In the world of higher education, UC Davis measures up.
No surprise.
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges this summer released a final letter that favorably compared UC Davis with peer institutions in several areas -- including institutional integrity, administration, educational programs, and faculty and staff.
As a result, UC Davis is fully accredited as a member of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. That's good until at least 2012-13, when the next round of reviews begins.
"This report will have a very positive impact on UC Davis," said Pat Turner, vice provost for undergraduate studies. "It encourages us to deliberate on general education, planning and our program review processes. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges offered extensive praise for the campus."
The process began in 1999 when UC Davis formed the WASC Steering Committee, with Turner and physics professor Joe Kiskis serving as co-chairs, to work with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges on the project. WASC, an independent, non-profit organization based in Alameda and one of six regional accreditation associations in the nation, last accredited UC Davis in 1991.
This past year, a team of senior academic administrators from around the country visited UC Davis in putting together a report for WASC on the university. That team report noted that "the culture of the campus is to let a thousand flowers bloom with little central direction" and that "widespread optimism" exists on campus about the future of the university.
"This decentralized approach," the report notes, "has encouraged a rich array of constructive and important initiatives ... However, there has been little effort to coordinate or evaluate such efforts so that best practices can be communicated and spread to other areas." For example, the report observes, many UC Davis units struggle with the "challenges of measuring change, performance and outcomes."
To improve the educational experience at UC Davis, the report proposed that the university better "connect the pieces" throughout campus through a coherent strategic plan that statistically measures educational goals. The team report applauded a new draft strategic plan for campus -- "20-20 Vision" -- as the type of broad institutional strategy it encourages in higher education.
In its comments on general education, the WASC team concluded that, "UC Davis needs to either strengthen educational requirements on the front end of the student experience, or to develop a system for accumulating and reflecting upon outcomes evidence on the back end."
In its response to the report's findings, which is an official element of the overall process, UC Davis stated that the document "offers a strong foundation for our continuing efforts to improve our institution." While UC Davis found "substantial agreement" with the report's recommendations, the university's response statement pointed out the difficulty of implementing some of the more costly suggestions due to growing enrollments and shrinking financial resources.
Turner said the association is requiring many institutions to undergo interim visits or is re-authorizing re-accreditation for seven rather than the usual 10 years. "Although we have to submit an interim report, UC Davis is accredited for the maximum 10 years," she added.
Kiskis said, "The areas for improvement to which they drew our attention are consistent with our own goals, and we agree that further improvement in them will strengthen UC Davis."
Kiskis explained that writing experience is one of the three components of UC Davis' present general education requirement. "With the help of research by Davis Honors Challenge students, the General Education Committee recognized the need for improved implementation of the current writing experience requirement."
He noted that both the College of Letters and Science and the Undergraduate Council have proposed plans to strengthen writing instruction at UC Davis.
The entire WASC report on UC Davis and the university's response is available at http://wasc.ucdavis.edu.
The WASC Steering Committee was composed of a diverse selection of faculty from different areas on campus, including students.
Leslie Lane, a senior in neurobiology, physiology and behavior, served as one of the committee's student representatives. "As the undergraduate student representative, I was able to serve as a liaison between the student body and the steering committee, and I feel that the committee placed the educational experience of the students on the highest level of priority during the accreditation process."
Lane noted that the process gave her a "valuable experience to examine the university critically" by stepping out of the "student lifestyle" and working directly with academic administrators and faculty members.
As part of future accreditation efforts, the campus will have to submit a progress report to WASC by Nov. 1, 2006. That report will describe how the university is addressing the issues raised by WASC in the final accreditation report.