A new committee to review four major aspects of the Brown undergraduate curriculum will be officially announced today in campus-wide e-mails to students and faculty.
The Task Force on Undergraduate Education, which is charged with reviewing general education, teaching and assessment, concentrations and advising programs will make recommendations that will be presented to University officials in the spring of 2008.
"This looked like a very good opportunity ... to actually ask the questions that would help us be able to discern for ourselves whether education at Brown was as excellent as it should be," said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, who will chair the task force.
The committee's report is a key component of the University's reaccreditation process with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which takes place every 10 years. Bergeron said she believes the reaccreditation process will be "quite useful in a way for galvanizing the energy on campus" for the task force.
"I think it's a chance for Brown to continue to establish its leadership in an academic realm, and I hope for even more innovations," said John Gillis '07, president of the Undergraduate Council of Students.
"The purpose is to take a broad and serious look at undergraduate education at Brown - what it is that we can do well, what can we do better," Bergeron said Wednesday night at a UCS meeting, where she briefed council members on the task force.
Bergeron said she believes that the task force also allows the University to address a key component of the Plan for Academic Enrichment - improving undergraduate education. A broad review of Brown's undergraduate experience has "been a long time coming," she told The Herald.
The task force will comprise three students selected by UCS and 10 faculty members, including two who are also in the administration.
Bergeron's office has already contacted members of faculty on a shortlist for membership on the task force, she said, and responses thus far have been positive.
"Most people have expressed enthusiastic interest in participating in what they consider to be a very important set of issues," she said.
Bergeron said she does not expect the force to begin meeting until later this semester.
"We'll use the spring as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the work to come - to actually do some summer readings, to strategize about other methods of gathering data," Bergeron said.
A student member of the committee might be paid by the Office of the Dean of the College to continue the group's work over the summer. The task force will begin working in earnest in the fall, when the group is expected to meet every two weeks. Its report - including recommendations for change within the College - will be released in early 2008.
UCS solicited student applications for the task force in a campus-wide e-mail. Bergeron warned that the commitment involved would be similar to that of a full academic course.
"It has to be taken seriously," she said. "It's a committee that won't work if all the members aren't there all the time."
Though she will chair the task force and is now its public face, Bergeron said Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98 is the driving force behind the project.
"The provost actually indicated as soon as he set foot in office that one of his priorities of his tenure would be new focus on the undergraduate College," Bergeron said.
She also said that the task force was both motivated and endorsed by discussions within the Corporation last spring. Former Provost Robert Zimmer, who left Brown last summer, had also discussed a review of undergraduate programs as a priority for the University, Bergeron said.
Bergeron said the task force will play a critical role in the University's unique approach to this round of reaccreditation, as the required self-study will focus primarily on the undergraduate program, instead of an institution-wide review.
Bergeron told UCS Wednesday night that the reaccreditation process had already begun in earnest with a large-scale data collection effort, and the task force's report will anchor the self-study Brown will submit for reaccreditation. A committee from the accrediting association, including a president of another Ivy League institution, will then read the study and visit Brown's campus to conduct interviews during the spring of 2009.
The committee itself will only include students, faculty and administrators, but it will also attempt to speak with other groups across campus. Groups mentioned include the committee on science education, the committee on internationalization and College Curriculum Council subcommittees on concentration and course evaluation.
"The point would be not to overlap the work, but actually to make a larger impact by drawing together the good work that's being done in a lot of different areas," Bergeron told The Herald.
Bergeron said CCC members suggested to her at a meeting Tuesday that the task force should routinely invite a random selection of students to discuss the committee's ongoing work. Bergeron called the recommendation "an excellent suggestion."
Though some UCS members expressed concern over the task force's focus on general education - which council members linked to general education requirements - most expressed their support for the effort.
