Strategy: Enhance the quality of faculty-student interactions

Point People: Barbara Horwitz and Steven Sheffrin

Narrative Summary of First Year Implementation Efforts:

During 2004-05, our primary activity has been to work with Robert Agee and Helen Paik in the Office of Resource Management and Planning to evaluate student experience with “small classes.” The full study is available at:

http://www.ormp.ucdavis.edu/inform/docs/specialreports/
small_classes_analysis_with_attachments.pdf

In addition, Sheffrin met with a number of representatives of student groups on the campus to assess their interactions with faculty.

Key Findings from Small-Class Study

• Offerings of small classes (fixed unit classes with 30 students or less) differ by division and college. On average, 56% of classes fell in this category.
• Small classes were available in virtually all subject areas.
• Overall, 79% of all students took one or more small classes.
• Opportunities to take small classes in their majors were limited in many of the larger majors on campus.

  Assessing Student Groups

  Sheffrin and other administrators met with representatives of the following groups:

• Nu Rho Chapter of Delta Sigma Pi. This is a national pre-business group sponsored through the Economics Department.
• Phi Beta Kappa. A number of senior administrators, including the Provost and the three deans of Letters and Science, met with Executive Director John Churchill on his Davis visit.
• National Society of Collegiate Scholars. This is a relatively new honors organization for first and second year students. This is an active group and a possible vehicle for future faculty-student interactions.

Short Statement of Plans for 2005-06

We plan to continue to work with ORMP on refining the data and, particularly, taking into account variable unit classes and opportunities for undergraduate research. Many of our large majors offer substantial numbers of variable unit classes, thus, it is important to assess the contribution that this factor makes to student experience.