The School of Communications has restricted enrollment in all five majors and dropped the mass communications minor because an unexpected volume of students has strained the schools resources, said Brian Winston, dean of the school.

While students will be able to remain or enroll in the school, acceptance into a major will depend upon their academic record for the last three semesters.

"We have too many students," Winston said. "It's not a matter of simply adding another teacher. The school has to provide computer labs."

The minor is expected to be restored by 1991 at the latest, Winston said, but enrollment restrictions within majors will turn into a permanent set of controls in the school. "There was not one empty seat in a 400-level class last semester," he said. "And the numbers are getting worse."

Although the School has doubled its facilities since it was created in 1986 as an independent body within the College of Liberal Arts, it has lagged behind student demands, he added.

The numbers of freshman and sophomores in the school have steadily increased from 300 to 700 in 1986, reaching 1100 in 1988, Winston said. "We were planning for this kind of growth in the 1990s."

The optimum number of students in a discussion class is 18, in a lecture class, 50, said R. Thomas Berner, professor-in-charge of journalism.

"Pressure has caused scheduling extra sections in journalism. We have resisted enlarging the classes because we don't want the quality to go down," Berner said. Entry-level classes for journalism, advertising and film are creating a bottleneck, Winston said. He said there was no way to foresee the enrollment increase.

"We have no clear explanation," Winston said. Nationally there has been a real growth spurt in journalism, he added.

The problem resulted from a lack of long-range planning on the University's part, Berner said.

Students have felt the space and resources crunch in the school, which offers degrees in advertising, broadcast/cable, film and video, journalism and mass communications.

Nanci Bednarski, advertising representative to the school's student council said, "It's hard to get classes. Some students are forced to wait until their final semester to take required classes and then have large credit loads."

"Transfer students who have completed all their Baccalaureate Degree Requirements are stuck," she added.

Chris Raimo, the school's student faculty senator, said he was unaware of the restriction but has noticed difficulty getting classes.

Both Bednarski and Raimo agreed the restrictions are tough but necessary.

The school is planning some "catch-up" renovations and additions to the faculty to accommodate the current level of enrollment.

"We have not been planning to expand. To continue to expand would jeopardize the quality of instruction," Winston said. "We could easily be the biggest but we don't want to be."

The school has a good pool of faculty candidates for journalism, Berner said, adding that two are women. Faculty candidate interviews begin this week and hiring occurs in August, Berner said.

Renovations to Carnegie Building, where the school is housed, are scheduled for summer 1989. They include expanding the second floor -- which currently is limited to rectangular perimeter of offices -- to add about 2,000 square feet, said Jim Dungan, director of office facilities information and management. The new second floor will provide space for offices and classrooms.

The first floor, where The Daily Collegian is currently located, will contain a cinema and film editing labs. Dungan could not give a cost estimate. "It's still in the design stage," he said.