The Johns Hopkins University | Commission on Undergraduate Education

Johns Hopkins University
Commission on Undergraduate Education
Final Report | May 15, 2003

CHAPTER 3
The Commission on Undergraduate Education

With counsel from the Deans, and input from faculty and student government leaders, commissioners to the Commission on Undergraduate Education (CUE) were appointed on the basis of their commitment to undergraduate education, their vision, their group skills, and their standing with their colleagues. Intentionally diverse, CUE cuts across the entire university, and includes 10 faculty, 14 undergraduates, 13 senior administrators and staff members (of whom five are also faculty), 2 trustees, and 3 Hopkins alums, approximately 42 members altogether. The Provost's Office provided the administrative leadership for this initiative, as well as appropriate staff support.

The charge to the Commission on Undergraduate Education was to identify the core values that should characterize a Hopkins undergraduate experience and to develop recommendations for specific actions that would improve the quality of undergraduate education, both inside and outside the classroom, in all five Hopkins schools that offer undergraduate degree programs: the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, the Whiting School of Engineering, the School of Nursing, the Peabody Institute, and the School of Professional Studies in Business & Education.

After receiving its charge from President William R. Brody in January 2002, the Commission on Undergraduate Education began monthly meetings as a committee of the whole. During these meetings, the Commission identified four sets of issues related to enhancing the undergraduate educational experience in its broadest sense and established the following working groups: academic experience, advising and career support, diversity, and student life.

The Chair of the Commission, Dr. Paula Burger, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and International Programs and Acting Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, established an Executive Committee, comprised of the four working group chairs, two associate deans and a student representative. Dr. Burger also chairs the University's accreditation steering committee that serves as the liaison between the university community and its accrediting body, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, to which will be presented the University's self-study report on undergraduate education.

After several full Commission meetings, the working groups met independently from June to August, to concentrate on fact-finding and formulating draft recommendations. During this time, they met with numerous University administrators and external consultants. The Johns Hopkins Office of Institutional Research provided much-needed information to the working groups and the Commission. Survey data were particularly important and informative, especially data from the 2002 Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE) senior survey and the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ) administered to Hopkins undergraduates in the Homewood schools in 2002. These data are both quantitative and qualitative, providing comparisons with norm groups and sometimes searing testimony from enrolled Hopkins students who took the time to write thoughtful comments in response to open-ended questions. The Commission also reviewed reports from similar commissions at peer institutions and such national reports as the seminal report of the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities, described in Chapter 2 of this report.

In September, the Commission reconvened to begin to develop consensus about the qualities that should characterize a Hopkins undergraduate education and to develop specific recommendations that would help achieve these goals. The outcomes of this discussion can be found in Chapter 4.

In October, the working group chairs reviewed their scopes of work (found in Appendix D) and preliminary recommendations at a meeting of the Committee on Academic Affairs of the University's Board of Trustees. In November and December, the working groups discussed their recommendations at Commission meetings and received comments and suggestions for revision and further consideration. The Provost and deans of the five schools offering undergraduate programs as well as the Krieger School department chairs, the Homewood Academic Council, the Homewood Graduate Representative Organization (GRO), and the Whiting School's Dean's Search Committee were briefed separately on the Commission's progress and provided an opportunity to comment in December 2002.

An interim report was prepared and distributed broadly in January 2003. CUE's interim report also was made available to the general public via the Johns Hopkins website, and an Internet mailbox was set up to receive feedback. Over two- dozen community meetings with various Hopkins constituent groups were held during February, March and early April. A complete list of these presentations can be found in Appendix B. Comments expressed during community meetings and sent via e-mail were overwhelmingly positive and supportive of the report and its recommendations. Many specifically expressed gratitude for the hard work of the Commissioners and for tackling some very difficult issues at Hopkins, and some noted that the interim recommendations were "long overdue." While different levels of support were expressed in different quarters for different recommendations, there was especially widespread support for many of the student life recommendations (particularly guaranteed student housing); for the diversity recommendations (especially the Baltimore Scholars Program); and for some of the academic experience recommendations (especially expanding the number of small courses). The two interim recommendations that prompted the most dialogue (both for and against) regarded the Homewood 13-week academic calendar and the weekly course scheduling arrangements. After additional discussion, the Commission chose not to pursue its interim recommendation on the length of the semester and instead chose to emphasize the importance of studying adjustments to the weekly course schedule.

During the February-March comment period, Commission members were especially pleased to learn that the schools had already acted upon some of the interim recommendations. Finally, during this period, several favorable editorials, articles and letters related to the Commission appeared in the student newspaper, The News-Letter.

With the benefit of the input thus solicited, the Commission met in mid-April to reconsider its interim recommendations before finalizing and submitting its final report to the President and Provost. While not all the comments and suggestions received during the 25 community meetings and via e-mail could be incorporated into the Commission's final report, they have all been recorded and will be forwarded to the appropriate offices for attention and/or will be addressed by the group of senior academic administrators for undergraduate education, as recommended in Chapter 6. Additional discussion is contemplated.

This report and its recommendations will be shared at a June meeting with the Committee on Academic Affairs of the Board of Trustees, as a follow-up to the presentation in October 2002 when the process and issues were outlined. It will also be the subject of a feature article in the Johns Hopkins Magazine which is distributed to thousands in the Johns Hopkins family.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this report will form the centerpiece of the University's decennial accreditation by the Middle States Association Commission on Higher Education during 2003-2004, as mentioned earlier. Each of the five Hopkins schools offering undergraduate programs will be asked to establish a small working group to prepare a plan to implement CUE recommendations within the School and to advise the Dean about School priorities.

GO TO CUE TABLE OF CONTENTS

GO TO JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY REPORTS

GO TO JHUNIVERSE