Members Present: All commission members were present except Professors Koshland and Resh.

Summary of Discussion: After the Commission members introduced themselves, the Co-chairs reviewed the commission's charge and goals. The Co-Chairs distributed a handout proposing two ways of organizing the pertinent issues into general categories: thematic and chronological (following the educational career of a typical undergraduate). Thematic categories included advising, transition and entry, enhancing undergraduate intellectual opportunities, and curricular issues.

The Co-Chairs proposed a revised schedule for the committee's work, asking for a one-year commitment (where possible), so that the spring 1999 can be spent exploring relevant issues, the summer can be spent gathering supporting data and information, and the fall 1999 can be devoted to revisiting the issues and writing a final report with recommendations. This document may frame our institutional response to the WASC review scheduled for the year 2000.

A general discussion ensued, covering these among other questions:

• Focussing on the evidence, what can we do to improve undergraduate education?
• Assuming change is driven by incentives, where are resources coming from?
• How might we rethink and modify current programs, capitalizing on our existing strengths?
• Given recent events, does the Commission wish to revisit the Duster Report?
• How might we gather more, and more reliable, assessment data (e.g., exit survey)?
• What is good teaching, and how should we reward it?
• What is the nature of the relationship between undergraduate education and GSIs, and how might this relationship be re-examined as we rebuild the faculty?
• How can we create a sense of wonder, a life-transforming educational experience, for students who are mainly in search of a pre-professional degree?

The Chancellor was able to join the discussion briefly. He asked the group to think in terms of "modest strategic investments." He also suggested that we determine what we don't know but would like to know, find the data that can answer our questions, and make use of that data to craft our recommendations.

Action Items:

• For next meeting, each member of the commission was asked to propose (via the listserve) no more than three issues and/or concerns they would like the Commission to address.

Last updated on 2/17/99 by CS.