APC Bulletin #57

1. Introductions

Provost and Senior Vice President King welcomed new APC members Lawrence Pitts, incoming vice-chair of the Academic Council and Richard Church, incoming chair of CCGA. Remaining new members will join the APC at its first fall meeting.

2. Update on the Master Plan

The Academic Planning Council reviewed recommendations affecting the University of California in the recently released draft Master Plan Report. Todd Greenspan of the Office of the President, Academic Initiatives, described the process that led to the draft report, which included the development of recommendations from seven workgroups convened to represent both K-12 and higher education interests. The staff of the Joint Legislative Committee for the Master Plan incorporated some of those recommendations, and added several additional ones. Following a period of extensive public comment, the Committee will present its revised report for legislative action.

Of most significance to UC, the report reaffirms the 1960 Master Plan (and subsequent revisions) as a successful and valid framework for structuring public higher education in California. It reinforces the importance of providing transfer opportunities, and sets high expectations for student performance in K-12 to pursue a college preparatory curriculum. For the most part, UC participants were successful in conveying the University’s unique interests in the development of the draft report.

Compared to previous Master Plan revisions, the biggest change of the present Master Plan report is the incorporation of K-12 into what the framers hope will be a seamless K-16+ educational continuum. In so doing, many of the recommendations assume that what are reasonable expectations for K-12 in terms of content standards, assessment and accountability must also be reasonable and applicable to higher education. Several APC members expressed their dissatisfaction with this assumption because it disregards the differences in mission and consequent differences in expectations of faculty work and student educational focus. Other APC concerns addressed recommendations on funding UC and the segments by educational level, establishing ratios of full-time to part-time faculty, and specifying the details of admissions policy in the area of comprehensive review and eliminating credit for high school honors courses. APC members were concerned that, as written, these recommendations could encroach on constitutional autonomy and faculty prerogative. There was also a general concern expressed that while the document covers important issues of access, cost, and quality, it does not speak strongly enough about ensuring excellence in both higher education and K-12.

The University is planning to provide an official response prior to a July 2 legislative hearing. The full report, with additional background information, can be found at http://www.ucop.edu/acadinit/mastplan/current.htm.

3. Faculty Instructional Activities

Assistant Vice Presidents Sandra Smith and Jerry Kissler made a presentation to the APC about the interrelated topics of faculty recruitment during rapid and large enrollment growth, the academic choices we make in that context, and the relationship of those choices to financial resources. Choices that campuses make in the hiring process include the proportion of full vs. assistant professors and the proportion of ladder vs. non-ladder hires, which have impacts on the educational experience. Annual reports allow the University to monitor trends, identify issues and provide convincing and sustained evidence to The Regents and the State that our students are receiving the highest quality education. It will be particularly important to do so during this time of growth so that the University’s funding can be ensured.

The APC discussed various aspects of the recruitment challenge: the pros and cons of hiring more junior faculty, the contribution to research made by hiring senior faculty, the advantages and disadvantages of hiring a higher proportion of temporary faculty during growth years, the consequences of high salaries and start up costs for new hires. They recommended that the Office of the President staff work with campuses directly to develop recruitment plans because the growth issues are unique at each campus.

The APC will continue to discuss this complex and challenging issue at future meetings.

4. Removing Barriers to Intercampus Language Instruction via Distance Learning

The Language Learning and Teaching Consortium informed the APC at an earlier meeting (http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc55.html) about its efforts to expand the availability of language courses—particularly the less-commonly taught languages—to students at all UC campuses through distance learning techniques. The APC asked the Consortium to identify ways in which Senate Regulation 544 might be preventing the development of these cross-campus courses.

Julie Gordon of the Office of the President, Academic Initiatives, reported back to the APC that further investigation concluded that SR 544 is adequate for moving forward with providing distance learning courses of less-commonly taught languages. However, the biggest challenge is gaining campus approval of the courses, primarily because of faculty concerns about the validity of distance instruction, particularly for the teaching of languages. The Consortium is now directing its efforts to creating guidelines to help campus committees evaluate course approvals. APC members suggested that a database or history of prior reviews and approvals would help committees learn from other campus’s discussions of the same issues.

5. Subject A

Earlier in the academic year (http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc53.html) the APC referred to the Academic Council for further consideration its desire for greater clarity about the University's goals for Subject A and whether the current exam and process are meeting those goals. Preliminary APC discussion related to the desire for improvements in the timing of the exam in order to help students make use of expanded summer instruction to meet the requirement. There was also a request for discussion about the larger educational goals and whether the Subject A requirement achieves them. The Academic Council referred the issue to UCEP, UCOPE, and BOARS.

As of this APC meeting the Academic Council had not received the final report from its committees, so the Council’s response is not yet known. However, UCEP Chair David Dooley reported that the committee’s recommendations would include suggestions for coordinating with the new admissions writing tests being developed by both the SAT and ACT, particularly for use as diagnostic and placement tools; consideration of “exit examinations” upon undergraduate graduation; and identification of successful practices for improving student writing.