Professors at top California college forced to radically alter coursework as students struggle to read

Humanities professors at one of California’s most prestigious universities say they are assigning fewer pages, replacing full books with excerpts and rethinking coursework as students increasingly struggle to keep up with reading-heavy classes.The concerns, raised by faculty at University of California, Berkeley, come amid a broader debate across the University of California about whether incoming students are arriving on campus academically prepared for college-level work.Several professors told student newspaper The Daily Californian that reading expectations have steadily declined over the past two decades, prompting some instructors to scale back assignments in order to maintain meaningful classroom discussions.Carlos Noreña, a history professor specializing in ancient history, said the amount of reading he can reasonably assign has fallen dramatically since he joined the Berkeley faculty in 2005.“We are now reaching a crisis point where if the number (of pages) goes down further, it’s unclear to me whether my discipline of history can really be taught,” Noreña said.According to Noreña, upper-division students once received roughly 100 pages of reading each week, with professors expecting them to complete most of the material.For a course he plans to teach this fall, that number will be closer to 35 pages per week.Other professors reported making similar adjustments.

“Part of this is to spare students the cost of purchasing books, but part of it is also acquiescing to my sense of — and complaints about — the amount of reading assigned, though those complaints, curiously, haven’t gone away as I’ve shrunk the number of pages assigned,” Brilliant said.California's top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.

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