Report of the Special Academic Programs Committee, Academic Year 2002-2003

 

Historical context.  The committee on Special Academic Programs was created by the Representative Assembly as part of a reconfiguration of the Committee on Educational Policy into the Undergraduate Council (UGC), established at the end of the academic year 2001-2002.  The chair of the Special Academic Programs Committee was asked to sit on the UGC.  The committee was asked to report on the Davis Honors Challenge program (DHC), the Integrated Studies program (IS), and the “Living and Learning” Colleges at La Rue.

 

Scope of our activities.  Activities have included telephone and/or email consultations to determine the scope of the committee charge.  We have consulted Jessica Utts, chair of Committee on Committees; Susan Kaiser; and Joe Kiskis, chair of the Undergraduate Council. The committee chair attended the meetings of the Undergraduate Council and participated in the deliberations and votes on the many issues discussed during the academic year. We had several discussions with Bob Powell who is heading the ongoing program evaluation for Davis Honors Challenge, and we reviewed the 1999 review of the Integrated Studies program chaired by Michael Hoffman.  The committee chair visited Vice Provost Pat Turner.  Vice-Provost Turner  recommended that the most useful task we could perform would be to increase faculty involvement in The Colleges at La Rue.  To that end we set up a meeting with Cheryl Singh, Program Manager at The Colleges. 

 

Recommendations on The Colleges.  Our committee members Rob Zierenberg, Marianne Page, and Wendy Silk reviewed the website and the informative brochure on The Colleges (attached) and then met for several hours with Cheryl Singh at the Community Center at The Colleges.  Please review the “History” supplied by Ms. Singh for details of the unusual and generally supportive relationship between the university (with jurisdiction over the academic program) and Tandem Properties (with jurisdiction over leasing arrangements).  The residential program has been very popular with students since it was instituted in 2001.  Competition to be in the program is intense, and most of the 600 students have been retained in the program for three years.  The program is not open to freshman or transfer students. We were most favorably impressed with the program developed and implemented by Cheryl Singh.  Current themes are “Leadership Development,”  “Global Learning and Foreign Language Enhancement,” “Education in the 21st Century,” and “Davis Honors Challenge.”  Students are required to attend several activities each quarter.  Activities are ad hoc and include films, talks by community leaders and other speakers, and language tables. 

            The residential Colleges at La Rue are clearly an exciting enhancement to the Universities educational mission, but it is apparent that the full potential for enhancing the educational experience for a select group of students has yet to be realized.  While the ultimate goal should include at minimum a faculty director in charge of a modest budget to enhance the educational component of the Colleges, there are steps that can be taken in the interim to build towards a mature residential college. 

            A natural link which should be explored in order to establish closer ties between on campus faculty and the Colleges is to enhance the role of the Education Abroad Program (EAP) with the existing Global Learning and Foreign Language Enhancement Community at the Colleges.  The Steering Committee should explore avenues to encourage more direct involvement of the campus faculty working with EAP in the Colleges.  The Colleges could also designate a proportion of the living units for housing visiting EAP students willing to commit to participating in the Global Learning and Foreign Language Enhancement Community.  This would provide a global perspective to the community, would raise awareness among UCD students of the opportunities available through EAP, enhancing recruitment in that program, and would provide a partial solution to a difficult housing situation faced by visiting foreign students and ease their integration into the Davis campus community.  One avenue for getting faculty involved with EAP in the Colleges would be to provide a housing subsidy to visiting foreign scholar who are interested in living at the Colleges in return for their participation in the Global Learning and Foreign Language Enhancement Community.  A useful model would be to allot housing units to the other College of La Rue Communities (e.g. Education in the 21st Century, Leadership Development, or future communities developed around the environment) that could be used to attract foreign scholars interested in participating in the residential college, thereby providing ties between the communities. 

            We brainstormed with Ms. Singh about ways to regularize faculty involvement.  Some ideas are to encourage departments to offer 192 or 198 courses (internships or group study) at the college, offer “faculty in residence” positions subsidized by the University, encourage emeriti involvement, allow release from departmental teaching for faculty who will offer classes at The Colleges, and increase the themes to include some areas of current interest. We believe a table on environmental issues and a related seminar program would be appealing and valuable at this time.

            Exploring ways to enhance ties to existing communities on campus, such as inviting directors of EAP, Nature and Culture, Environmental and Resource Sciences, the DHC, or perhaps the Graduate School for the Environment to serve on the Steering Committee of the Colleges at La Rue are useful interim steps to strengthen ties between the educational component of the Colleges of La Rue and campus faculty.  However, the program can only reach its full potential with a carefully planned pathway, which requires a faculty director and resources to implement a program.  Extensive participation by campus faculty in educational opportunities at the Colleges will ultimately need to address the issue of teaching credit, as faculty throughout the campus are simply unable to continue to add commitments.  Our committee feels the potential of the residential colleges for enhancing the educational mission of the University, in particular training the leaders for the next generation, justifies allocation of resources to this program, even at a time when budgets are declining and funds will need to be redirected from other programs.  It is beyond our charge to determine from where those fund should be obtained, but we feel the potential warrants the effort to make those difficult decisions.

 

Relationship to DHC.  Bob Powell and his committee have been working actively to evaluate the Davis Honors Challenge Program (DHC).  Their report is planned for the end of summer, 2003.  We note that  this is a time of transition for DHC, as in May  2003 the director Ken Verosub announced his resignation from the program.  Prof. Verosub has created an innovative and much appreciated program.  Now is the time for reflection and possible restructuring.  For instance, this is a good opportunity to implement the suggestions in the 1999 review of Integrated Studies (IS) for better articulation between DHC and IS.  This is also a golden opportunity to increase the commitment of DHC faculty to the program at The Colleges.  Although we prefer to leave detailed evaluation of DHC to the Powell Committee, we do recommend that the new DHC director serve on the faculty steering committee for The Colleges.  Ms. Singh believes that at present the sophomore DHC students don’t always honor their commitment to the program requirements at The Colleges.  We recommend that the new director of DHC be concerned with the thematic content of The Colleges, and insist that the DHC students follow the curriculum required for other residents of The Colleges.

 

Recommendation regarding the status of our committee.  We feel that as presently constituted, our committee should not be a standing committee of the Undergraduate Council.  We do not provide the broad representation appropriate to membership on the UGC.  We recommend that the chair of this committee should be replaced by an at-large member of the UGC so that nonparochial consideration can be given to the many issues confronting the UGC each year.  However, we feel that this is the ideal time to provide faculty leadership and input to the program at The Colleges.  We recommend that our committee be replaced by an ad hoc committee charged with providing such leadership.  The new ad hoc committee could include some or all of the present steering committee and should include a few faculty associated with activities related to current themes and new themes  the College might wish to emphasize.    

 

 

Signed Wendy Silk, Marianne Page, Robert Zierenberg

 

Attachments:  Powerpoint presentation and “History” from C.S., and 1999 review of IS