Minutes of the

Academic Task Force Meeting

13 March 2007

Update

• Engineering: The Regents have changed the title of our Engineering degree from BS in Engineering with a Concentration in Systems Engineering to just Systems Engineering, which narrows its scope.
• Job Searches: We’ve got about 20 going on now, but we’re not sure we’ll be able to afford to complete them all. We don’t know how much the state will give us for next year, but assume it will be about an extra $600,000; we’re going to need an extra $1.3 million. We will save money by the fact that some job searches will inevitably fail, and some faculty might announce sudden retirements, but where all the money we need is going to come from is unclear.

Increasing Class Sizes in Some Classes: The conversation continued. Zvi is still looking for more responses to the homework assignment from the previous session.

Areas of Agreement:

• Some classes must remain small. Others may be more amenable to size increases.
• Probably the most expensive things we do are in ET and Architecture labs, created by small class sizes, pricey equipment, and high-salaried faculty
• We have to decide collectively—administration and faculty—what kind of university we want to be.
• To get more money, the Administration can get more grants. However, the trouble with grants is that they are one-time events that are good for equipment and buildings, but bad for paying salaries.

Concerns:

• Different learning styles can’t be accommodated in large classes.
• We’ve got to keep in mind what’s best for the students.
• Big classes, as they would be less frequently offered, can make it harder for students to make a schedule.
• Relying too heavily on part-timers is bad. They can be exploited and their quality can be inconsistent.
• Brilliance and currency doesn’t guarantee good teaching.

Possible Mitigating Factors:

• Given appropriate support and attention, large classes can be designed to accommodate different learning styles.
• Reassigned time can be given to research and design effective large classes.
• Technology can be pre-loaded.
• Teaching several large courses in a semester might enable a professor to take the next semester off.
• Examining what faculty spend most of their time doing when they teach might lead us to find areas for creating efficiency.
• Big faculty-led lecture classes can have small break-out sessions taught by part-timers or grad students.
• Big lecture-small breakout classes could be better for students than medium-sized classes.
• Post-docs and new Ph.D.s often have currency in their fields.

Homework Assignment:

• Research class size for a course in your respective field. What are other good universities doing with equipment, technology, instruction, and class size in a particular, relevant course or program?