A flood of new students coming to campus and the once-a-decade evaluation of the university by accreditors – both imminent – have prompted UC Davis to develop its first set of campus-wide academic goals for undergraduate education.

Preliminarily, a group of about 100 administrators, faculty members and students who gathered at the Chancellor’s Fall Conference at Lake Tahoe last month selected several objectives with the overall goal of preparing students to be productive, effective and res-ponsible citizens.

They hope that undergraduates at UC Davis will:

• Develop effective communication skills;

• Develop higher cognitive skills;

• Cultivate the virtues;

• Prepare for lifelong learning;

• Develop a global perspective;

• Develop leadership skills;

• Develop focus and depth in a discipline.

Now it’s time for the campus to evaluate the goals and offer their own input, said Patricia Turner, vice provost for undergraduate studies.

"We were prompted by the (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) accreditation, but it is a welcome stimulus," she said. "We are juggling a lot of students coming in. Much has changed. It’s healthy for our campus to identify what’s important."

Over the weekend conference, participants discussed UC Davis’ objectives using the blueprint of "Reinventing Undergraduate Education," a document produced by the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University. The 1998 report outlined ways large universities, with their emphasis on graduate education and scholarly research, can also provide a compelling and coherent program of study for their undergraduates.

Turner, and her co-chair on the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accreditation Steering Committee, Physics Professor Joe Kiskis, hope to use UC Davis’ set of basic goals to create a thorough planning document for accreditors and to develop programs enhancing undergraduate education experiences. Using the goals to better define the campus’ general education requirements – designed to ensure students have a breadth of knowledge outside their major – was a common theme of the conference, Turner said. Previous WASC reviews have asked UC Davis to improve their general education program.

UC Davis will next be evaluated, through reports and site visits, during the 2002-2003 school year. Kiskis, who is in charge of follow-up work on the goals, would like the final set of goals to be ready by the end of the current school year.

Participants in the Chancellor’s Fall Conference said they were pleased with the atmosphere of consensus they found in creating the goal list. They hope they are quickly adopted and turned into usable programs for the campus.

"The list that (participants) came up with had clear and coherent ideas, and it’s something we can work with," said Ken Verosub, geology professor and director of the Davis Honors Challenge program.

He particularly liked one idea of using student work portfolios to measure progress in general education requirements. In many ways the goals presented mirror the purpose of the courses, he said.

"You could look at the portfolios and see whether students are achieving the goals," Verosub said.

Undergraduates Patrick Sukeforth and Mona Ebrahimi, who serve as student assistants to Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, said the objectives discussed are important to students. Therefore, they need to serve a purpose larger than being "paperwork for our university to look good," said Ebrahimi, a junior political science and communications major.

"We need to be very consistent with going back and evaluating the comments we made and make sure they hold true with the new diversity of our campus," she said.

Comments about the campus’s undergraduate educational goals should be sent by Nov. 16 to wasc@ucdavis.edu or mailed to Patricia Turner, Office of the Vice Provost, Undergraduate Studies, 523 Mrak Hall. Turner said her office will also be meeting with the Academic Senate, campus committees and student groups to get more input on what should be included in the educational objectives.

The Boyer Commission report is available on-line at http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf.