As
will be clear from our specific recommendations, the NBFC supports a
large
majority of the recommendations of the report of the Task Force on
Undergraduate Education. We believe that the Task Force Report gives a
thorough
analysis of many of the strengths and weaknesses of the undergraduate
educational and administrative structure, services and programs on the
STRUCTURE AND
FACILITIES
S1. We
strongly support
the creation of a single
The
college fellows system has failed to attract all but a few dedicated
volunteers
and the remaining faculty in those disciplines that offer majors
through the
arts and sciences colleges (Douglass, Livingston, Rutgers, and
University
Colleges) have no responsibility and, unless they volunteer to become
college
fellows, no opportunity to participate in the normal faculty
responsibilities
of setting academic standards, admissions policies, scholastic standing
requirements, honors curricula, graduation requirements, and degree
certifications in those colleges. Also, the individual graduation and
other
academic requirements vary from college to college sufficiently so that
most
faculty seem to have given up trying to understand the resulting
complicated
system well enough to participate in advising of undergraduate
students, or
even to become aware of undergraduate academic issues on the campus.
S2. We
propose the
continuation and enhancement of the role of the residential and
commuter
colleges (or campuses) [Busch, Cook, Douglass, Livingston, Queens, and
University], their deans, and decanal staffs in providing local
programs and
services such as local delivery of pre-major academic advising,
co-curricular
activities, academic learning communities, student-life programming,
and
intercollege (or intercampus) intramural sports, under the direction
and
coordination of the Executive Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Vice
President for
Undergraduate
Education, and the Vice President for
Student Affairs.
The
undergraduate colleges on the New Brunswick/Piscataway Campus do offer
and have
historically offered many advantages for undergraduate students in this
large,
comprehensive, and complex research university. Once here,
undergraduate
students, at least in the smaller residential colleges, generally seem
to
identify with and find a home at their respective colleges. The
colleges
provide many opportunities for small coherent groups, leadership
positions, and
personalized attention from staff members that enhance the quality of
the
educational experience. A critical issue is the provision of
appropriate
budgets for carrying out these programs, a portion of which now come
from such
areas as gifts and donations and revenues generated in the student
centers.
Nevertheless,
it is critical that advising policies and procedures, as well as
co-curricular
and student-life programs be coordinated and equitably implemented
throughout the
New Brunswick/ Piscataway Campus; this must be done by the Executive
Dean of
Arts and Sciences, the Vice President for Undergraduate Education, and
the Vice
President for Student Affairs.
S3. In
opposition to the
Task force recommendations, we recommend that the proposed new arts and
sciences academic unit be called the "Rutgers School of Arts and
Sciences" and that the successors to the current arts and sciences
colleges be called "residential colleges," with the exception of
University College, which should retain its present name.
We
believe that the name "Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences" is
consistent with the terminology elsewhere on the Campus, where
"schools"
are the undergraduate, degree-granting units, and introducing "college"
here would lead to some confusion. Further, since there is a "
S4. We
recommend that
the academic authority for undergraduate academic affairs for arts and
sciences
students, such as admissions criteria, general education requirements,
scholastic standing, honors curricula, and degree certification be
vested
within the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences in a faculty body, to be
known
as the "Undergraduate Academic Assembly", to consist of the faculty
of the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences plus those faculty from
professional
disciplines offering undergraduate majors and minors to students in the
Rutgers
School of Arts and Sciences.
This
recommendation is identical to that in the Task Force Report, except
that we
believe that a suitable name is needed for the undergraduate arts and
sciences
governing faculty body.
S5. We
recommend that
the residential colleges and University College should have the ability
to add
voluntary academic certificate programs leading to recognition (in
addition to
the diploma from the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences or from one of
the
professional schools), with the approval of the Undergraduate Assembly
of the
Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences (or the faculty body of the
appropriate
professional school). All residential
college programs and courses should be open to all qualified
undergraduate
students and no student should be required to take an academic course
or
program only because of where he or she lives. Appropriate budgets for
these
programs should be provided.
