Semesters vs. quarters/ECST email exchanges
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[edit] Crist Khachikian
Dear all,
I believe a lot of this “back-and-forth” is happening because most of the faculty have a fundamental and deep-seated mistrust of our administration, it’s motivations, and it’s ability to administer. There have been many instances in the past when the administration has not come through on its promises, has mishandled situations/budgets/personnel, and has not managed change appropriately or for the right reasons. This has resulted in us (i.e., faculty at large) feeling and acting like victims of a “cruel” central administration (and, in many cases, our feelings and misgivings are justified).
Now, I preface what I’m going to say by stating that I’m in no way supporting our administration and have, in the past, constantly defended our rights as faculty. However, I do think some of this backlash is unwarranted. The administration can do a much better job clarifying some of the issues brought up by Trinh. I do agree with that. But, I do disagree that information is not being provided. Below, I have listed the reports/documents/resources that are available. Many of these (especially the list starting with “Assessment of Readiness” are 1-3 page summaries of the issues and are very quick reads. Almost all of the documents were produced by individual faculty or teams of faculty so asking the administration to provide an “executive summary” is exactly what I do not want to happen. Our colleagues have spent their time and energy producing these documents and, if we are interested, it is our responsibility to read them. An executive summary produced by the administration will be mistrusted and I’m 100% that many of us will complain that the summaries are not adequate and that we need to see evidence/data/etc. I don’t have time to read these documents either and that is why, as of now, I’m still undecided. This is in contrast to 2001 where many of us (Lili et al. excluded) were not provided with any of this information and were asked to vote.
Also, we are offended when people talk about “elite” institutions and how we are different, as if someone has personally insulted us. But the fact is that most institutions (elite or not) are on the semester system. I don’t know why the UC system is not and comparing us just to the UC system is not adequate (BTW, this is painful for me to say as a UCLA graduate but, arguably, UC Berkeley is one of the “best”, i.e., highly ranked, UCs and it is on a semester system). Many, many other campuses, including almost all of our community college partners and feeders, are semester schools. I do not know the reasons for this. All I’m saying is that comparing us to just the UCs does not make sense to me (for all I know, this could be a California thing).
Finally, it seems to me like support for the conversion is the key issue. I don’t think anyone has a compelling argument for staying on the quarter system. There are some arguments for switching to the semester system, though they are by and large not compelling either. The most compelling reason to switch (for me) seems to be that this would be an excellent opportunity for us faculty to completely revise our curriculum. Whether or not you think our curriculum is good or not, a course-by-course rethinking and analysis of it would be useful. I just got back from a Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) workshop and many campuses have infused research into their entire curriculum. Some have removed statistics/writing/presentations as standalone courses and have incorporated these topics in many courses. This has obvious and quantified (I can get you references if you like) benefits for our students. Many of you say that if these ideas are good ones, why not incorporate them into our existing quarter system. This is a resource and support issue as well. Also, without an external driving force, many of us as entities suffer from inertia and will not change. Imagine for a second that we get together as faculty, look at the data, discuss our curriculum, and decide that semesters are the best option for faculty and students (I don’t think anyone has carefully examined these issues). If this climate of change was not around, what would we do? How would we change the system? I claim that it would be impossible and we should seize this opportunity to imagine…
Workload is another issue but adjusting workload now, given our current context, is a formidable task. On November 20th, I will be part of a team presenting our observations from the CUR workshop, which will include some ideas on workload. Beth Ambos, from the chancellor’s office, was there and basically stated that the 12-unit “must teach” attitude does not exists at the Chancellor’s office and is very campus-dependent. We can easily reduce our load by creatively teaching classes, holding extra workshops that help students but are not really teaching hours (the total hours in a classroom will increase but you don’t “teach”; CUR has many presentations from successful models, including an organic chemistry faculty that never lectures, yet his students perform better than other students). If in fact we decided to infuse, for example, math, writing, and research into our curriculum, we can easily reduce the number of units (as we are mandated to do so) but also re-adjust workloads so that we can teach two 4+1 courses in a quarter system or three 3+1 courses on a semester system.
