There have been several thought-provoking position statements developed by faculty and staff in the last two months with regard to the direction of the institution and teaching and learning. Likewise, the comments generated by the participants in both the Leadership Retreat and the Faculty Forum were very instructive and can, when systematized, provide direction for planning.
As this debate and discussion has continued and developed, it has become clear that the University is beginning a process of re-examining its direction and agendas. This process has highlighted not only the importance of what we are beginning, but also its complexity. As was stressed by the participants in the Faculty Forum and the Leadership Retreat, if we are to achieve the next level of excellence in teaching and learning, this University will need to clarify its goals, processes, curriculum, resource distribution, and ways of operation. That is, we need to increasingly bring the operation of the University into accord with our basic values and beliefs about education and the role and mission of Western.
In the process of developing my own position with regard to this debate, I came to three preliminary conclusions; these form the assumptions on which other considerations are based:
Westem is blessed with an excellent, committed faculty, administration, and staff. Our people are our strongest resource.
Our environment is unique and will support our efforts to develop the University. In fact if conceptualized properly, our environment is our second greatest asset next to our people.
Our physical plant and budget are sufficient to allow us to move forward.
What we are working toward as a University is so complex that it probably needs to be broken down into more manageable components. For that reason, it seems appropriate to begin the discussion with a clear statement of what is meant by the goal of becoming a nationally renowned center for teaching and learning. There also are major institutional issues that become apparent once one defines a specific goal. Four such issues have arisen in the general campus discussion. This paper, therefore, attempts to define the goal and to describe the four major issue areas. In a second paper, I will share with you my views regarding students and the curriculum as they affect our efforts to achieve the next level of excellence in teaching and learning.
Definition of the Goal: A National Model Environment for Learning
To paraphrase one faculty member's comments in a recent conversation, Western is really too late nationally to focus our efforts on teaching; student learning is the critical issue for the future. This comment clearly articulated the essential issue with which we must deal: Western needs to focus most broadly on student learning. Our fundamental goal should be to graduate men and women who reflect an intellectual and affective maturity that promotes their having satisfying, successful lives. To achieve this goal, we need to develop an environment in which student learning is the primary focus. Specifically:
The primary purpose of this paper is to outline a possible approach to making Western Carolina University an environment where learning is central to every function, program, office, staff, class, and activity. In this environment, everyone who is employed on the campus, regardless of a specific job, plays a significant role in helping students learn. Western thus becomes a student-learning-centered university.
If this goal is fairly stated, there are some elements of a plan for implementation that seem to follow. First, classes and academic programs are generally more oriented to the students' intellectual development than to their affective development (with some very notable exceptions). Affective development can be (and has been) integrated in cognitively focused courses--strongly developed group projects, for example, that foster interaction, problem solving, and negotiation skills as well as reinforce an understanding of diversity and individual differences. However, much of the affective development of the students will be handled within the Division of Student Development. Therefore, student development professionals need to be considered (and consider themselves) as true partners in establishing the learning-based university. Moreover, office staff, physical plant staff, campus police, and others all contribute by their actions directly to student learning and to establishing a climate within which learning can effectively take place.
Institutional Issues
In the various meetings and Faculty Forums, there are several institutionally based issues that need to be directly addressed if we are to achieve our goal of creating a national student-learning-centered university. Among the most critical of these issues are: l) academic standards; 2) relationships between teaching and scholarship; 3) reward system structures; and 4) resource distribution processes. Each of these will be discussed below.
Academic Standards and Retention: An Area of Confusion
Often during the last several months there have been conversations regarding the notion that we as a university have not set high enough standards as a direct response to the need to retain students and to keep enrollment up. This suggests that there is a correlation between low standards and high enrollment. Nationally, data do not support this contention. Generally, as standards are increased, both retention and enrollments increase. Again, on this campus, there is a strong expressed need, on the part of both faculty and students, for increased academic rigor. If we are to aspire to national recognition as a learning university, we must increase the academic rigor of our curriculum. Generally, as we "raise the bar," students' expectations will increase as will their performance. We need to set clear, high academic goals for our students, and they will rise to the level of our expectations.
