APC Bulletin #59

1. Task Force on Faculty Instructional Activities Update

Assistant Vice President Sandra Smith described to the Academic Planning Council the purpose of the recently created Task Force on Faculty Instructional Activities and the context in which it is working. http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc58.html. The Task Force responds to issues raised in the recent Bureau of State Audits findings, discussed at the previous APC meeting (http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc58.html) that a significant number of courses taught by regular-rank faculty had only one or two students enrolled. In addition, the serious budget problems being faced by the State raise the issue for some legislators of how to produce more faculty instructional effort without providing more funding (i.e., a deterioration in the student-faculty ratio).

One of the Task Force’s objectives is to articulate a rational systemwide policy on faculty workload that both respects the State’s concerns for appropriate use of State funds for instruction and acknowledges the complexity of faculty effort, across campuses as well as across disciplines. The Task Force is aware that teaching loads play a significant part in recruitment and retention of faculty. AVP Smith indicated that staff are trying to identify instructional workload practices at UC’s comparable institutions, despite a dearth of public data and a reluctance for competitive institutions to share such information.

The Task Force also has the objective of defining more clearly and comprehensively exactly what a faculty workload measure should include. One of the problems raised in the audit was that there is not always a clear distinction between a course with low enrollment and an independent study. Another aspect of measurement to be addressed is the relevance of courses per faculty as compared to credit hours per faculty.

The Task Force intends to produce a draft report by March for discussion with the Academic Senate and campus administrators. It will continue to work throughout the spring to respond to feedback and work out the details of any new policies and definitions. AVP Smith pointed out that campus-based task forces that were also formed in response to the audit’s findings are focusing on what undergraduate education in a research university ought to be, not on overall workload policies or measurement.

APC members added their perspectives on measurement, workload, and academic issues. They pointed out discrepancies in teaching loads that arise between disciplines as well as across campuses, related in part to the level and type of research undertaken. They pointed out that small departments by necessity have low-enrollment graduate classes and large undergraduate classes due to having a small number of TA’s. Members also agreed that independent study is a valuable part of the curriculum and that it is important to convey to others the effort associated with offering individualized instruction.

Several members offered anecdotal corroboration of the competitive aspects of teaching-load packages in the hiring of new faculty. There was acknowledgment, however, that the expectations of instructional effort are different for public university faculty than in private institutions. Members also mentioned that the limited number of medium-sized classrooms places a constraint on offering more mid-sized classes.

2. Health Sciences Report

Vice President Michael Drake reported on two developments in medical education. First, the University has had for a decade a Memorandum of Understanding with the Governor’s office regarding the number and distribution across specialities of medical residents. The MOU was in response to a number of external pressures wanting to reshape the medical profession in California, believing on the one hand that there would be a total oversupply of physicians, and on the other that there was an increasing shortage of primary-care physicians in underserved areas.

As part of the MOU, the University spent eight years cutting specialty programs and adding primary-care training positions; at the same time, campuses were making efforts to reduce the overall number of residents to the level budgeted by the State. For many reasons, the results have not satisfactorily solved the problems the MOU was intended to address. With the recent expiration of the MOU, University deans in cooperation with Health Affairs, external agencies, and others have developed new guidelines for campus planning in graduate medical education (i.e. post-medical school residency training).

The new guidelines distinguish “residents” (those seeking their first certification, such as internal medicine) from “fellows” (those seeking second certification in a subspecialty such as cardiology). The guidelines describe new standards for counting and reporting of residents and fellows, and outline new mechanisms for possible future growth in UC training programs.

The second development described by Vice President Drake concerns “undergraduate” medical education, that is, the M.D. program. The University of California has not increased the number of medical students it trains annually since the early 1980s despite an increase of 10 million Californians. As a result, the state has found it expedient over the years to import physicians from other states to help reduce the shortage.

