Members present: Carolyn Porter, (Co-chair), Alice Agogino, Robert Brentano, Alex Filippenko, Robert Knapp, Cathy Koshland, Robert Middlekauff, Alex Pines, and Mark Tanouye; Staff: Gail Kaufman, Cynthia Schrager, and Alix Schwartz.

Review/Overview of Previous Meetings: Dean Porter summarized the main issues still under consideration by the Commission, which will constitute its focus in fall 1999. The two major issues are enhancing the academic enterprise and improving advising. Also important are housing issues, transfer students, technology, and dealing with the upcoming dramatic increase in the size of the student body. Koshland added that we should also focus on what we want to accomplish-and what we hope the students will accomplish-in each of the four years of a standard undergraduate education at Cal.

1. Improvements to the Academic Enterprise:

Porter and others who attended reported on Richard Light's visit to campus. Light spoke about the Harvard Assessment Seminars. Porter suggested that it would be more instructive for us (at Berkeley) to focus on how the Harvard seminars were conducted and legitimized, as opposed to the findings themselves. The Harvard group worked over a period of three years, and President Bok attended five of the thirty meetings. Small sub-sets of the group formed to address particular issues. Our Commission on Undergraduate Education might profitably be reconstituted as a standing committee, with the goal of effecting changes in policy. Koshland agreed that the Chancellor's participation was enormously important at Harvard, and would be a good idea here, but she suggested we look to Stanford and other more forward-looking universities for our model. Knapp considered the Harvard seminars an administrator's dream: the faculty, not the administration, made the recommendations, while operating on the unspoken rule that they not require much in the way of funding.

Middlekauff's proposal to create a Berkeley College was discussed. Porter opened the discussion by referring to the existing Budget Committee policy on recognition for exceptional teaching (1991). This opportunity has not been widely taken up by the faculty, nor is the option well publicized, largely because some on the faculty feared it would create a two-tiered system. However, Middlekauff's proposal might fare better than the existing policy because the selection process would be rigorous: it would mirror the selection process now followed for promotion decisions. Faculty in Berkeley College might be required to devote all formal (i.e. classroom) teaching time (as opposed to thesis advising) to undergraduates for a specified period. This would enable us to offer more small classes taught by tenured faculty. There was some discussion of the best year to target: Koshland mentioned the Stanford Sophomore College as a possible model; Middlekauff expressed the belief that the freshman year is the most crucial, although the senior year might be a good second choice. All agreed that the courses should be intensive and in-depth. It was also agreed that Berkeley College would not take on proportions that would threaten our preeminence in graduate education.

Pines pointed out that in Chemistry the best faculty members already teach the large lower-division courses. Agogino pointed out that the small class is not the best solution to every teaching situation. Schrager pointed out that many undergraduates have contact with faculty through research apprenticeships. It was agreed that a variety of approaches would work best. We need to target the small classes in the places where they will do the most good. One summer project will be to research how best to use small classes and how to add a more human face to large introductory lecture classes, towards the goal of more faculty-student contact and more integration of teaching and research. Middlekauff urged that we not refine the plan too much, but rather leave it to the discretion of departments to create ideas that work in their disciplines. The details shouldn't come down from above; instead, we need the mandate and approval to teach more, and then we should trust the faculty to make it work in flexible ways.

Porter asked if we would be able to entice the kind of faculty we want, and Brentano replied that it might be the faculty we want who won't need enticement. Visibility is important, and Berkeley College would give us that. Koshland commented that a common freshman experience, which Berkeley now lacks, does not have to mean a common content. We need more cohesion in the first-year experience. Agogino pointed out that Berkeley College would be a community of scholars, which would be an improvement over the laissez faire model proposed in 1991 by Vice Chancellor Heilbron and the Budget Committee. Schrager asked if Berkeley College might be a place where faculty members create linkages among their courses, so that students could study a more integrated curriculum. Kaufman mentioned the University of Oregon as a model: there core courses are used as building blocks for an integrated first year. In Berkeley College, faculty could sit down with students and help them make those connections. Another way to create cohesion might be to create theme semesters, suggested Agogino: Berkeley College could be a place that makes such initiatives possible, because faculty from different disciplines would gather there and create a critical mass.

One summer research project is to write a more detailed proposal, based on the Middlekauff proposal, to submit to the Commission for discussion in the fall.

2. Improvements to Advising

Because time was running out, Porter merely summarized the actions and summer research projects related to advising. Porter volunteered to speak one on one with Chairs to flesh out the quick survey we did this spring, to hear their feedback on the ideas expressed in the Knapp proposal and to flush out other ideas they may have. We will also find out what we can about effective advising initiatives at comparable universities. And Schwartz will pilot an Advising Week in the Freshman Seminar Program this fall.

3. The Future of CUE

The members who cannot continue to serve on CUE in the fall 1999 are Filippenko, Knapp, Middlekauff, and Pines. The new Chair of CEP will be invited to serve in an ex officio capacity. Members agreed that the Commission could be a little larger, and Porter asked for suggestions of faculty whom Vice Chancellor Christ might invite to serve. Filippenko suggested Ellen Meltzer and Barbara Davis be invited to serve.

Several members are in favor of making CUE into a standing committee; Knapp mentioned the model of the now-defunct Council on Undergraduate Education. Members expressed a lack of interest in making the WASC review the goal of their work; Schwartz predicted that staff members would probably end up writing the report for WASC.

Knapp commented that it is most feasible to recommend structural changes that require a minimum of philosophical or ideological consensus. If we nail down the details of any proposal at the outset we risk alienating the people who could help us create and implement change.

Agogino asked that we put the campus' vision for undergraduate education back on the table, and Koshland and Tanouye, among others, agreed that they would like to be involved in articulating such a vision. The Chancellor should also be asked to participate in these discussions.

Last updated on 7/12/99 by CS.