Leslie Williams, assistant to the provost, sent an email Monday Nov. 18 at 4:15 p.m. on behalf of Vernon B. Harper Jr., interim provost and vice president for academic affairs and communications professor at California State University, Bakersfield, giving psychology students an update on the status of new sections for spring semester.

According to the email, four to five upper division classes will be added before the spring semester begins. “Tenure-track” faculty will be added to the department, along with new faculty and additional seats.

Christopher Cisneros, a junior psychology major at CSUB, said he had a difficult time finding classes. Most of the classes were full by the time he had to register and said that other psychology majors were facing a similar issue. This was prior to the email sent out on behalf of the provost.

The email recognized that students started a petition and encouraged students to continue to sign and distribute the petition. Lawrence Salcido, president of Psi Chi, an international honor society in psychology, and vice president of the psychology club, was assigned the task of taking the petition to the provost upon completion.

“I explained the actions that we are taking and explained how I believe the bottleneck in sections evolved,” said the provost about a conversation he had with Lawrence. The explanation as to how the bottleneck happened was not included in the email.

The Runner sent an email to Anne Duran, chair of the psychology department, on Friday, November 15 at 4:46 p.m. asking: when should students expect more sections to open up? What sections will be opening up? Why has it been difficult for students to find classes this semester? Where can the university assist the psychology program? Who can students reach out to if they are having trouble getting into classes?

Anne Duran replied to The Runner stating that she had forwarded the email to interim dean, Tanya Boone-Holladay. The Runner has not received a response from Tanya Boone-Holladay. Some questions The Runner asked were answered in the email from the provost’s office, however we cannot confirm that the email sent on behalf of the provost was a response, or a regular update.