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Task force submits report on undergraduate education at the University of Georgia
Writer: Sharron Hannon, 706/583-0728, shannon@uga.edu
Contacts: Jere Morehead, 706/542-5806, morehead@uga.edu; Del Dunn, 706/583-0690, ddunn@uga.edu
Aug 15, 2005, 09:30
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Athens, Ga. – An internal task force that spent the past academic year conducting a comprehensive examination of undergraduate education at the University of Georgia has completed a report containing more than 40 recommendations aimed at strengthening general education and creating a campus life centered on learning. The report was submitted to Arnett C. Mace Jr., senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, who last fall asked the task force to tackle the project.
“Our general education requirements hadn’t been reviewed for more than a dozen years,” said Mace. “Given our rapidly changing world, I thought it necessary to determine our goals and then modify what we’re doing to fit those goals.”
Led by Vice President for Instruction Del Dunn and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Jere Morehead, the 24-member task force took its charge very seriously – meeting frequently and actively seeking input from students and faculty, as well as academic advisors and deans of UGA’s 15 schools and colleges.
“We spent a lot of time gathering information, reading various reports and looking at what other universities are doing,” said Dunn.
Over the summer, finishing touches were put on the task force report. While some of the recommendations are described as ambitious, most are practical and four have been – or are in the process of being – implemented, including hiring more faculty, creating an Office of Service Learning, reducing the period to drop/add courses at the start of each semester, and instituting a policy to promptly notify parents of students who commit two or more alcohol-related offenses.
Another recommendation – institution of a plus-minus grading system – was previously approved by the University Council, but needs approval from the Board of Regents, which has yet to be obtained.
“In my mind, this is the single most important recommendation in the report,” said Morehead. “It's the one recommendation that needs to be adopted, if we are going to change the culture. With a narrower grading margin, students will have to pay more attention to academic pursuits.”
Other recommendations are aimed at creating a seven-day-a-week university by scheduling more classes on Fridays, encouraging more on-campus weekend activities, and expanding the hours of operation of popular campus venues like the Student Learning Center, the Ramsey Student Center and the libraries.
“The recommendations are thoughtful, not radical, and, if embraced by faculty and students, could dramatically improve undergraduate education on this campus,” said Rodney Mauricio, an associate professor in genetics, who served on the task force and helped draft the report.
Before constructing any recommendations, the task force considered what UGA students should take away from their college experience. “We thought about what our current students need, given that they will have careers that will span to the middle of the 21st century,” said Dunn. “We have to prepare them for a future where the world will be more diverse and more connected globally, with continued rapid advances in science and technology.”
The report emphasizes the need for students to be able to engage in complex thought, analysis and reasoning; communicate effectively in speech and writing; appreciate lifelong learning and community service; and understand the world through study of foreign language and international experience. It also says students should be able to reason quantitatively, learn collaboratively, and appreciate and engage diversity in the university community and the community at large.
Task force members agreed that UGA’s current general education curriculum achieves many of these learning outcomes, but concluded that “finding new ways to capture the imagination of both students and faculty can re-invigorate and enrich the undergraduate experience.”
To that end, the report recommends the development of new, innovative courses that will serve as a central core of a new general education requirement – courses that will emphasize depth rather than breadth, and demonstrate how knowledge is constructed in various areas of inquiry.
The task force felt strongly that today’s UGA students need more challenges. “These days we’re turning away students who would have been admitted 10 years ago,” said Morehead. “We have very bright students and we’re not demanding as much of them as they’re capable of doing.”
Mauricio agrees and recently stepped up the research and writing requirements in the evolutionary biology Honors section he teaches. “Working on the task force was a catalyst for me to be more rigorous and demanding in my own teaching,” he said. “As faculty, we can effect a lot of change on our own.”
One of the findings from the 2003 National Survey of Student Engagement – noted by President Michael F. Adams in his January state of the university address – was that many UGA students don’t study as much as students at other comparable research universities.
“I want the faculty to join me in making sure the rigor of the UGA curriculum and academic process has kept up with the increased quality of the student body over the past several years,” Adams said in that speech, where he also voiced support for several key recommendations of the task force.
“The president and I are really on the same page about this, and about the need to focus on offering a strong liberal arts education at the undergraduate level,” said Mace.
Mace said he is very pleased with the recommendations from the task force. “These will take some time to implement,” he said. “We can’t do this all in one year, but this report won’t sit on a shelf. My sense is that faculty and students who have been involved in this project in one way or another are very excited about the opportunity to enhance the learning environment on our campus.”
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Note to editors: The full report of the Task Force on General Education and Student Learning is online in the “Initiatives” section of the Provost’s Office Web site at www.uga.edu/provost.
See also: http://www.uga.edu/news-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=7&num=2101.
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