The Academic Strategic Planning Committee was convened at the end of Spring 2008, and charged with developing, in collaboration with the campus community, an up-to-date and ambitious Academic Strategic Plan (ASP) to serve as a decision-making guide over the next five years. When completed, the plan should help us focus resources and energy on key issues, provide a solid foundation for our upcoming accreditation visit, and, most importantly, help us build an even more effective university. The Academic Strategic Planning Committee has completed a draft Academic Strategic Plan, and we need your feedback. The plan has six strategic initiatives that were selected based on feedback the committee received through the town hall process last spring semester. For each of these (again based on the feedback we received), the committee has identified a number of goals and example implementation recommendations. Many of them build on work already underway. An abridged outline of the plan is presented in the following pages of this newsletter. You can find a more detailed draft of the plan under the “Interim Reports” heading at http://www.umt.edu/asp/newsletters.html.
We need your feedback to finalize the Academic Strategic Plan. There are several ways you can provide comments. You can send your comments directly to me (carol.brewer@umontana.edu) or to any member of the committee. You also can join the discussion on the ASP blog at http://blog.umt.edu/asp/. Finally you can participate in a town hall meeting we will hold on Thursday, October 1, from 3:00 – 5:00 pm in GBB123.
A strategic plan is only effective if it is based upon the collective thinking of the organization, so I hope each of you will take the time to weigh in. The ASP Committee looks forward to your feedback and we hope to see you at the town hall meeting.
Carol Brewer
Chair, ASP Committee
Ms. Brewer,
I was one of the graduate students who attended the town hall meeting. I wanted to again point out how wonderful it would be if a touch more specificity were included in section related to TAships and funding of graduate students. Why not push to have all doctoral level graduate students receive in state funding or receive a TAship their first year so they can be converted to in state status. That way, if they are not funded though a TAship or if they are funding through outside grants, the cost is more bearable and conducive to a higher level of output?
Additionally, some provision about increasing the number of graduate students at a rate proportional to the number of available assistantships would be an excellent addition. With the number of attempts at quickly ramming policy down graduate students throats in the past few years (three credit minimums and limits on credits that can be taken while funded by a TAship), graduate students are weary of any change related to the funding of graduate education, even if that change is intended to improve the quality of life for graduate students. In the end, some degree of protection in this plan would be a great addition and would perhaps ease tension between the graduate students, the dean of the graduate school and the provost.
Sincerely,
Nick Heck
Psychology
I would like to offer some comments to follow up on some of the criticisms that have surfaced concerning the articulation of Goal 1 under the First Initiative.
1) The proposal for a “College of Discovery” is confusing because it sounds like a new unit within the university that would compete with existing units for scarce resources. In addition, this would seem to overlap with the existing colleges in mission and responsibility. Isn’t it every college’s responsibility to provide a positive experience for Freshman and undergraduates? Does a seperate college or committee really accomplish this? This sounds like a new top-heavy approach to something that could be accomplished within existing structures.
We already have a committee formed that is considering the “undergraduate experience” and making recommendations; we also have ASCRC with the role of approving curriculum — why not reference these existing efforts which are well in keeping with the stated Goal, rather than re-inventing the wheel.
2) The specification that this college would be comprised of “distinguished faculty” seems exclusive and limiting. Good ideas can come from many places — would “distinguished faculty” be likely to include any of the hundreds of adjuncts that currently teach first year classes? Or would an elite group tell these first year instructors what to do? I think it would be much more helpful to take a deliberately inclusive approach to include as many instructors as possible in this effort, from high and low status positions.
For example, it would be amazing to create an ongoing dialogue about curriculum and instructional goals among faculty across campus. I believe this is very do-able and could be moved forward by a series of multi-disciplinary discussion seminars offered each semester for professional development. Faculty members (and students?) could read seminal sources on teaching and learning, both classics and contemporary literature, as well as research from various disiciplines that speak to important issues affecting teaching and learning. This could help participants become more reflective as instructors appraising the success of various teaching techniques, while also facilitating communication between disciplines and recognition of common ground. In the long-term this could help us become more united across campus in a mutual understanding of what constitutes excellence in teaching and what goes into a high quality education in the liberal arts and sciences. Direct conversations would also help address some harmful stereo-types that exist on campus by providing opportunities to build mutual respect among faculty of all ranks and disciplines.
We are our own greatest untapped resource; as a faculty we possess thousands of years of teaching experience — why not benefit from this through mutual sharing and discussion? Such a model of educated dialogue could also set a tone for the entire learning community, diverse in our expertise, but yet joined in the pursuit of knowledge and excellence.
3) With regard to “broadening the undergraduate experience,” it would be helpful to identify and acknowledge the significant progess being made on this through recent revisions to General Education requirements. Since General Education is specifically concerned with the breadth of undergraduate education, this would fit nicely under Strategy (b). This could help address concerns expressed by various faculty members that a “college of discovery” or “big questions” curriculum could somehow limit professional autonomy or undercut policies set by the Faculty Senate
and/or ASCRC.
4) Finally, in the interest of a focus on “big ideas” or “big questions” and the spirit of discovery, I think this is a laudable goal. I would argue, moreover, that what this requires is much less a change in curriculum or a new committee, than a change in pedagogy/adrogogy — in particular, it requires a shift in instructional approach from didactic to dialogic methods. That is, the element of dialogue, or humanistic discourse, is the most essential component of an education that facilitates exploration of ideas and “big questions” in all their complexity. While it certainly helps to focus on good books and good questions, it’s the process by which we consider them that largely affects whether students actively engage with ideas or passively accept what we (or textbooks) tell them. Active engagement is promoted by seminar discussions where students can learn to express themselves, listen carefully, respond meaningfully, make arguments and think critically, as they interpret big ideas like what is knowledge, freedom, truth, beauty, excellence, goodness, justice, service, diversity, community, etc.
One approach would be to propose that students participate annually in an undergraduate seminar that explicitly takes up this goal of advancing consideration of big ideas — whether as a new seminar course (1-2 credits) or through designation of existing seminars). This could be a weekly discussion seminar where students read and discuss a variety of texts (classics, multi-cultural sources, inter-disciplinary selections) that raise or address these big ideas from different theoretical and cultural standpoints. Such seminars could bring a greater cohesion to the undergraduate experience by allowing students to make connections between disciplines, learn to engage in intelligent discussion across diverse disciplines, and develop a deeper understanding of the ideas and values that have shaped civilisation and continue to inform the ideals of a democratic and just society.
Another possibility with great promise would be to combine this vision with the professional development seminar described above to formulate an interdisciplinary faculty-student seminar model that would draw on two or more faculty members, and perhaps also graduate students, to facilitate a vertically integrated inter-disciplinary discussion seminar. This would have the added benefit of allowing undergraduates to have greater access to scholars and advanced students, while still engendering a more cohesive educational experience that enables them to explore the unity of ideas amidst the diversity of expertise and perspectives.
Thank you!