Strategy: Ensure that the campus maintains and develops high caliber courses, curricula, and academic programs.

Point People: Jeffery Gibeling, Fred Wood, and Harold Levine

Narrative Summary of Second Year Implementation Efforts – Undergraduate:

The undergraduate curriculum is under the purview of the colleges, the Committee on Courses of Instruction and the Undergraduate Council of the Academic Senate. This past year these groups made significant progress in streamlining the review processes to allow the faculty to more readily update and enhance the curriculum. In addition, our efforts this year continue to be driven by recommendations from the 2003 Chancellor’s Fall Conference on the Strategic Vision. The groups charged with “learning” agreed that efforts be undertaken to improve student writing. Further, we also pursued increasing departmental/programmatic commitment to honors programs and we began discussions about a new campus-wide honors program. Finally, in keeping with recommendations from the WASC external evaluation team, we earnestly began discussions on improving undergraduate program review procedures and enhancements to the General Education program.

Narrative Summary of Second Year Implementation Efforts – Graduate:

The Graduate Council has formal responsibility for assessing the quality of graduate courses, curricula and programs. It has well-established procedures for review of new activities in these areas as well as for periodic review of each graduate program. These program reviews occur on regular cycles every 7-8 years on average. To strengthen the program review process, Graduate Council will examine review criteria to include greater reliance on outcomes. In concert with this activity, the Office of Graduate Studies has proposed developing measures of program quality to use in determining graduate student support block grant allocations.

During the past year, the Graduate Council revisited the issue of small graduate programs. Council agreed that from an academic perspective, it is important to ensure a viable cohort of students participate in coursework upon entry into the program. From a resources perspective, it is important that the campus devote financial resources, administrative attention, and faculty time to programs that offer the greatest opportunity to advance campus goals. Graduate Council adopted a policy that, when the entering cohort of a program averages fewer then 4 students per year, the program will be asked to pay special attention in its program review to justifying its quality, use of limited resources, and a comparison of its size with that of the national competition.

The Office of Graduate Studies continues to work with faculty to support new graduate program development and to update existing programs to ensure that curricula are responsive to emerging areas of scholarship. Areas such as computational science and engineering, plant sciences, mathematical biology, bioinfomatics and environmental sciences will require special attention as the campus organizational structure evolves and the academic emphases in these areas change.

Advances and Ongoing Programs Consistent With Strategy – Undergraduate:

• University Writing Program (UWP) was launched this year with joint oversight from the Office of the Vice Provost-Undergraduate Studies and the Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies Dean’s Office
• UWP engages in new collaborations with GE Writing, Writing Workshops for Faculty, TRC collaborations, and a Writing Minor
• Began national search for UWP director and established Clark Kerr Presidential Chair
• New track within the International Studies major – Peoples and Nationalities; to address time to degree issues and to accommodate a quarter abroad, upper division requirement is reduced by 3 courses and students can apply for EAP courses toward the upper-division requirement
• New Science and Technology Studies as a multidisciplinary major
• New AB in Design offered Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies
• Modifications to the Biological Science Curriculum being undertaken via extramural grant initiatives (e.g., NIH funded Roadmap – Preparing Undergraduates for Interdisciplinary Research), and NSF proposed - Collaborative Learning at the Interface of Math and Biology
• Established two Presidential Chairs for 2004-06: 1) Transnational Production and Consumption of Dress and Fashion which involves a conference, developing interdisciplinary courses, and capstone seminar and research; 2) Integrated River and Stream Ecology and Geomorphology which involves a new capstone course, pre-course learning, student led discussions
• Streamlined review process created for both courses and majors

Advances and Ongoing Programs Consistent with Strategy – Graduate:

