary restrictions on the students," Matt Garabedian '96 said. He said the problem is compounded by the D-Plan because students are often off-campus when a specific course is offered.
Dean of Faculty James Wright said the number of courses taught at the College each year is about 1,200 and this number has not changed.
"The Committee on Instruction has been working for the last couple of years on cleaning up some of the listings," Wright said. "I am surprised if, after that effort, the number is up."
"There are always more courses in the book than can be taught," he added.
Economics Professor William Fischel, who is a member Committee on Instruction, also said he was unaware of the high percentage of courses not offered.
"It sure seems high," he said. "If it's true, it's bad."
Professors questioned about course offerings said budget restrictions, professors' irregular D-plans and retirement influence which courses a department can offer.
Geology Professor Gary Johnson, who chairs the instruction committee, said "there are many, many reasons for the 25 percent figure." He said he was "not alarmed."
Johnson said it is not the Committee on Instruction's responsibility to "delete courses from the catalog -- our mandate is to approve them."
In the new ORC, the number of courses listed rose from 1,619 last year to 1,678. The number of courses not offered over four terms rose from 382 to 417, an increase of 1.3 percent.
Environmental Studies Professor Ross Virginia attributed the accumulation of courses to a reluctance among professors to go through a complicated process to reinstate a course.
Physics Department Chair Joseph Harris said he would not remove a course from the booklet unless the course was "never" going to be offered again.
Reporter Jay Bruce '96 contributed to this article.