If you got this far, I do apologize for the long email. But, in summary, I’d like to say that we do have a “us vs. them” attitude, which is propagated and promoted by our faculty and even the CFA. I’m not going to argue whether this attitude is warranted or not; that’s for you to decide. I just want to make us aware that we are NOT victims here and do have the opportunity to voice our opinions and concerns in an objective manner. If, after looking at all of the issues, we decided that semesters are not good for us AND our students, then we can vote “NO”. That is our obligation and duty as faculty. I believe the administration can do a better job at clarifying intentions, increasing transparency with budgets/etc., communicating more effectively, and so on. However, I also do think that this is an opportunity for us to get together and imagine a new curriculum that also addresses workload issues. We should do this regardless and, if we switch, some resources and support will be provided to do so. If we don’t switch, then some of us will carry the burden of convincing others to revise the curriculum without support. I would love to get together with my colleagues to discuss these issues and to present findings to our faculty, regardless of what the administration wants.
LIST OF DOCUMENTS
· Assessment of readiness – Hugh Warren – professor emeritus
· Report of the Task Force on Academic Calendar - Ann Garry, Philosophy, Randy Campbell, Administration and Counseling, Don Maurizio, Technology, Robert Nakamura, Biology and Microbiology
· 4-page FAQ
· President’s corner
· 5 web sites in the “Student’s Corner”
·
[edit] Russ Abbott
Hi Crist and all.
Thanks for you thoughtful email. I'd like to comment briefly on two points.
1. You wrote: " I don't think anyone has a compelling argument for staying on the quarter system." I thought my presentation was a fairly strong case for quarters. Raj said that the option that would have made semesters better was not in the cards.
2. More importantly, you wrote: "If, after looking at all of the issues, we decided that semesters are not good for us AND our students, then we can vote "NO". That is our obligation and duty as faculty." I agree that this is the key point. As the saying goes, we should look before we leap. The only sensible way to make this decision is to work out what a semester system would really look like for us and then decide if that result is better than what we have now.
The question is: Leap before you Look or Look before you Leap? Clearly Look first makes more sense. So let's do the homework of restructuring our curriculum to bring it up to date. Let's make a quarter version and a semester version of that restructured curriculum. And then let's decide which version we like better. If we do that, then no matter which scheduling option we choose, we will at least have done the restructuring work.
-- Russ
P.S. Here is a possible unintended consequence that we should keep in mind. Under a semester system, if we make our courses 4-unit semester courses (as Berkeley seems to have done) then students will take fewer courses. That means less breadth but more depth in the courses they take. If we take the alternative route and teach large lectures in order to reduce the teaching load, then again, only courses that have the enrollment for large lectures will be offered. So again, the more peripheral material will be slighted because it will be offered less often. Either approach is likely to have the effect of favoring the more mainstream and popular material and minimizing the more peripheral material. Options and electives with low enrollment are less likely to be offered and will probably fade away after a while. That may be good. We may prefer concentrating on mainstream material. But we should recognize that it would reduce students' chances to explore material that is off the beaten track.
[edit] Don Maurizio
Just one quick clarification. The document in 2001 was NOT intended to be “stand-alone”. The Task Force (the members were the same as the authors of the document) also conducted a Town Hall Meeting with each college separately. There were PowerPoint slides, handouts, and of course, the report.
As with 2008, there were also lively discussions at each Town Hall Meeting. At the conclusion of the Town Hall Meetings, the discussion moved to the senate floor.
The 2008 debate has clearly turned into a “circular” argument. Faculty is saying “I won’t vote until you tell me what I’m voting for”. Administration is saying “Do you really want US to dictate the details of the new calendar?” And so it goes, round and round, in a circle. Please understand, these are BOTH good points, but neither is capable of breaking the deadlock.
Don
[edit] Russ Abbott
We can break the cycle by deciding to do the analysis before making the decision. That's the sensible thing to do in any case. It's hardly necessary to say this but no good engineer would decide that a product will be built until one knows that a satisfactory design has been worked out. Do the design and then decide whether to proceed to production. Don't build the factory before doing the design.
