UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

ACADEMIC PLANNING COUNCIL

Bulletin #55

February 8, 2002

1. Progress Toward Achieving Our Enrollment Plan

Assistant Vice President Sandra Smith brought members of the Academic Planning Council up to date on the extent to which the University is achieving its long-term enrollment plan and described implementation strategies for accommodating growth in enrollments. In 1999, the University projected a need to accommodate, by 2010, approximately 218,000 FTE (including summer enrollments). In the last two years, the Department of Finance Demographic Unit has been projecting increasing numbers of California public high school graduates. In addition, the proportion of those graduates who are attending UC is rising as well, most recently due to the addition of students made eligible through the Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) program. These two factors together are creating greater enrollment growth than the original projections indicated. However, after UC enrollments peak early in the next decade, they are expected to level off or decline slightly, following a similar projected decline in high school graduates.

AVP Smith also described progress in meeting goals of enrolling more transfer students and more graduate students. The University’s Partnership Agreement with the Governor sets a goal of 15,300 transfers by 2005-06. Following several years of decline or slow growth, it appears from fall 2002 data that transfer enrollments are nearly on track to meeting this goal. Similarly, graduate enrollments have fallen below planned enrollments for several years, but there were significant increases in fall 2002.

While the primary means for the University to accommodate this projected growth is expansion of the existing campuses, several additional approaches, including ways that help campuses stay within Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) agreements, are currently underway. The State provided full funding for summer instruction at Berkeley, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara in the 2001-02 budget. The Governor’s Budget for 2002-03 includes funding for summer instruction at Davis, and funds that will expand the fee buydown at the campuses not yet receiving full State funding. UC has plans to reach 24,000 FTE in the summer by 2010. As another method of accommodating students without creating significant new on-campus impacts, the Education Abroad Program is on course to double its enrollment by 2010. The Santa Cruz campus continues to plan for its off-campus program in the Silicon Valley. The Merced campus is scheduled to open in 2004. And, where necessary, campuses are revising their LRDPs so that physical plans are adequate for accommodating projected levels of students.

UC is expected to demonstrate to the State that academic quality in the summer is equivalent to the regular academic year. A specific APC suggestion was made to look carefully at how State-funded summer instruction affects the role and activities of graduate students.

2. Health Sciences Enrollment Planning

Vice President Michael Drake informed the APC of the many planning efforts underway related to planning for health sciences enrollments. The first study to be completed discusses the need for more UC-educated nurses to meet California’s nursing shortage. Factors contributing to the shortage include the state’s growing population, an aging nursing workforce and insufficient capacity in the nursing educational system due to a shortage of faculty. Most nursing degrees provided in California come from the Community Colleges and CSU. UC educates the majority of the state’s doctorally prepared nurses and many of the masters-level and advance practice nurses, but has not offered a baccalaureate program since 1995. There is growing demand in California for both baccalaureate and advanced degree nurses.

The report recommends that UC again provide a baccalaureate nursing program (UCLA has proposed re-establishment of its program) and expand graduate programs that will prepare increased numbers of new faculty, advanced practice nurses and masters-level nurses. The most significant issue related to an overall proposed increase of 354 students is the cost of training, which is significantly more than the marginal cost of instruction provides for.

Vice President Drake indicated that the Health Sciences Committee will move forward with studies for the remaining schools before presenting an overall plan for expanding or changing the focus of health sciences programs.

3. UC Consortium for Language Learning and Teaching

Dr. Robert Blake, Director of the UC Consortium for Language Learning and Teaching (currently located at the Davis campus), described the role, progress and future plans of the one-and-a-half year old Consortium. The idea for the Consortium grew in part out of discussions in the middle 1990s with the Council of Vice Chancellors, Deans who were looking for academic efficiencies, as well as ways to preserve small but important programs in a time of budget constraints, and language faculty who wished to create a consortium similar to the Ivy league language consortium located at Yale University. In this context, the Academic Planning Council encouraged development of a proposal by campus language faculty to create a universitywide mechanism to address broad issues related to language learning and teaching, particularly across campuses.

Dr. Blake described a variety of activities related to the Consortium’s four areas of responsibility: curricular planning, professional development, research and outreach. To assist in curricular planning, they have created website access to an enrollment database– http://uccllt.ucdavis.edu/Stats/searchstats.cfm --which shows for the first time patterns and trends in language enrollment at each campus. A snapshot of language enrollments will be posted for each fall quarter beginning with year 2000. In order to share research findings, the Consortium is sponsoring the first UC conference related to language learning, focusing on theoretical and pedagogical perspectives. More conferences are planned for the future, with the intent of including not only regular rank faculty but lecturers as well. The Consortium also recently sponsored a professional development institute on the use of technology, and will sponsor others related to heritage learners, integration of culture into the classroom, and less commonly taught languages. As it becomes more established, the Consortium will develop programs related to its outreach responsibilities.

The Consortium is participating in the development of a proposal for a distance-learning degree in Arabic, an approach that could also be used for other languages. Distance learning benefits students, particularly those at smaller campuses or in the Education Abroad Program, who otherwise might not have access to instruction in some languages. By offering language study to a larger group of students, distance technology also contributes to continuing the life of the language itself. There are few models yet for a successful distance-learning program, but one idea would be to have “itinerant TAs” who would visit a different campus each month to meet with students in order to supplement the multimedia on-line language materials.

In response to questions raised by members of the APC about cross-campus language instruction, Dr. Blake noted that Senate Regulation 544 is only partially helpful in creating a structure that permits participation in distance-learning programs such as those being considered by the Consortium. He was invited to assemble a list of items in SR544 that require attention in order for cross-campus, distance-learning technology in the languages to be successful.

4. Facilitating Year Round Instruction

In light of a recent request from the Berkeley campus to the Academic Council to reduce its number of instructional days in order to align its summer program more closely with other institutions, the APC discussed two calendar issues raised by year-round instruction: quarters vs. semesters and the number of instructional days. Several members noted their preference for the semester system in part because of the extra time it allows students for reflection and for preparing more written work. Others argued for the academic advantages of a quarter system that expands a student’s opportunities to take different classes. The desirability of a uniform system across campuses was also mentioned as a worthwhile long-term goal, particularly if cross-campus enrollments increase during the summer or through the use of distance-learning technology.

The APC members discussed the implications of Berkeley’s proposal to reduce the number of instructional days. The proposal achieves the desirable goal of enabling cross-campus summer enrollment and of enabling enrollment by Berkeley students in summer EAP programs, both of which are not now possible. While acknowledging that the notion of “instructional days” may be somewhat archaic, members did stress the importance of preserving the number of instructional hours--both in terms of faculty workload and student learning and credit--no matter what the number of days. There was no recommendation that campuses change from their current quarter or semester system.

5. Planning for Professional Schools

The APC agreed that the final draft of principles for planning of professional schools, reflecting earlier input (http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc54.html) was now ready for distribution to the Academic Council and others for discussion.