However, we
recommend
that
College-based
programs such as the
Rutgers
has a national reputation for the excellence of its Women and Gender
Studies
Program and its women’s centers and institutes, for leadership and
academic
support programs for women, for hiring and nurturing female faculty and
staff
members, and for faculty activism on national and international women’s
issues,
as well as for having the only college for women within a major public
research
university. Removing the option of obtaining a woman-centered education
within
S6. We
endorse the
recommendation of the Task Force Report that the residential college
deans
report to the Vice President for Undergraduate Education and that the
Executive
Dean of Arts and Sciences and the Vice President for Undergraduate
Education
report to the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. In addition, we propose that the
Undergraduate Academic Council of Deans of the Schools and
While
there was not full consensus on this issue, the majority of NBFC
members think
that the residential college deans should report to the Vice President
for
Undergraduate Education, as proposed by the Task Force, rather than to
the
Executive Dean of Arts and Sciences, as proposed by the NBFC Budget and
Planning Committee and by almost all of the alternative proposals to
the Task
Force Report. The major reasons for this
recommendation are, first, the fact that the residential college deans
will
provide or coordinate student services, student-life programs, and
learning
communities for professional school as well as arts and sciences
students and,
second, the belief that the residential college deans should report to
the
administrator whose sole mandate is the support and enhancement of
undergraduate education in New Brunswick/Piscataway.
At the same time, a number of Council members
have concerns about the lack of a formal connection between the Dean of
Arts
and Sciences and the residential college deans in the proposed
structure;
namely, that in the absence of such a connection, it will be difficult
for the
School of Arts and Sciences to direct and coordinate pre-major advising
for
arts and sciences students campus-wide and arts and sciences faculty
members will
have little incentive to take part in pre-major student advising,
learning
communities, or other co-curricular or student-life programs or
activities
organized by the residential college deans.
S7. We
recommend that
the Vice President for Student Affairs report to the Executive Vice
President
for Academic Affairs to ensure that the needs of graduate students in
such
areas as housing, facilities, career services, and student services are
met,
and not neglected or reduced, in the new administrative structure and
efforts
to enhance undergraduate education.
The
Vice President for Student Affairs needs to attend to the affairs of
and
services for graduate as well as undergraduate students, in order to
assure the
continued success of our graduate programs.
S8. We
endorse the third
option of the Task Force Report for the organization of the School of
Agriculture
and Environmental Sciences (or other name to be determined) and Cook
College;
namely,
·
that the
School will
decide which of its majors are professional majors and which are arts
and
sciences majors; students interested in its professional majors will be
admitted to the School in the first year, while students interested in
the
School’s arts and sciences majors will be admitted to the Rutgers
School of
Arts and Sciences in the first year and then admitted to the arts and
sciences
majors of the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at the
time they
declare the major.
·
that Cook
College should
separately become one of the residential colleges, but give priority in
housing
to students majoring in one of the disciplines offered by the School of
Agriculture
and Environmental Sciences and its faculty.
In
other words, we recommend that the School, as a professional school,
admit its
own professional students, and its faculty determine the academic
requirements
and policies for majors in those disciplines that are determined to be
professional. Such majors would be available only to students of the
professional school. In addition, the present Cook faculty would
determine
which of the majors offered by their disciplines are to be considered
arts and
science majors, and hence available only to students in the Rutgers
School of
Arts and Sciences, and subject to its academic requirements and
policies. In
addition, we recommend that an easy procedure be set up for arts and
sciences
students to transfer to the
S9. We
strongly endorse
the recommendations of the Campus Planning and Facilities section of
the Task
Force Report for involvement of the university community in decision
making
regarding campus planning and for the creation of structures to
guarantee this
involvement. We find the remaining recommendations of this section of
the Task
Force Report well considered and endorse them as well.
The
recommendation for faculty involvement in campus planning is in accord
with the
importance that the New Brunswick Faculty Council attaches to collegial
decision making and has the full support of the Council.
Further, the Council believes that, in
pursuing this goal, the University administration should draw on the
existing
representative structure of the New Brunswick Faculty Council in
constituting
the implementation committee(s).
ADMISSIONS
AND
RECRUITMENT
AR1. We
support common
admission standards for all traditional-age arts and sciences
applicants, appropriately
modified for transfer, EOF, and non-traditional students.
AR2. We
propose that the
criteria used in admission decisions should be sufficiently flexible to
maintain the diversity of the student body and not exclude talented
applicants
whose potential is not adequately measured by standard test scores.
