Though still in its early stages, the University's reaccreditation process may be getting a boost from the Task Force on Undergraduate Education.
The task force, which is undertaking a broad review of the College and its curriculum, comprises 10 faculty members and four undergraduates and will release a rough draft of its findings early next semester for the campus to review.
The final version of this report, which task force member Jason Becker '09 said is expected to be released in September 2008, will likely form a significant portion of the self-study the University is required to submit for reaccreditation with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. The College has received a yearlong extension to complete the process in part because of the task force's mandate, Becker said.
The New England Association of Schools and Colleges is a group dedicated to providing "public assurance about the educational quality of those schools and colleges that seek or wish to maintain membership, which is synonymous with accreditation," according to its Web site.
"We received permission from NEASC to do a self-study with an emphasis on undergraduate education. So the task force is in effect the committee assigned to deal with the questions on that topic, and our report will become the largest part of the NEASC report," wrote Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron in an e-mail to The Herald.
In fact, the task force's report will likely be included with the 100-page NEASC self-study as a supporting document, said Kathryn Spoehr, professor of cognitive and lingustic sciences and a member of the University steering committee charged with overseeing the reaccreditation process.
Becker said the reaccreditation in general, and the task force specifically, gave the College an opportunity to examine its undergraduate offerings.
The task force's report aims to demonstrate that "Brown students are doing a great job, and (the University) is doing a great job educating them," Becker said.
The reaccreditation process begins with a self-study submitted by the institution under review. Brown will submit its self-study in fall 2008. A site visit by NEASC officials will follow, bringing association members from peer institutions to campus to compare the realities of the University to what has been reported in the self-study. Brown's site visit is scheduled for Spring 2009, and the final reaccreditation will be complete by fall of that year, Spoehr said.
"I think in terms of purely getting our stamp (of approval), Brown will get reaccredited," said task force member Fiona Heckscher '09.
Nevertheless, in a 2003 interim report by NEASC, the University was encouraged to put more effort into finding ways to accurately assess the performance of students at Brown as well as to strengthen the undergraduate advising partnership for upperclassmen.
With the release of a report in 2006 by the Department of Education on the performance of colleges and universities across the country, there has been growing support for finding ways to assess how well colleges are teaching their students, said Spoehr, who is a member of NEASC and reviews other institutions for their reaccreditations. One of the more radical assessment methods that has been proposed is nationwide exams for graduating college seniors.
However, a number of task force members told The Herald they are not considering exit exams at Brown.
"They're a very inappropriate way of addressing student outcomes," Heckscher said.
Though task force member Sheila Blumstein, professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences, admitted "there is a national effort" to strengthen assessment at a university level, she said such assessment does not have to be limited to a series of exams.
But Blumstein said there is a rationale for increased assessment. "We owe it in part to ourselves and our students, and in part to the world out there, that we know when a student comes to Brown they get a good education."
Heckscher said the committee had instead discussed methods such as student portfolios, which would be a collection of student work and faculty feedback that would demonstrate students' intellectual development throughout their time at Brown.
Though Spoehr said Brown could face problems because it lacks general education requirements, the University was not directly cited for its lack of core requirements in the NEASC interim report.
Becker said that despite rumors, the task force is not currently considering general education requirements for the undergraduate program. Instead, the committee hopes to examine Brown's current undergraduate program as one that may have transformed over time.
"There are aspects of the New Curriculum that have been lost ... but (the creators of the New Curriculum) thought there was an imperative behind them," Becker said.
"It seems like (the Office of the Dean of the College) decided this was an opportunity to review the undergraduate program," task force member and Professor of Neuroscience Michael Paradiso said of the task force and the broader University focus on the undergraduate program within the NEASC self-study.
"I think that people should not be wary," Blumstein said of the committee's work. She added that the Brown community should "have faith" in what she characterized as a "strong group of faculty and students."
"(Determining that) Brown continues to provide the best undergraduate education it can - that's the goal (of the task force)," Blumstein said.
