Faculty conference explores major changes in undergraduate education
Archived article from Oct 18, 2004
By Carla Cantor
The 275 faculty who attended the New Brunswick Faculty Council’s seventh annual Conference on Undergraduate Teaching this year took on some big, messy and controversial issues, tackling such questions as: What is the philosophical basis of a Rutgers education? What structural changes could be made to improve undergraduates’ access to New Brunswick’s resources? What kind of curriculum will ensure that students’ work is founded on a strong liberal arts education? And what changes will allow faculty to become more engaged in undergraduate education in and beyond their departments?
Martin Gliserman, conference chair and associate professor of English, said that the New Brunswick Faculty Council decided to devote this year’s conference, held Oct. 6 at the Rutgers Student Center, to the preliminary findings of a task force studying all aspects of undergraduate education on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus.
“We wanted to provide a public forum for the issues that the task force has been examining,” Gliserman said. “This year presents a real opportunity for what could be a major change in how we think of and realize undergraduate education at Rutgers because the central administration is behind us.”
Headed by Barry Qualls, dean of humanities, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the task force is part of the Initiative on Undergraduate Learning and Life launched by President Richard L. McCormick and Executive Vice President Philip Furmanski last spring, which is taking a comprehensive review of undergraduate life at Rutgers.
The morning conference sessions were devoted to preliminary reports from the task force’s five working groups: admissions and recruitment; student experience; campus planning and facilities; curriculum; and structure, with the presentations followed by faculty comments and responses.
Martha Cotter, professor of chemistry and chair of the University Senate, reported on several problems uncovered by the admissions and recruitment group, which she co-chairs with Qualls. The four major issues: the marked disparity in admissions standards among various undergraduate colleges in New Brunswick; the growing number of transfer students, particularly at Douglass and Livingston colleges, comprised of 30 and 40 percent transfer students, respectively; the lack of involvement by faculty in recruitment at a policymaking level; and the failure of the New Brunswick campus to communicate a “clear and compelling message about what a research university is” in the university’s recruitment materials.
“Our materials are attractive and glossy, but they smoosh together New Brunswick, Camden and Newark in a mix that does us and them a disservice,” Cotter said. In addition, the undergraduate application is overly simplistic. “I’ve been told that if you don’t do the optional essay, you can complete it in five minutes. A gut application, Cotter said, quoting a student member of the working group, “gives the impression of a gut university.”
Angela O’Donnell, professor in the department of educational psychology and co-chair of the student experience subcommittee with Kathleen Scott, professor of cell biology and neuroscience, discussed faculty advisement, academic support and co-curricular work. O’Donnell said that it is difficult to get faculty involved in advising undergraduates during their freshman and sophomore years, and there is no systematic way for students to find out what majors are available.
“Career services, largely used in the senior year, need to be made available earlier, and there must be more coordination between general advising, the department adviser and counseling services,” O’Donnell said. “There is a detachment on the part of faculty from students’ academic experience, let alone their curricular culture. We need to engage students more fully in their own education.”
The campus planning and facilities subcommittee, co-chaired by Carla Yanni, associate professor of art history, and Haym Hirsh, professor and chair of the computer science department, has been focusing on such issues as classroom size, Internet accessibility and campus character; reviewing Rutgers’ master plan; and studying solutions instituted at universities with similar physicalities. “Rutgers is not the only university that has a river dividing it – there’s Minnesota in Minneapolis-St. Paul,” Hirsch said. The group is looking for ideas from faculty on ways to better connect the campuses (e.g. making bicycling easier) and improve the environments to reflect the university’s values.
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