Provost King welcomed Los Angeles Professor Carol Goldberg-Ambrose to membership
on the Academic Planning Council.
1. Promoting Intercampus Cooperation
a. Intercampus Academic Program Incentive Fund (IAPIF)
APC members endorsed a plan for strategic investment of the $314,000 available to IAPIF for 1996-97. The program
will continue to underwrite competitive grassroots faculty initiatives by allocating $75,000 for such efforts.
The IAPIF Advisory Committee will consider whether the $3,000 limit on these awards is too great a constraint and
a higher maximum should be permitted. The remainder of the fund will be made available for disciplines that are
working with the Council of Vice Chancellors to plan intercampus initiatives; for example, UC historians are generating
intercampus plans, arising from their recent retreat, and a group of physics faculty and deans will meet in July
to discuss cooperative initiatives, confer with their colleagues, and report results for discussion with COVC in
September.
If this approach to strategic investment bears fruit, it will become the basis for allocating the $250,000 available
in 1997-98, the final year of IAPIF funding.
APC members noted that while an early hope was to link stronger with weaker programs, the most successful cooperation
is in fact occurring among programs with similar strengths in complementary areas. Deans play a key role in encouraging
new cooperation, and it is important that all deans be informed that both APC and COVC consider this a high priority.
Two principal goals continue to be encouraging campuses to differentiate their programs and expanding student access
to unique curricular opportunities.
There remain procedural barriers to curricular cooperation: campus course approval requirements, a prohibition
against simultaneous registration on more than one UC campus, etc. UCEP has determined that it is essential for
the divisional Senates to maintain the excellence and coherence of each campus's courses of study; and for undergraduates
to experience an academic community of faculty and peers. Nevertheless, two simple forms to cover the issues cited
above and clarification of certain Senate Regulations would contribute to expanding student access to UC's courses
and faculty. UCEP recommends that this fall, representatives of the divisional committees on courses meet to develop
a common approval form for courses to be offered on more than one campus. In addition, a common form for undergraduate
students wishing to register in a course offered by another campus, analogous to the existing "Application
for Intercampus Exchange Program for Graduate Students," should be developed this fall. Finally, UCEP has
recommended clarifying language for Senate regulations governing simultaneous registration and senior residency.
The Academic Council has endorsed UCEP's recommendations.
APC members recommended creation of a "how to" booklet that demystifies how students can gain access
to courses on other UC campuses.
b. Examples of Other Intercampus Programs
Director John Marcum of UC's Education Abroad Program briefed APC members on the EAP's expanding role in international
education. By conferring academic program status on campus EAP programs two years ago, UC strengthened faculty
oversight and assured on-going academic review. In addition to the traditional "junior year abroad" opportunity,
EAP increasingly carries out specific programmatic goals set by academic departments; for example, two Japanese
universities now offer six-month experiences in engineering for UC students. EAP also facilitates collaborative
projects between foreign universities and UC, and arranges faculty exchanges.
Associate Vice Provost Sandra Weiss presented the Multicampus Research Incentive Fund as another way in which OP
encourages grassroots faculty cooperation. Though the fund is small ($40,000 per year), it has already supported
efforts that have garnered large extramural research grants. OP will continue to assess the success of this program
in seeding new intercampus research collaborations.
c. UC-CSU Joint Graduate Board
Associate Vice Provost Weiss reviewed the history and charge of this sixteen-member Board, composed equally of
UC and CSU faculty and administrative representatives. The Board not only encourages and approves new joint graduate
programs between UC and CSU, it also identifies other ways in which the two systems can work together to strengthen
graduate education in California. The Board has just published a guide for interested faculty that highlights examples
of successful degree and non-degree cooperation between UC and CSU.
2. Instructional Technology
Provost King introduced the following UC activities with the question: how does UC arrive at the best balance of
system and campus initiatives?
a. Following a recommendation from the Digital Library Working Group, UC is establishing a national standard for
locating archival material by creating an on-line digital aid. The pilot will focus on the Bancroft Library's unique
materials in California history. When perfected, the aid will allow scholars to determine via the Internet whether
an archive has research materials that they should visit in person.
b. An All-University Conference on instructional technology is planned for next March 25-26 at the Los Angeles
campus, in conjunction with President Atkinson's inauguration on March 27. Elliot Brownlee and Stuart Lynn will
co-chair the conference.
c. This fall the Western Governors' Association is launching a free-standing degree-granting Virtual University.
The Governor's Office and the Department of Trade and Commerce are discussing with California institutions of higher
education the creation of a California Virtual University (CVU) as an alternative. The concept is that this enterprise
would be based upon offerings from component institutions, with an emphasis on international marketing. The CVU
would, in effect, be a marketing arm, rather than an employer of faculty, generator of courses, or giver of degrees.
d. UC is in the very early stages of considering a special budget request for upgrading its instructional technology
capability.
e. The Committee on Information Networking and Instructional Technology for Academic Purposes (CINITAP) has recommended
that UC create a new task force to advise on the complex policy issues surrounding copyright and ownership of academic
materials on the Internet. Requiring UC's immediate attention is pending federal legislation on encryption of materials
on the Internet that has the potential to limit severely current fair use practices.
3. On-Going Activities
a. Final Report of the Task Force on Foreign Languages in the Curriculum
The APC will transmit the Final Report to the Council of Vice Chancellors to inform their work on intercampus cooperation
with UC's foreign language departments. The Final Report will also be sent to CCGA for information.
b. Reports from Administrative Groups and Senate Committees
Highlighted among the reports was the upcoming July 3 joint meeting of the Council of Vice Chancellors with the
Student Affairs Vice Chancellors to discuss the Education Financing Model. A retreat is being planned for next
fall or winter for the Academic Council and the Councils of Chancellors and Vice Chancellors.
The next APC meeting will be held on July 26 in Oakland and will include both outgoing and incoming members.