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Transformative education Task
force produces a wealth of recommendations for enhancing the undergraduate
experience To offer its undergraduates a more intellectually challenging and personally enriching experience, the university should consider changes in both the structure of the undergraduate program and the culture of the Medford/Somerville campus. Those were among the conclusions of the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience, which has released its final report. The task force, appointed by President Lawrence S. Bacow in the fall of 2001, was charged with evaluating undergraduate life and education at Tufts. The task force issued two interim reports over the past academic year.
"Tufts, long known as the light on the Hill, has the potential to shine brighter still and become, in the process, a beacon for other mid-sized universities," reads the report's introduction. To reach that potential, the report says, the university should concentrate on enhancing three aspects of the undergraduate program, which the report categorizes as "climate, community and coherence." It makes several specific recommendations within these categories, such as instituting a four-year writing requirement; enhancing undergraduate research opportunities; developing more extracurricular connections between students and faculty; creating a "college system" on campus; improving the advising system and celebrating "intellectual milestones" during a student's four years at Tufts. The task force has helped set an agenda for the university's next decade, said Charles Inouye, dean of the colleges and co-chair of the task force. "We began with the premise that the process of the task force itself was largely a means to identify needs and to provide vision," he said.
"I was delighted by the quality of the process and by the product," said Jamshed Bharucha, provost and senior vice president. "It was just marvelously written. The members of the task force put in hundreds of hours, if not more, having town meetings and meeting amongst themselves. It was a monumental task, very inclusive, very well-organized." The three C's Climate: "Despite the excellence of students and faculty alike and the impressive work that goes on in the classroom, the institution itself, or the atmosphere that pervades it, seems to separate intellectual exploration and enthusiasm from students' shared experiences beyond the classroom," the report says. "We need to enhance the intellectual climate at Tufts to enable our institution to achieve the next level of academic excellence." Community: "Tufts could do more to push students to venture outside of their comfort zones and draw them out of their various sub-groups in ways that contribute to their sense of belonging to the broader university community," the report says. Coherence: "In the face of so many requirements and so few visible markers to outline the 'big picture,' students frequently adopt a 'checklist mentality' with regard to their education," the report says. "We need to provide greater coherence to our overall education plan." Yet, none of these categories is entirely distinct from the others, said Gilbert Metcalf, task force chair and professor of economics. "There is a real symbiosis among these three concepts," he said. For example, "climate refers to the learning environment that we have at Tufts, both inside and outside the classroom, and the notion of climate has to do with creating an atmosphere where education and student learning and educational development are at the forefront," Metcalf said. Coherence, meanwhile, speaks to "the process by which we provide that education." One example is the proposed four-year writing program. This could be structured so that during their first year, students take writing courses that help them hone basic writing skills. As they progress and choose a major, students would then concentrate on writing within their discipline; eventually, they reach their senior year, when they presumably would have the writing skills to compose a thesis or comparable project. The skills learned each year would build upon those that came before. A 'transformative experience' "For me, the essence of life in college is to discover your talent and your curiosity and make a commitment to developing that talent that prepares you to make a contribution," he said.
That idea underscores another key point of the task force reportÑthe need to offer more opportunities for undergraduate research, Inouye said. This was also one of the ideas presented in the task force's interim reports, and, in fact, was one of the recommendations that the administration was putting into place even before the final report had been released. This summer, the university initiated its Summer Scholars Program, in which 30 undergraduate students are teamed with faculty mentors from most of Tufts' schools and affiliated hospitals. In conjunction with Summer Scholars, a "research clearinghouse" was createdÑa web site where faculty from throughout the university can describe their scholarship and research interests and the type of background they desire in a research assistant. "One of the exciting things about working on this report is that while some ideas may take a number of years to be put into effect, other ideas are being put into effect immediately, and we're already beginning to see some payoff for our efforts," Metcalf said. Because most of the final report echoes suggestions and topics broached in the interim reports, there were few "surprises" for either the administration or the faculty. "People knew what was going to be in the report, and, for the most part, were quite enthusiastic," Metcalf said. "There is a lot of support for undergraduate research and for the four-year writing initiative." Recommendations Specific recommendations within the report include:
One initiative that already has begun is a series of "High Table" dinners for faculty, hosted by Daniel C. Dennett, University Professor and Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, who directs Tufts' Center for Cognitive Studies. About two dozen faculty members from various fields in Arts, Sciences, Engineering and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy were invited to four monthly dinners during the spring semester, where they listened to a presentation from one professor and then took part in informal discussions about their research. A similar series is scheduled for the fall. The High Table dinners are funded by the president's office.
The full text of the task force report can be found at http://ugtaskforce.tufts.edu Helene Ragovin is a senior writer in Tufts University's Office of Publications. She can be reached at helene.ragovin@tufts.edu |
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