Southeast Missouri State University officials expect little change in enrollment this spring as compared with the number of students enrolled last spring.

"We are staffed to handle approximately the same number of people that we had last spring," said Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast.

"We are not expecting any major change in enrollment up or down. We expect it to be fairly level," he said.

Last spring, there were 8,109 students enrolled, with full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment totaling 6,593.

That was up slightly from the 1990 spring semester headcount of 8,061, Wallhausen said. But the FTE figure for that year was down slightly at 6,585.

Wallhausen said, "We have reduced a number of class sections."

He said the reductions don't reflect a decline in enrollment, but instead budget reductions in the form of cuts in the number of part-time teachers.

In all, the equivalent of three full-time faculty members have been cut from the university payroll, Wallhausen said.

As a result, there will be larger class sizes for some courses this spring, he said.

Wallhausen said that while enrollment is expected to remain steady this spring, there may be a healthy growth in enrollment for the fall semester.

The number of applications for the fall semester are up, he said.

Wallhausen said there is some evidence that "when the economy is in trouble and jobs are not plentiful, that higher education enrollments tend to go up.

"Because if a student can't get a job, he or she may be inclined then to say, `Hey, I have to get an education.'"

University offices opened Monday following a two-week Christmas-New Year's break.

A number of students were back on campus Monday, enrolling for spring semester classes.

Students can enroll all this week as well as next week. "People can still enroll through Friday of the first week of classes," he said.

Spring semester classes begin Monday.

Students will have a break on Jan. 20 as Southeast celebrates the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Although it has been a federal holiday for a number of years and Southeast has previously held programs and events in honor of King, this will be the first time that King's birthday will be celebrated as an official university holiday with all classes canceled for the day.