Growth in California has been differential, with large increases in underserved populations. UC Irvine has proposed a pilot program that would eventually be adopted by each UC medical school—assuming State funding—to train more physicians to meet the needs of underserved patients. The UCI program, designed to run concurrently with the existing curriculum, will train students to serve a Latino population in a culturally competent manner. The five-year program would enable students to increase Spanish fluency so they can comfortably provide care in that language; require academic work in social sciences related to Latino population (e.g., medical economics in California and Mexico, Mexican-American culture and its effect on access to health care); spend part of the third year rotation working with monolingual (Spanish) patients; complete a research project leading to a thesis related to underserved patients; and spend a quarter studying in Mexico or another Latin American country. Students would graduate with an M.D. M.S or an M.D. with thesis.

Vice President Drake is hopeful that this program, once funded by the State for new primary-care faculty positions and new academic positions, will avoid the shortcomings of similar programs undertaken at other institutions in the past. First, it is integrated into the core academic program rather than being peripheral or dependent on soft money. Second, it is intended that students will be able to complete the program debt-free so that they will not be forced into establishing practices in areas that pay well but do not reach underserved populations.

Some APC members questioned whether the additional academic requirements were sufficient to warrant a masters degree. Some also advised that the program, once established, be carefully monitored to see that funds flow to the program appropriately and to make sure the outcomes the program produces are those intended by the initiators.

3. One University One Library: Achievements, Challenges and Opportunities

University Librarian Daniel Greenstein made a presentation to the APC preluding one he will give to The Regents on the achievements made by the university’s library system and the challenges it faces. His primary message was that there are significant advantages to treating the UC library as a single system. For example, as costs escalate and technology improves, one consequence of ten libraries making independent purchasing decisions is to reduce overall faculty and student access to library resources.

Librarian Greenstein pointed out that aggregating the assets of UC’s libraries (31 million volumes) places it well above any other university collection. More importantly, a systemwide approach to collection development provides opportunities for expansion not otherwise possible. For example, by purchasing and sharing digital collections centrally, UC has saved $25 million. Overnight (or same day) interlibrary loan courier service allows campuses to consider making fewer redundant purchases. Campuses are finding that the promise of access to all of UC’s library resources is a powerful tool in recruiting faculty.

Librarian Greenstein described the funding challenges, with the increase in volumes available due to the growth in knowledge and increased cost for those volumes (particularly journals) on the one hand, and library budgets growing at the rate of inflation, if that, on the other. In such an environment, the consequences of campuses continuing to build unnecessarily redundant collections are to decrease overall the number of materials that can be made available to faculty.

There are additional cost challenges related to the way faculty publish their materials through outside publishers. While the issues related to copyright, peer review, and distribution of information are complex, the University faculty have an opportunity to rethink how they publish materials that would make more sense economically.

Librarian Greenstein challenged the faculty to think about its priorities for libraries and where they should put their limited funds—in building redundant collections of low-use materials, or in developing and improving services to locate information in collections. He also challenged them to consider what libraries can or should be in terms of a physical place—as only a repository for material, or increasingly as a space teaching, learning, and social interaction among students, faculty and information professionals. The Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee (SLASIAC), currently preparing a planning document, will be meeting with faculty in the next six to nine months to discuss these issues.

APC members cited several concerns. Several noted their concern about placing limits on browsing by constraining the number of volumes physically present at each campus. There were mixed reactions to the search tools available, with some finding them very helpful, and others not. There were suggestions to work with the American Research Library (ARL) to change the ranking system, which scores institutions on the number of volumes they have, but does not recognize system or consortially held volumes. There were also suggestions for working with the AAU to raise issues facing all universities, particularly in the area of scholarly publishing.

4. Language Consortium Distance Learning Principles

At an earlier meeting (http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc55.html) the APC discussed difficulties the Consortium for Language Learning and Teaching was facing in obtaining campus course approval for using distance-learning technology to teach languages. To help campus committees evaluate course proposals, the Consortium developed a statement providing background information that addresses the question of systemwide student access to instruction in the less commonly taught languages. The statement argues that only through the development of online courses can inequality of access to language instruction be rectified.

The APC considered the proposed statement and members commented on improvements that have been made in distance-learning and other computer-assisted instructional technologies, noting that such technologies are being more widely incorporated in courses. It was suggested that it may be useful to prepare systemwide criteria for issues to address for course proposals that go beyond the normal course approval process, whatever the subject matter.

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