Tufts offers popular Constitution class only three times since 2006 to maintain ‘balanced’ department,
Class previously offered in 2006 and 2012.
Lecturer: class has waiting list, has been popular "every time it has been offered."
Tufts University has only offered its “Constitutional Law” class three times in the past eight years — despite the fact that it is “popular and highly sought after by students,” according to The Tuft’s Daily, the official campus newspaper.
Students rushed to enroll in the “rare” course this semester — the first time it has been offered since 2012 — but there was not enough room to accommodate everyone.
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“We capped the class at 40 students and there is a waiting list,” Teresa Walsh, the lecturer teaching the class, told the Daily.
“Next week is the drop date, and I see no indication that anyone is dropping it,” she continued.
Before 2012, the class was last offered in 2006.
Walsh said the class has been popular every time it has been offered, but that student demand was not the only factor driving course offerings.
“I think that certainly student demand is a major part of that, but I also think they want a balanced department,” Walsh said.
Department of Political Science Chair Malik Mufti echoed the sentiment.
“We ... try to make sure that our offerings each year are a combination of courses that meet the curricular needs of political science majors and courses that reflect the areas of specialization of our individual faculty members,” he said.
“The objective is to provide students with as rich and comprehensive a repertoire of political science courses as possible,” he added.
However, in an interview with Campus Reform, Walsh said the school is "seriously considering" offering the course again next semester.
The class covers the “development and application of American constitutional law as interpreted in the leading decisions of the Supreme Court,” according to the course description on the college website.
“Included are citizenship, the commerce power, due process of law, and the equal protection of the laws. Recent trends in constitutional doctrine,” the description concludes.
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