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Executive Council Meeting: 11/29/2004

November 29, 2004, 4:00 pm., UW2 327

Present: Kevin Laverty, Jim Miller, Clark Olson, Bill Seaburg, Jane Van Galen and Linda Watts

Guests: Tom Bellamy, Arnie Berger, Susan Franzosa, Cinnamon Hillyard, Sarah Leadley and Carol Zander

Kevin outlined the issues summarizing the Executive Council's feedback and suggestion to planning for lower division at UWB:

Learning community/ "university college" as a 1 or 2 year element? Freshman experience or a lower division experience?

EC Discussion

• Can we make both the learning community and a traditional freshman experience work?
• Students will come in as freshman from high school and other non-traditional students will be coming in - older students, with more life experience - we need to consider the populations we will be serving.
• Learning communities that incorporate a freshman cohort will provide intellectual grounding for traditional and non-traditional students.
• Both student populations could benefit from a cohort, that could be designed with core courses.
• Where does co-enrollment fit into this? The interdisciplinary courses could serve these students.
• The pilot co-enrollment/co-admission program has a different time-line and must be looked at separately.
• Learning communities will allow UWB to offer a freshman experience that is not offered at UWS
• In structuring the learning communities, how tight is too tight and no longer a viable marketing strategy?
• Will the freshman learning communities go into the sophomore year?
• A continuum of core courses could go through the first and second years.
• Regarding curriculum - will an interdisciplinary course satisfy requirements for Business or CSS?
• The core courses could act as a locus for assessment.
• There are recruitment and retention implications of the curriculum offered.

Lower division program structure and faculty assignments.

EC Discussion

• Small core of permanent faculty that cycle through a 3 year term and cycle out - a rotation from each program will work best for a lower division program structure.
• Levels of affiliation can create different status levels among faculty and not serve the campus.
• A rotation model will not formalize a division among faculty and will create the continuity and ownership we are seeking.
• A creative administrative structure in the departments will be needed.
• A core group of all programs would encourage interdisciplinary teaching in curricular planning and reflect the signature strength of the campus.
• Lower division should not be integrated with IAS or a unit within IAS.
• The lower division program should be a separate entity at least during the growth phase, with a mechanism from existing departments having oversight of this entity.

Issue of scale.

EC Discussion

• The Regents have asked for accelerated growth of lower division, how do we meet this call for ramping up our planning without sacrificing quality?
• At this time our planning parameters do not have faculty assigned to lower division, this is a concern.
• Can we run learning communities without tenured faculty?
• Institution building has impacted the quality of our lives, we must make sure that aggressive lower division does no harm or impacts the quality of our teaching.
• How fast can we grow, when do we say stop?
• What we put in place now to project and handle growth will determine our future.
• We should set a schedule for growth with milestones to measure and assess our objectives, if we are not meeting our objectives - stop - our assumptions are not valid.
• We should have a tolerance for delivery at a certain scale - how can we do that and maintain the quality of education we want at UWB?
• What should be the trigger points for review of curriculum and structure? We need to build these into the work of the Task Force.
• We cannot overload faculty - faculty searches will take time.
• With all the programs involved in lower division, who will own the courses?
• Aggressive growth obstacles:
  • State funding too low
  • Co-location prevents growth
  • No dorms for freshmen
  • Structure of our majors - specialized group of students

The work of the Task Force will determine the detailed planning parameters and provide oversight of lower division. The report of the EC will go to the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, the Academic Council and the Chancellor's Cabinet.

The next EC meeting will be Monday, December 6, 2004.

Minutes submitted by Barbara Van Sant