[AngryCalStudent]

Doug, don't you feel that you could have told us about this before the first day of classes? Nobody blames you for the budget problems, or for the shortage of TAs. But you're just another person in the long chain of people who have made horrible administrative decisions, culminating in this terrible situation. And on top of that, you certainly came off as extremely cold and unconcerned, both in class and when I spoke to you in person regarding the matter. Trying to look understanding when you are on a public forum doesn't change a thing, and I highly doubt that you can do much to save face at this point -- you've really gone out of your way here to make yourself a villain to the undergraduate community. And there is simply no excuse for waiting until the first day of class to inform us of these circumstances.

[dougtygar]

Hi Angry -- Sorry that I came off as cold. At this point, though, I really do need half or two-thirds of the students to drop this course.

You raise an excellent question about why no notification went out before. Indeed, for the last two months I've been asking the department to change its policies so we can get some more TAs in class. These efforts were still going on Wednesday evening -- the night before the first class (and indeed, they are still going on this morning!)

I also tried to stop the process of allowing so many students to register for the course when we didn't have TA support.

If you'd like to talk about this more, please come see me.