The
standards for separate admissions to Cook, Douglass, Livingston,
Rutgers, and
University Colleges have, over the years, gotten seriously out of
balance,
which the faculty view as damaging, unstable, and misrepresentative
since the
same faculty teach the students in all of these colleges. It is
essential that
we ensure the attraction of an excellent body of students prepared to
use the
resources of a major research university, while maintaining the
diversity of
students that has been a hallmark of
AR3. We
recommend a
single admissions process for all arts and sciences applicants, in
which all
admit-coming applicants will be assigned to a residential college or
campus
based upon a combination of their preferences and the desire to have a
strong
student body as well as a reasonable mix of students at each
residential
college or campus. We recommend that the specific procedure for doing
this be
developed by the
We
believe that there needs to be not only a single admissions standard,
but also
a single admissions process which admits student into the
AR4. In order
to
eliminate the harmful confusion resulting from the present, internally
competitive recruitment process, we recommend that general New
Brunswick
recruitment materials, print and electronic, be redesigned so that they
primarily stress the outstanding opportunities that all undergraduates
enjoy at
Rutgers, including the high-quality faculty and academic programs,
research
opportunities, core curriculum, choice of majors and minors,
learning/living
communities, honors programs, internship and externship programs, and
campus
diversity, as well as the more intimate and supporting residential and
commuter
communities within the New Brunswick/Piscataway Campus.
We recognize and support, however, the need for
some professional schools to continue to do their own targeted
recruiting.
As
the Task Force Report notes, the Constituency Research Project Report
made it
clear that
AR5. We
propose that a
new task force be appointed to consider comprehensively the many issues
regarding the recruitment, admission, needs, and support of
non-traditional and
transfer students.
We
support many of the specific Task Force recommendations regarding
transfer
students, such as having a uniform, transparent set of admission
standards and
policies, improving orientation, academic support, and advising in the
first
semester at
AR6. We
strongly support
the Task Force recommendation for the University to develop a
comprehensive
plan to recruit and enroll more high-achieving, out-of-state students,
particularly those from US states outside the Northeast.
We
need to increase the current very low geographic diversity of our
undergraduate
student body, and expose our students to cultures beyond
AR7. We
strongly support
the Task Force recommendations that faculty members should play a major
collaborative role with the administration in establishing
undergraduate
admissions policies, standards, and enrollment goals at the unit and
campus
levels. There should be active faculty admissions committees for the
Faculty
members need to be much more involved in the undergraduate admissions
and
recruitment process, particularly at the policy-making level, but also,
where
appropriate, at the implementation level.
SE1. We
strongly support
the proposal that there be a single, coordinated set of undergraduate
academic
and student-life policies, guidelines, and implementations across the
New
Brunswick/Piscataway Campus.
The
confusion and red tape in and among the various colleges due to
different
policies, guidelines, and requirements in such areas as the formation
of
student clubs and organizations, use of student centers and
recreational
facilities, allocation of student fees, reservation of facilities for
events,
job descriptions and pay scales for student-life staff, implementation
of
academic integrity policies, and general academic advising are harmful
and a substantial
part of what has become known as the "Rutgers screw." In particular,
it is critical that there be centralized policies on pre-major advising.
SE2. We
recommend that
the student centers and recreation facilities should be coordinated and
managed
by the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs. There should
be local
campus-center and recreation-center management teams at each center,
but there
should be a single online system for student center facilities
throughout the
Campus, which could be accessed from any center, so that students and
organizations do not have to run around to the various campuses to
reserve
facilities.
The
bureaucracy and hassles associated with access by student groups and
organizations to center facilities has been a major complaint from many
quarters.
C1. We
support the
formation of a single general honors program for all colleges and
schools on
the New Brunswick/Piscataway Campus, with appropriate variation in
requirements
to meet the needs of the various professional schools as well as of the
School
or
C2. There
should be a
core curriculum for the
The
creation of a New Brunswick-wide core curriculum would help define the
high
value of a
PP1. We
propose a
substantial increase in the numbers of full-time tenure-track faculty
and of
TAs, a corresponding decrease in the number of large lecture classes,
and the
provision of meaningful incentives for faculty to become more involved
with
undergraduate teaching, advising, curricular development, both within
and
outside their disciplines, research projects, and co-curricular
activities
outside the classroom.
PP2. The
The
Council plans to consider this spring semester the specific
recommendations proposed
by the Personnel Policy Committee to enhance faculty participation in
all
aspects of undergraduate education.
PP3. We
recognize the
critical role that TAs and GAs play in discussion and laboratory
sections of
our undergraduate courses, in allowing for smaller class sizes, and in
working
with undergraduate students in their research projects in our
laboratories and
elsewhere, and urge an increase in the numbers of TAs and GAs to help
enhance
our undergraduate programs.
PP4. We
recognize the
contributions of part-time lecturers and annual faculty appointees and
call for
a meaningful set of rewards and incentives specifically for their
contribution
to undergraduate education.
Many
of our undergraduate classes are taught by part-time lecturers or
annual
faculty appointees, who are dedicated teachers on whom we rely, but
seldom
recognize. We need to develop appropriate incentives and rewards to
encourage
and recognize their excellent contributions to undergraduate education.