An Academic Bill of Rights

America’s research universities may be the envy of the world, but they all too often fail to properly educate their undergraduate students and need “radical reconstruction,” according to a new and strikingly critical report.

The report, issued by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, suggests that these universities could improve their educational role by involving undergraduates in research, starting in the freshman year.

The ideal, as outlined in “Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities,” would change the university culture that has fostered a long-standing division between research and teaching.

Undergraduates would spend less time taking notes in lecture halls and regurgitating what they know on exams and more time joining with faculty and graduate students to “share an adventure of discovery.”

The report, developed over three years by some of the nation’s top academics, suggests that students who pay tuition often “get less than their money’s worth” from research universities that, the document alleges, are guilty of deceptive advertising.

“Recruiting materials display proudly the world-famous professors, the splendid facilities and the groundbreaking research that goes on within them, but thousands of students graduate without ever seeing the world-famous professors or tasting genuine research,” the report says.

The Carnegie study is the most recent in a long line of similar reports. But Morton Owen Schapiro, a USC economist who tracks trends in higher education, says this report may get more attention than its predecessors, if only because it is “more forceful in its criticism. A lot of the criticism has come from outside the academy,” he said. “But to have a commission of educators say there’s a real problem, that should spur us on.”

The 44-page report recommends that research universities adopt an Academic Bill of Rights guaranteeing a quality education for every undergraduate.

To fulfill such a commitment, it outlines a 10-point plan for universities. Among other things, it would:

* Reward faculty with promotions and salary increases for outstanding teaching--instead of just for research--and train the ubiquitous graduate assistants in how to teach.

* Shrink the size of classes and better use technology in instruction.

* Supply a mentor for every student, so that undergraduates can develop “a supportive relationship much like that found between doctoral candidate and advisor.”

* Break the lock that academic departments have on budgets, so that universities can encourage more interdisciplinary education.

* Revolutionize the freshman year, so that first-year students are introduced to a broad range of learning rather than consumed by remedial classes to compensate for poor high school preparation.

None of these concepts are new, and indeed, the report highlights programs at various universities that it considers encouraging signs of change.

But few of the innovations have changed the way research institutions do business, the report says, adding, “Universities have opted for cosmetic surgery, taking a nip here and a tuck there, when radical reconstruction is called for.”

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The nation’s 125 research universities--including Caltech, USC, Stanford and all of the UC campuses--have a responsibility to emphasize teaching as much as research, according to the report. Although these institutions represent only 3% of colleges and universities, they grant nearly a third of the bachelor’s degrees.

“To an overwhelming degree, they have furnished the cultural, intellectual, economic and political leadership of the nation,” the report concludes.

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The report is available on the Internet at https://www.sunysb.edu/boyerreport

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Teaching at Research U. Some programs at research universities spotlighted as positive “signs of change” by the report issued by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:

Sophomore Dialogues

Stanford

Sophomores who choose to are housed together in student residences and enroll in small-group classes of about 10, led by one professor and two upper-class students. Participants earn one or two academic credits. Examples of topics include “Constitutionalism,” “Comparative American Urban Cultures” and “The Process of Discovery in Psychology.” Workshops are held in use of university libraries, research opportunities and academic decision-making.

Undergraduate Research

State University of New York at Stony Brook

Any interested undergraduate may enter the URECA (Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities) program, in which students work with faculty researchers and artists on selected projects of shared interest, on projects they devise themselves, or on an ongoing research project from one of the academic departments, professional schools or research centers. Students may also find projects with Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory or North Shore University Hospital. Projects require faculty sponsorship and earn academic credit and expense allowances.

Block Scheduling

Duke University

First-semester freshmen may enroll in one of about 14 interdisciplinary, thematically designed programs, in which they take two Focus seminars, a writing course and a non-Focus elective. Enrollment in each is limited to 30. Students live together in a residence hall and meet weekly for dinner.

World Courses

University of Maryland

Many of the team-taught lecture courses integrate science with humanities or social science perspectives. Topics include “To Stem the Flow: the Nile, Technology, Politics and the Environment,” taught by faculty from civil engineering, microbiology, and government and politics, and “The Creative Drive: Creativity in Music, Architecture and Science,” taught by mathematics, music and architecture faculty, focusing on the creative process as seen in jazz, modern buildings and scientific chaos theory.

Little Red Schoolhouse

University of Chicago

A one-quarter writing course taken each year by about 200 undergraduates. It is faculty-taught, with assistance from doctoral student interns. The interns are competitively selected and take a quarter-long training program themselves, which teaches the “Schoolhouse” analysis of writing and techniques for adapting it to the needs of individual students. Students learn how to adapt their writing to evoke the responses they want and how to work effectively with other writers on revisions.

Capstone Learning Experience

University of Wisconsin

A College of Agriculture requirement is an exercise in which students, under faculty supervision and mentorship, must solve a “real world” problem and address societal, economic, ethical, scientific and professional factors in their solutions.

Future Professoriate Project

Syracuse University

Funded by Pew Charitable Trusts, it helps develop the teaching abilities of graduate students. Faculty teaching mentors lead seminars on effective teaching and serve as advisors; teaching associateships provide advanced teaching assistants opportunities to lead classes on their own. Teaching associates compile a teaching portfolio, which includes observation results as well as examples of syllabuses, assignments and examinations.

Peer Instruction

Harvard

A professor, Eric Mazur, has developed a peer instruction technique, first used in introductory calculus-based physics courses, in which a third of class time is given to asking conceptual questions. Student responses are recorded on classroom computers. Students are then asked to discuss their answers with classmates and, if necessary, revise their answers and levels of confidence in them. Finally, clarification of the concept is provided by the instructor.

Undergraduate Teaching

University of Virginia

A Teaching Resource Center was created in 1990. It offers evaluation, including videotaped critiques and teaching improvement workshops, especially for teaching assistants and junior faculty. Outstanding teaching awards, five of $2,000 each, have been given annually since 1990-91.