APC Bulletin #58

1. Introductions

At the first Academic Planning Council meeting of academic year 2002-03, Provost and Senior Vice President Jud King welcomed several new APC members: David Ashley, Executive Vice Chancellor, Merced; Andrew Grosovsky, chair of UCEP; Matthew Kaczmarek, undergraduate student representative; Barry Klein, Vice Chancellor for Research, Davis; Duncan Lindsey, Division Chair, Los Angeles; Richard Price, chair of UCPB; and Katherine Vo, graduate student representative.

2. Enrollment Planning

Assistant Vice President Sandra Smith described the various factors that are causing enrollments to exceed the planning projections the University has been using since 1999. These factors include higher numbers of high school graduates than projected, of whom a higher percentage are choosing to attend UC, success in reaching the Partnership Agreement transfer target (itself higher than the level planned for in 1999), and success in increasing graduate students as planned. Campuses will be asked this fall to review a report projecting revised levels of demand by 2010 and to consider growth to 2015. AVP Smith suggested that APC members review the “Enrollment Issues Handbook” (http://www.ucop.edu/planning/enrollmenthandbook2002.pdf) a publication designed to introduce terminology, policies and history necessary for understanding the complexities of an enrollment discussion.

She also described the success campuses have had in increasing summer enrollment, with FTE nearly doubling between summers 2000 and 2002. The largest increases have been at the four fully State-funded campuses (Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara); however, all campuses have experienced significant growth. Important trends to watch are whether students enrolled in the summer are taking fewer units in other terms and how time to degree is affected by summer enrollment. The State has funded summer instruction with the expectation that more students can be accommodated by increasing through-put, making it important to monitor these trends.

Members of the APC expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to review enrollment plans again. As growth accelerates and the State’s budget shortfall brings continued financial uncertainty, campuses will benefit from having this new information as they engage in their long term academic and physical planning.

3. Undergraduate Education: Follow up to the BSA Audit

AVP Smith reviewed briefly the findings of the Legislatively requested Bureau of State Audits (BSA) review of the Governor’s Partnership Agreement with the University, emphasizing in her remarks the portion that related to the audit of annual faculty workload reporting. Responding to Legislative interest in undergraduate education, the University has had a commitment for a decade to increase courses taught by regular rank faculty by a third of a course per year over the amount taught in 1990 and then to maintain that level of workload. UC has met this commitment. The audit, however, discovered that a substantial number of courses taught by regular rank faculty (13 percent) had enrollments of only one or two students. The auditors suggested that some classes of such small size might more properly be classified as independent studies, not primary classes, raising an important question about whether or not the University has lived up to the spirit of the commitment as well as the letter.

The audit report includes the University’s response to the BSA’s recommendations, and requests additional responses at periodic intervals about progress in meeting the recommendations. The President has asked the Chancellors to eliminate concern about the University’s commitment to undergraduate instruction by adding at least 1,000 undergraduate courses taught by regular-rank faculty (including the freshman seminar program). He also called on each Chancellor to create a campuswide Task Force on Undergraduate Education in a Research Context, to define how the campus will improve undergraduate education and increase faculty involvement with undergraduates. He will form, in consultation with the Academic Senate, a Universitywide Task Force on Faculty Instructional Activities to review UC’s workload policies and practices, examine their consistency within disciplines across campuses, compare ours to those at comparable universities, and develop improved ways of measuring and describing faculty instructional activities.

APC members expressed the desire for more useful ways of measuring faculty instructional effort, particularly since relying solely on the measurement unit of a class can lead to misleading conclusions. They noted the usefulness of making a better case about the quality of instruction students are receiving, pointing out as example the very high peer review rankings all UC campuses receive in publications such as US News and World Report. However, members also acknowledged that improvements might be made in how undergraduate instruction is carried out and the APC will follow the progress of campus task force discussions with interest.

4. Undergraduate Education: Subject A

The APC reviewed a summary of discussion and recommendations from Academic Senate committees about the Subject A examination, responding to a request from the APC to address issues raised a year ago by the Undergraduate Deans.

(http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc53.html)

BOARS, UCEP and UCOPE reviewed the exam, concluding that several frequently questioned aspects are actually working as well as possible: that it is adequate to its purpose of placing freshmen, that the timing of its administration could not be changed, and that external technical review of the exam would not be especially useful. The APC focused its discussion on two topics also raised by the Senate committees: concerns that courses students are taking to fulfill the Subject A requirement are not adequately addressing their writing deficiencies, and that too many upper division students write at a level that does not meet University standards--whether they were “Subject A” students or not. APC members discussed the desirability, but considerable difficulty, of carrying out a well-designed, double-blind study of how well the Subject A program is fulfilling its purpose.

Provost and Senior Vice President King will ask the Academic Council to consider how to evaluate which approaches for satisfying Subject A are effective and to consider implementing the recommendation that the name and expressed purpose of the test be changed so that it could be perceived as a general placement exam without the stigma it currently carries. In addition Provost King and Academic Council Chair Binion will send jointly a letter to the Undergraduate Deans, asking them to consider the larger issues of whether we are adequately teaching our undergraduates to write.

5. UC in Sacramento

Vice Provost Julius Zelmanowitz described planning efforts related to the establishment of a UC-wide multi-purpose program in Sacramento, taking advantage of the building the University has recently purchased which currently houses UC’s State Governmental Relations unit and various lessees from State government. It has been proposed that as leases turn over the University should replace some of them with instructional, research and public service programs--including undergraduate internship programs--that link students and faculty to the activities of the State capital. At the Office of the President’s request, Professor Ed Constantini, professor emeritus of political science from UC Davis, interviewed faculty and administrators, and developed a possible instructional and organizational structure for such a center.

APC members were asked to consider whether all the key issues of such a center, modeled in part on the highly popular UCDC program and in part on the organizational and financial structure of the EAP program, had been addressed. While members did not raise any new issues, there was particular support for the opportunity such a program provides for improving relations with Sacramento through the presence of undergraduate interns, graduate students and faculty engaged in research of interest and value to the State.

6. Master Plan Update

Vice Provost Zelmanowitz described the final changes that were made to the Master Plan report, which the APC had discussed at its last meeting http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc57.html). The University’s response to the draft concentrated on a few critical items central to the University’s mission, even though the report included many items of concern. The final report changed the recommendations and supporting text in response to UC’s concerns. However, the final report doubled in length, without any review of the revised text by the stakeholders; the new text contains many of the items of concern to UC even though they had been removed from the recommendations. The relationship of the report to the original Master Plan is not clear; the segments of California higher education appear to be treating it as a set of recommendations to the Legislature, which will become incorporated into legislation in coming years, not as a replacement for the Master Plan. Several APC members expressed their hope that, in the public statement about the report currently being developed, the University will clearly demonstrate continued support for the original Master Plan.

7. Professional School Planning

The APC received from the Academic Council a redrafted version of planning criteria for new professional schools, which the APC had referred to the Council for consideration. The new draft includes a financial template for campuses to use when forwarding proposals for new professional schools. Members acknowledged that the criteria do not address the question of how many schools of any specific discipline may be needed, nor how to decide between competing proposals. However, members who had served on review committees or had prepared proposals expressed their enthusiasm for a standardized process. After a few small changes are incorporated, the final version will be included in the Compendium (Universitywide Review Processes for Academic Programs, Academic Units, and Research Units).