Recommitment to Undergraduate Education: Lessons Learned

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• Re-commitment to Undergraduate Education
  Lessons Learned

Rita Kean, Dean of Undergraduate Studies David
Wilson, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic
Affairs
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Some of our efforts

• Transition to the university
• Initiative for Teaching Learning Excellence
• Program assessment
• Faculty development
• Mid-semester checks
• Support for advising
• Gen ed reform

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Scenario

• How do you make a major change that effects the
  entire institution?
• More specifically, how do you take a working, yet
  complex, awkward, varying general education
  program and develop a university general
  education program with the following
  characteristics

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• Simple, elegant
• Transparent
• Assessable
• Transfers across all programs
• Integrated with and reinforced by the majors
• Provides broad exposure
• Helps develop important reasoning, inquiry and
  civic capacities

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Consider

• What are the key ingredients needed for your
  institution to initiate and sustain the change
  process?
• How would you begin the conversation?
• Who would you include in the process?
• What are the likely opportunities and barriers?
  How might you capitalize on the opportunities and
  minimize or address the barriers?

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Key Ingredients for Institutional Change at UNL
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Key Ingredient Leadership

• Administrative
• Faculty
• Staff
• Students
• External Constituencies

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Key Ingredient Vision
Everyone a Learner, Everyone a
Teacher Transition to University Task
Force December 2003
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Vision Strategic Planning

• Academic Strategic Planning at UNL is
• Driven by academic programs
• Strategic in content
• Iterative by design
• Goal To make academic strategic planning
  integral with the ongoing work of the university,
  so that academic units work strategically toward
  excellence in teaching and research.

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Key Ingredient Partnerships
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Key Ingredient Resources

• Human Capital What expertise do you already
  have that you can claim for your effort?
• faculty, administrators, staff, students, alumni

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RESOURCES
Funding
Incentives
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Key Ingredient Focus

• What is the primary goal?
• What are the intended outcomes?
• How can we bring multiple efforts together in
  support of one goal, one overall effort?

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General Education Reform

• Achievement Centered Education
• Based on
• Institutional Objectives
• Student Learning Outcomes, not courses
• Developmental over course of students
  undergraduate experience

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Objective 1. Develop intellectual and
  practical skills

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Example of Student Learning Outcome under
  Objective 1
• Write texts, in various forms, with an identified
  purpose, that respond to specific audience needs,
  incorporate research on existing knowledge, and
  use applicable documentation and appropriate
  conventions of format and structure.

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Objective 2. Build knowledge of diverse
  peoples and cultures

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Example of Student Learning Outcome under
  Objective 2
• Use scientific knowledge of the natural and
  physical world to address problems through
  inquiry, interpretation, analysis, and the making
  of inferences from data, to determine whether
  conclusions or solutions are reasonable.

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Objective 3. Exercise individual and social
  responsibilities

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Example of Student Learning Outcome under
  Objective 3
• Explain ethical principles, civics, and
  stewardship, and their importance to society.

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Objective 4. Integrate adapt(ing)

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Achievement-Centered Education

• Example of Student Learning Outcome under
  Objective 4
• Generate a creative or scholarly product that
  requires broad knowledge, appropriate technical
  proficiency, information collection, synthesis,
  interpretation, presentation, and reflection.

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UNLs Comprehensive Education Program
1997-2008
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What Have We Learned?

• Institutional change
• Requires leadership, vision, resources,
  partnerships, and focus
• Is a messy, developmental process
• Emphasizes continuous improvement
• Necessitates respect for each disciplines
  scholarship and traditions
• Is not always motivated by money

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What might be best practices for initiating
institutional change?