As part of a year-long process to develop President Christina Paxson's long-term strategic initiatives, six committees - whose memberships were announced today - will meet throughout the year and discuss ways to follow up on the goals of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, former president Ruth Simmons' signature outline for University academics, infrastructure and finances.
The respective committees will examine topics of faculty retention, infrastructure, financial aid, curricular innovation, online education and doctoral education. Each working group will bring suggestions to Paxson and Provost Mark Schlissel P'15 at the end of the semester so that a final plan can be detailed by the end of the spring.
Over the year, the committees will post updates on the strategic initiative website, which goes live today.
The development of a new strategic initiative will also pave the way for a new capital campaign, Paxson told the Brown University Community Council last month.
"It makes sense to try to organize one's thinking around these big topics sooner rather than later," said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, who is chairing the committee on educational innovation. "If there's going to be a new campaign launched, then you need to have your ideas in place."
University efforts to expand its global presence and increase its diversity are not reflected in any one particular committee. Rather, these two issues should be "part of everything that we do," Schlissel said, and multiple committees will focus on those topics.
In addition to including suggestions from the committees, the strategic initiative will look to develop two or three new "signature initiatives" over the next decade, Schlissel said. Similar in scope to the Brown Institute for Brain Science and the proposed School of Public Health, these new initiatives will focus on large areas and involve multiple faculty members from several different departments, with a few possible focus areas being the environment, the arts or government.
Schlissel plans to discuss potential initiatives with the faculty throughout the year, with the goal of selecting new initiatives by the end of the spring semester, he said.
Reevaluating Brown
In examining the University's approaches to education, Schlissel and Paxson both stressed that the values of the New Curriculum are still relevant.
"The open curriculum is a jewel - it's our uniqueness principle here," Schlissel said. "What this committee wants to think about is, 'Are there ways to build on it that will give us a next generation of wonderful new opportunities to provide in undergraduate education?' And it's important because the world has changed an awful lot in the 40 years since the open curriculum became our New Curriculum, and it's not so new anymore."
Brown's open curriculum attracts a group of hard-working and entrepreneurial students, Bergeron said. "We need to think about how we maintain that excellence into the future, because things don't remain excellent just by staying the same."
Another question for the planning committees is how to enhance financial aid. The University has not met the PAE's goal of fully need-blind admission, Paxson said. Schlissel cited a petition by the student group Brown for Financial Aid last spring as another impetus for the discussion.
"Our educational quality depends on the diversity of students that are sitting in the room next to you as you're learning and discussing and living here on campus," Schlissel said.
Currently, transfer students, international students and Resumed Undergraduate Education students do not qualify for need-blind admission.
Schlissel said the committee will have to balance the expansion of need-blind admission against priorities such as increasing aid for middle-class students, who often struggle to pay tuition even with aid. Financial aid currently constitutes more than 10 percent of the University's total budget, and any expansion will require either reducing funds elsewhere or raising additional revenue.
Finding the resources
As part of developing the initiative, administrators will speak with faculty members to identify additional resources they need to be successful, Schlissel said.
Nurturing faculty is critical for their recruitment and retention, Schlissel said. At last month's BUCC meeting, Schlissel emphasized that the University cannot serve as a "farm team" for other institutions, a place where professors ready themselves for employment at another university.
The committee on faculty recruitment, career development and retention will also focus on mentoring faculty and evaluating tenure professors.
"People really do need guidance - they need help and support and advice throughout their careers," said Edward Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences and chair of the committee on faculty recruitment, career development and retention. "Teaching is such an important part of Brown, so how do you make sure that they are mentored in terms of becoming the best teachers?"
Despite the increase in the size of the faculty under the PAE, resources "haven't uniformly increased," Paxson said.
In discussing a lack of resources, Paxson pointed specifically to the physical space available to departments.
But "talking about space doesn't necessarily mean building," Paxson said. "It means looking at how we use space and whether we can use space in a way that makes more sense." The space freed up by the digitization of library materials could potentially be repurposed, she added.
The committee focused on reimagining infrastructure will address the optimization of space on campus as well as examining its virtual connections between College Hill, Providence's Knowledge District and places around the world.
"We've already invested a lot in the Jewelry District - we have roughly 1,000 people who are there in one way or another," said Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey, who is chairing the infrastructure committee. He pointed to research facilities and the Alpert Medical School as key examples. "So we have an interest in making sure that those activities are happening as well as they possibly can." Carey said he anticipates the committees will be involved in constant communication due to overlap between their charges.
Teaching and research
Brown is uniquely positioned to integrate teachin
g and research, Paxson said. During a visit this summer, Paxson was struck by Brown's Marine Biological Laboratory's global reach and the way it involves both undergraduates and graduate students in its research. Undergraduates interning through the laboratory this past summer conducted research in a range of locations, such as North Dakota and Kenya.
At a retreat in August, senior faculty and administrators discussed the idea of "untethering" students from campus, which could build upon projects like those at the laboratory, Paxson said.
"Can we get students more involved in international research projects during the year, not just during the summers?" Paxson said.
The University has already identified online education as fundamental to its educational innovation. Last month, the University announced its plan to launch two pilot programs in online education. The committee on online teaching and learning will discuss these pilot programs as well as ways to use internet-based technologies both inside and outside the classroom.
"We don't want to jump to answers too quickly," said Harriette Hemmasi, University librarian and chair of the committee on online teaching and learning. "The committee that I'm working with is not saying what should be done, but what are the options that are available, and how do we sort of understand those options?"
Discussing doctoral education
As a result of resource allocation under the PAE, "graduate students have really been squeezed," Paxson said. "And the space that graduate students have to work with undergradautes has been squeezed."
The public's perception of the University is closely tied to its research, making it imperative to focus on doctoral students, who work closely with faculty in discovering knowledge, said Peter Weber, dean of the graduate school, who is heading the doctoral education committee. Focusing on doctoral students is also an investment in the "future leaders of academia," he added.
The University will launch an additional group - focused on examining master's programs - later this year.
The committee on doctoral education will focus on many of these issues at the graduate level, such as reexamining the doctoral curriculum and financial support for PhD students. The committee will discuss whether to expand programs like the Open Graduate Program, a pilot program launched last year that enables PhD students to pursue master's degrees in a separate discipline.
Another question facing the committee is whether the number of incoming doctoral students is appropriate, Weber said. Despite an increase in the size of the faculty and the introduction of new research programs, the number of incoming doctoral students is still the same as it was in 2001.
- With additional reporting by Shefali Luthra and Eli Okun
Correction Appended: An earlier version of the article incorrectly referenced Peter Weber as dean of the graduate school and chair of the chemistry department. In fact, Weber stepped down from his role as chair when he was named dean. The Herald regrets the error.
