Present: Co-chairs Porter and Padilla, Robert Brentano, Catherine Koshland, Ellen Meltzer, and Ling-Chi Wang,
Staff: Gail Kaufman and Cynthia Schrager

Unable to Attend: Alice Agogino, Barbara Davis, Christina Maslach, Kwong-Loi Shun, Mark Tanouye, Michael Mascuch, Angelica Stacy and Alix Schwartz

VC Padilla reported on the Advising Subcommittee. The members include VC Padilla and Dean Shun from CUE and others on campus invited to provide their expertise. The non-CUE members are: Gregg Thomson, Director of the Office of Student Research; Sheila Humphreys, Academic Coordinator of EECS; Carla Trujillo, Engineering Deans Office; Margaret DiStasi, Director of L & S Undergraduate Advising, and Rosanne Fong from New Student Services.

CUE reviewed the issues being discussed by the subcommittee. This included dialog on:

• Adequacy of orientation sessions and ideas of how to strengthen our advising work with students as soon as they are admitted. One example cited was the need to explore more efficient use of technology.
  
• The importance of declaring a major and the interventions/inducements created to encourage students to declare a major. The relationship between "time to degree" and when you declare a major was brought up and the concern that there is too much emphasis on "getting out" in four years. There were questions raised about whether we should have 3 or 4 unit courses, and that in some schools a powerful motivator to graduate in four years comes from being part of a "class." Another concern discussed was "capped and "impacted" majors and their importance to the advising process in terms of pre-reqs, and how long it takes to graduate given your specific major. Professor Wang said he was concerned that we put so much emphasis in advising on "declaring a major" that we may be losing sight of what it means to get a BA decree, and assisting students to get a liberal education—and that should be the advising role of faculty.
  
• How to create an identity for faculty committed to advising undergraduates. VC Padilla presented the following proposal for consideration by CUE.
  

Chancellor’s Distinguished Faculty Advisor

To create an identity for faculty dedicated to improving undergraduate education and to improve the image of academic advising in a research university, we recommend that the campus set aside $100,000 to provide a $1,000 stipend to 100 faculty members committed to providing excellent academic advising.

Faculty members could be drawn from those who demonstrate an interest in undergraduate education through their involvement with the Freshman Seminar program by connection to specific gateway classes, or other interested faculty. If the faculty member became involved because he/she was teaching a gateway class, increased emphasis on advising could help: 1) build a stronger connection to the discipline and the faculty member; 2) could involve teaching assistants and readers as mentors and role models; and 3) enrich the context, meaning and use of office hours and 4) build a double major advising program/ help students make the connection to the different disciplines they are studying.

In order to be named a Chancellor’s Distinguished Faculty Advisor, faculty members might be asked to:

• Be an academic advisor to a set number of undergraduate students—either in their major, intended majors or undeclared??
• Participate in two to four hours of training
• Help build the climate for improving undergraduate education by the type of advising offered—for example, encouraging students to partake of undergraduate research or co-curricular opportunities.

Purpose is to raise the profile of the importance of faculty advising to undergraduate students in a research university context.

CUE had a lively discussion on this proposal. Some members thought that instead of creating a monetary incentive, we should consider an array of gifts such as tickets to sporting events, small dinners with the Chancellor, library services etc. CUE members thought that the general idea of creating a cohort of faculty interested in advising students on how to get the most out of their time at Berkeley, and not just doing "major" advising is an excellent idea. Many felt that if faculty were providing more general advising, we needed more SAO’s to provide some of the technical aspects of advising. Dean Porter mentioned that there were some faculty who were very creative and talented advisors, who knew courses, faculty members, what courses integrated well with each other etc. and that we needed to figure out how to duplicate what they were able to do for all students. Professor Koshland described the model used by CUSH, where each committee member was responsible for 30-40 students and was to advise these students for the full four years they were at UCB.

CUE agreed that VC Padilla should fine-tune the proposal based on the following points:

• This advising proposal would be targeted at undeclared majors
• That faculty would be advising outside of their departmental affiliation
• That it would include professional school faculty
• Begin with a core group of committed faculty
• Utilize the Freshman Seminar Program and its pilot this semester to integrate advising into the program
• Provide some type of monetary incentive—could be used for books, to create events for students etc.

Catherline Koshland then reported out on the Educational/Academic Enrichment Opportunities Subcommittee. Chair Koshland met with Professor Maslach and Cynthia Schrager to brainstorm what kinds of information was needed by the subcommittee. Questions/issues generated by the subcommittee for future discussion included:

• What are the capstone courses or capstone experiences in majors—what are the opportunities for research in each major.
• Question of "need based" vs. other funding models available in the various undergraduate research programs
• Asking Caroline Kane to come to a subcommittee meeting to talk about her work
• How will the Health Sciences initiative impact undergraduate research or other opportunities for undergraduates/could it stimulate more integrated learning in the sciences—could we encourage more integrated learning in the Humanities and in the Social Sciences?

Dean Porter emphasized the importance of helping students make connections between their majors/minors and giving students an opportunity to creatively design their coursework. She said that the sciences were further along in this work than other disciplines and that we needed to give students examples of how to combine/integrate different types of academic work. The problem is that there is often no room in the curriculum and majors are very demanding, therefore it is easier to just do a "check-list" rather than a more creative/messier process. For example, Dean Porter described an idea where we had a "cluster" of courses in particular areas of study/interest, such as "Vision Studies" that would integrate courses throughout the University that touch on this topic in a broad way (Optometry, Art, Biology, Sociology, etc.). Also indicated that Ellen Meltzer and Angie Stacy were working on a chemistry/library project they held some promise.

Dean Porter closed the meeting by providing copies of the Boyer report to CUE members.

Submitted by Gail Kaufman