I greatly appreciated the Sun Journal article “Enrollment boom: L-A College has 10 percent more students than last year” (Sept. 29). It is gratifying to see USM-LA featured.

A minor point of clarification might be helpful to readers: Since the featured picture and caption were of a student taking a test online as part of an ITV course, readers might have the mistaken impression that the college primarily functions as an ITV center, comprised of pod rooms where numbers of students gather to passively absorb the output of a screen.

Quite the contrary. Although the availability of ITV courses does enable L-A College to expand its offerings and accessibility to a multitude of students, such courses are but a minority of the courses offered. We pride ourselves on exactly the other facets mentioned in your article: small classes, instructor accessibility and, most importantly, offerings of and for engaged, enthusiastic students and teachers united in a collaborative and active learning environment.

If people came to the campus and walked into one of our classes, they wouldn’t see a bunch of bored students staring at a television screen. Most likely, they would see students divided into small groups and actively engaged in solving relevant problems related to their subject matter.

We afford our students captivating courses taught by impassioned instructors; courses that are relevant to the lives of our students and to their futures. That is why our enrollments are up.

Michelle Vazquez Jacobus, assistant professor, social and behavioral sciences, University of Southern Maine at Lewiston- Auburn College, Lewiston