The University should decrease class sizes and improve student-teacher interaction, faculty and staff said during an open forum Wednesday.

The forum was the first held for the Student Learning Initiative, started by the University to enhance curriculum and learning.

“We are teaching the old method of we give a fact and students regurgitate that fact,” said John Pickering, associate professor in the School of Ecology. “Jobs in the future are not asking students to regurgitate info.”

Pickering said students should be given more creativity to do what they want in lecture classes. He said he has major concerns with first-year graduate students teaching undergraduates.

“It’s like a ‘blind leading the blind’ kind of thing,” he said. “Especially when they just learned from other grads.”

Jill Severn, head of access and outreach at the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, proposed a teacher-student interaction via social networking sites.

“I’m interested in affinity-based groups. I’m interested in civic-based groups and so are other students,” Severn said. “I think we should think about ways so that [teachers and students] can interact outside of the classroom.”

Severn said there should be social networking mechanisms the University can use to encourage student-teacher interaction based on interests.

Other concerns faculty had were about class sizes and how that affects student-teacher interaction.

“Class sizes in the last 20 years are huge … it deteriorates the quality of student interaction,” said Barney Whitman, department head of the School of Microbiology. “Students are getting poor experiences because of no interactions with teachers.”

Rodney Mauricio, chair of the Student Learning Initiative and associate professor of genetics, said more proposals need to come from the campus.

“Ironically at a time of a tight budget, it will be interesting to set goals,” Mauricio said of the initiative. “We should use this opportunity to get the initiative funded.”

Jere Morehead, vice president for instruction, said he thinks it would be best to keep in mind not just the undergraduate portion of the student body but also the campus as a whole.

“It would be helpful when [proposals] are made that they look at direct impact of campus and indirect benefit of campus,” he said.

Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to visit the Student Learning Initiative’s Web site and submit comments or mini proposals of their ideas.

“Not everybody’s proposal will be chosen,” said Frances Teague, a member of the Student Learning Initiative team and an English professor at the University. “The fact that you articulate your problems lets us know where to direct resources.”

The initiative is a part of the Southern Accreditation of Colleges and Schools reaccreditation requirement. The next open forum will be held Monday.