Her core sections have been "huge, 20 or over," says one student, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Unless you are a really talkative person, you cannot get a word in."

Core teaching fellows say they rarely see a small section.

"18 or 20 is common in the core," says Jonathan Dresner, head TF in Historical Study A-14. "I have never heard of anything smaller than 17."

"I have sections of 23 people," adds Foreign Cultures 14 TF Jonah Blank.

Those numbers contrast markedly with the numbers of students TFs find in most tutorials and department classes.

"History has a goal of eight for tutorials, with an upper limit of 15," says Historical Study A-42 TF Russell Martin.

But in his core class, he had a section of "21 or 22 students" that was so big he divided it in two, he says.

"I voluntarily split up my group," says Martin, who was not paid extra for teaching the additional section. "it isless work to teach."

The problem for core sections is that studentsfrom widely different academic backgrounds arethrown together into the same core class.

Section is supposed to bridge the gaps throughcooperative discussion, but students and teachersagree this is impossible with 20 people or more.

Trey Grayson '94 says his TF in Moral Reasoning22 "tried" to make an overcrowded section work.

"But there were 20 to 25 people in thesection," Grayson says. "When there are that manypeople from all walks of life with all differentlevels of ability, and the section has only anhour, it does not work."

In the core, students say the swollen sectionsare usually either "lecture format" gatheringswith no discussion whatsoever, or situations wherea few knowledgeable students dominate a largenumber of silent ones.

"It was a lot easier for dominant people totake over. Up to 75 percent of the students nevertalked," says Kimberly A. Williams '95 of theearly, overcrowded weeks of her Literature andArts A-24 section. "Easily half the class wouldn'tspeak."

TFs see the same patterns in core sections butsay that with the large size, they are helpless tosolve them.

In his overly-large sections, it is "more likea press conference where you are fieldingquestions," says Historical Study A-12 TF EricThun.