Summary of the Undergraduate Education Workshop

Mission

• To prepare all Rice students to be the leaders of the next century, by providing an education that fosters creativity, critical thinking, and the application of scientific reasoning to individual and societal decisions.

• To prepare our majors for graduate studies and professional careers by challenging them with the important problems in science and technology and providing them with tools with which to address them.

Context

In the Natural Sciences, a significant loss of majors occurs during the first two years, due in part to the size and pace of the courses, lack of faculty/student relationship, absence of required preparation for the course level, advising inadequacies, and the nature of the classes. Beyond our majors, the interest of the broader community of students in science is low, and misconceptions about science abound.

Goals

1. To retain students and generate interest in the Natural Sciences
   • Decrease the number of courses required for students (four courses vs five courses)

   • Develop a program of faculty-student mentoring for freshmen and sophomores that provides personal interactions and has built-in incentives for mentors as well as mechanisms for students to identify mentors (e.g., Web)

   • Provide smaller sections for introductory courses without increasing the faculty teaching load (would require funding for new faculty, use of graduate students as TAs with appropriate training)

   • Establish a high quality summer school program for entering science and engineering majors, perhaps using graduate students as teachers, to ensure entry level of entering students is similar

   • Establish mechanisms in all classes to place science in the historical, social, and cultural context, including coordination among ""big three" instructors to focus on contemporary problems or historically related areas, discussion groups on scientific areas, journal clubs, interdisciplinary courses

   • Provide opportunities for international experiences by establishing study abroad programs that accommodate science students

2. To improve introduction to the Natural Sciences
   • Establish a standing Curriculum Committee for the Natural Sciences that would include both Science and Engineering departments to frame content and sequencing of introductory courses with appropriate rewards for the participating faculty

   • Encourage Departments to relax rigidity in prerequisite material requirements to allow some flexibility in content for the "big three"

   • Establish smaller sections for introductory courses and discussion groups with potential use of recitation sections, well-organized discussion groups (perhaps in the colleges using faculty associates as leaders), and possible use of teaching-only faculty, teaching postdoctoral fellowships, engineering faculty participation, and teaching fellowships

   • Examine the possibility of establishing two tracks for faculty, teaching and research, so that teaching-only faculty would concentrate efforts on effective and innovative teaching; articulate expectations carefully to the faculty [ALTERNATIVE: Emphasize teaching ability and effectiveness in hiring new faculty and provide pedagogy education for faculty]

   • Establish theme-based courses for non-majors in the sciences to generate higher student interest

   • Organize advising in sciences, in particular addressing when and in what order students should undertake the major introductory courses, coordinated with the newly established Curriculum Committee for the Natural Sciences

   • Use Web and other electronic mechanisms more effectively

3. To improve the degree structure and requirements for the Natural Sciences
   • Offer a B.S. degree option in Natural Sciences based on existing requirements with the addition of research as a requirement (to develop scientific thinking and technique)

   • Offer a B.A. degree option in Natural Sciences with a more flexible set of requirements (Two tracks would enhance recruitment, retention, placement, facilitate advising, and encourage interdisciplinary and academic interests.)
     • Create guidelines for BA/BS options through Natural Sciences Curriculum Committee with proposals from each of the Departments, input from students and faculty for eventual transmittal to the University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.
     • Straw vote indicated 27 for and 3 against offering BA/BS option and 24 for and 4 against reducing the hours for BA degree

   • Enhance and encourage undergraduate research participation by better organization and effective communication of mechanisms to identify research opportunities, including summer research opportunities

   • Develop formal interdisciplinary undergraduate degree programs

   • Establish shared courses between science and engineering

4. To improve instruction in the Natural Sciences
   • Enhance our "people" resources for instruction
     • *Expand laboratory/course coordinators to free faculty time,
     • Invite visiting faculty/lecturers who might share information on innovative teaching programs
     • Have more lecturers/instructors who can be involved in teaching
     • Utilize creative local high school teachers to provide resources and information

   • Enhance our facilities for instruction
     • Create more electronic classrooms with both video and computer technology so that Rice has "state-of-the-art" teaching facilities
     • Improve the physical environment of classrooms (blackboards, projection equipment)
     • Better laboratory facilities

   • Enhance and sustain our support structure for instruction
     • *Create a divisional support facilities with Web consultants to facilitate use of electronic media, including computer and video technology, and to provide better and a wider range of equipment
     • Provide teaching workshops and pedagogic instruction
     • Send faculty to conferences on teaching (new ideas, development of techniques)

   • Examine our curricula
     • *Create more flexibility in courses and course requirements, for both majors and non-majors
     • Consider interdisciplinary "capstone" courses at upper levels
     • Emphasize process rather than content
     • Undertake experiments in innovative teaching (e.g., pilot sections in "Big Three")
     • Generate an effective assessment/review process

   • Enhance student support
     • *Provide opportunities for more/better faculty/student communication, e.g., with smaller classes, enhancement of the faculty associate program in the colleges, opportunities for interaction outside classes
     • Establish and use news groups, electronic mail, bulletin boards, etc.
     • *Restructure tutoring with central organization, more effective communication, use of electronic mechanisms ("Dr. Answer")
     • Establish "learning" workshops analogous to workshops for teaching
     • Provide opportunities for internships (both summer and academic year) in industry and in other local institutions (TMC, NASA, etc.)

5. To generate mechanisms for evaluation/assessment of what we are doing and how effectively we are doing it
   • Establish longitudinal studies of all graduates to determine whether changes are required, whether the Admissions process is working, whether course standards are targeted accurately

   • Examine national trends to determine how to we fit (e.g., comparison with COHFE schools)

   • Establish mechanisms for internal faculty evaluations of the undergraduate program

Discussion

Concern that increased used of electronic/computational resources might diminish faculty-student interaction.

Idea Added After Workshop

Put faculty/staff/student pictures on Web for easy access

Undergraduate Education Subcommittee Home Page

Strategic Planning Home Page

Strategic Plan

Updated by Rachel Miller (rmiller@rice.edu)
10-Jun-97