• Systemwide approval of new M.A.S. degree in Clinical Research.
• Systemwide approval of new Ph.D. program in Animal Biology, which builds on the M.S. program formerly named Animal Science. This new doctoral program is characterized by a very flexible curriculum.
• Systemwide approval of a new joint Ed.D. in educational leadership with Cal State Sacramento and Sonoma State Universities.
• Campus approval of a new joint doctoral program (Ph.D.) in Criminal Justice Sciences with California State University, Fresno.
• Graduate Council upheld suspension of admissions in two master’s programs pending assurance that program quality will meet campus standards. Council recommended re-opening admissions to a master’s program that had previously been suspended.
• Graduate Council developed and approved a new statement of educational objectives for graduate education.
• Graduate Council developed new guidelines for the Doctoral Qualifying Examination in order to ensure greater consistency.
• Continued discussion to move graduate courses on professionalism, communication, ethics, scientific integrity, etc. to a common designation under Graduate Studies.
• Graduate Studies began development of a Responsible Conduct of Research workshop series for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, to be offered in 2005-06.
• Graduate Studies co-sponsoring, with the Office of Research, the Laboratory Management Institute workshop for postdoctoral scholars.
• Graduate Studies continues to fully support program review activities of Graduate Council, including dedicating staff time to this process, involving the Dean and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and supporting expenses of external reviewers.
• Graduate Council and Graduate Studies’ deans continued conversation on program quality measures that could be incorporated in the graduate program block grant allocation formula.

Short Statement of Plans for 2005-2006 -- Undergraduate:

• Appoint new Presidential Chairs in Undergraduate Education
• Continue implementation of UWP proposal and appoint new Director
• Focus on securing external funds to support UWP enhancements
• Focus on securing external scholarship dollars
• Foster further program review discussions
• Continue discussions on a new Davis Honors Program
• Continue discussions on enhancements in the General Education Program

Short Statement of Plans for 2005-06 -- Graduate:

• Dean of Graduate Studies and Chair of Graduate Council to form a joint task force to develop on academic planning for graduate education.
• Continue discussion with Program Review Committee (PRC) of Graduate Council regarding appropriate program outcomes to be included in program review process. Design database and provide access to programs and PRC.
• Continue planning for National Research Council study of research doctorates. Ensure that appropriate campus data systems and adequate staffing are available to provide high quality and accurate campus response.
• Graduate Studies to continue to work with individual faculty, Graduate Council, and Committee on Courses of Instruction to identify courses that can be offered under the common Graduate Studies designation to ensure broad availability across disciplines.
• Graduate Council and Committee on Courses of Instruction to continue discussions of ways to simplify and streamline course approval process to ensure that courses remain current.
• Graduate Studies to continue to support faculty efforts to develop new graduate programs and designated emphases.

Evaluation of Metrics:

• Evidence of educational effectiveness, including results from the periodic assessment of instructional programs in relation to program and campus educational objectives for students.
  

  Clearly, more needs to be done to encourage departments to establish educational objectives for their students. At present, there is some faculty resistance. Discussions with Student Affairs Research and Information have begun to determine the relevant information they may be able to provide. Assessment is a key component of the UWP proposal. The Academic Senate General Education Committee worked on educational objectives for GE courses. In addition, assisting departments with their efforts to track alumni will be critical.
  
  At the graduate level, this metric is best assessed through the on-going Graduate Council program review process. This process provides a uniform assessment methodology across all disciplines, and includes external reviews of all programs offering terminal degrees. While the Council already has a list of published standards against which program quality can be assessed, http://gradstudies.ucdavis.edu/gradcouncil/gcevalpriorit.pdf, it is also working to develop a statement of educational objectives that will provide additional measures of quality.

• Increase in departmental/programmatic commitment to honors programs.
  
  The Integrated Studies program expanded from 69 to 114 students in academic year 2004-2005. Faculty participation increased accordingly.

• Growth in the number of UC Davis students who enroll in prestigious graduate and professional school programs.
  
  During academic year 2004-2005, the campus needs to improve its ability to calculate these figures. At present, we have no organized system of determining how many students pursue graduate education.

• Provision of the highest-quality graduate curriculum responsive to emerging areas of scholarship.
  
  This metric is best assessed through the program review process conducted by the Graduate Council. Additional external assessments, such as the upcoming National Research Council (NRC) survey of research doctorates, will provide external validation of the quality of our graduate programs. In addition, the NRC taxonomy provides a tool to assess the responsiveness of our graduate curricula to emerging areas of scholarship across the nation. The Office of Graduate Studies must ensure that the data from surveys of this type are broadly available as part of the DataDigest.