What does it mean to "raise the bar"? There seem to be several significant characteristics:
Course content and skill requirements are set as appropriate to the level of course, not expectations of what specific students may be able to accomplish. That is, we expect student performance to reflect what, in our professional judgment, is appropriate to the level of the class.
Students are expected to read assignments in a timely manner. Reading assignments are appropriate to the level of the course and support student learning.
Out-of-class assignments are made regularly that support the learning objectives. These assignments are not "busy work" but are germane to the objectives of the class. Homework is regularly assigned, graded, and returned to the students in a timely manner.
Students are required to attend class. Students who skip class regularly cannot pass. There is a great deal of evidence that attendance and overall college performance are strongly correlated.
Examinations and other graded assignments are at a level of difficulty appropriate to the level of the class. Students are examined over the material covered both in class and in readings. It should not be possible to get a "good grade" in a class without understanding both readings and class materials.
High academic expectations should not be confused with mean-spiritedness, however. To announce that "I am the hardest professor on the campus" or "I give more failing grades than any other professor" is not synonymous with academic rigor. Academic rigor involves standards of excellence to which we hold ourselves and our students. An academically rigorous learning environment also responds to the very human need for support and caring. Therefore, increasing rigor should be accompanied by increased instruction on how to meet the challenge and substantial personal reinforcement as the students begin to achieve at the higher expected level.
It also should be noted that there is no conflict between Westem's strong historical value placed on caring for students and their futures and setting high academic standards.
It is specifically because we care so much for our students and their future that we require them to meet the highest expectations of academic performance. We need to have these expectations for them and to inculcate in them the same expectations for themselves.
It should be clear that this is the most fundamental area in which we can act. And, if we do not raise our expectations with regard to the rigor of our courses and programs, no other changes that we make will have any positive effect. Immediately, we can begin to raise the expectations of students with regard to reading and class assignments, homework, and the necessity of study. In the Spring term, we should start with more specific assignments and clearer expectations of what level of work will produce a passing or higher grade. Longer range, as we re-examine our approaches to teaching and curriculum, we can continue to "raise the bar." Students will respond if the standards are moved in a realistic manner and within a caring, supportive context.
Teaching and Scholarship
Strong programs in research and scholarship are critical to the future of this and all other universities. Excellence in research is the most traditional means to establish an institutional reputation for excellence. And, I believe that maintaining a strong scholarly agenda is fundamental to our future. Unfortunately, it is axiomatic in higher education, and the literature supports the conclusion, that good researchers do not necessarily make good teachers. There is no necessary tie between research quality and teaching. However, this conclusion only speaks to half the question: research quality causing teaching quality. A different formulation of the question, and perhaps one more germane to our situation, could be phrased, "Can someone be a good teacher and not be a good scholar?" At a four-year university, especially one with graduate programs, the response would have to be negative. To be truly excellent in teaching one also needs to be excellent in scholarship. One needs to be current on both the methods of knowing and the subject matter of the discipline. Furthermore, being an active scholar models for students our expectations of their own scholarship. If we are not meeting the professional standards of our own fields, it seems difficult (at best) to expect our students to meet high intellectual standards.
While good scholarship is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for excellence in the teaching-learning process, our definitions of scholarship should not be overly restricted. Excellence in textbook writing, teaching-tool development, grant writing, software development, developing and implementing new modes of assessment in the field, pedagogical research (both basic and applied), as well as basic or applied research in the discipline (or juried shows, performances, etc., in the arts) need to be recognized as appropriate forms of scholarship that can undergird excellence in teaching for student learning. Each makes its own contribution to development of the discipline and the University if it is modeled and demonstrated within the context of a university focused on student learning. Each type of scholarly productivity can be assessed and included in a review for tenure, promotion, or merit.
This campus is blessed with many excellent scholars. Many faculty have a primary commitment to research that is very beneficial to the University. In a student-learning-centered environment these faculty can play a particularly important role. Students best learn by doing. If faculty with strong commitments to research include students as protegˇs in their research program, they can contribute immeasurably to student learning. Moreover, working closely with students on defined projects, and bringing these joint projects to publication, exhibition, or performance, can be some of the most professionally rewarding experiences a researcher can have.
Finally, we should recognize that the structure and pressures on higher education are changing nationally. Increasingly, universities must demonstrate that their faculty are serving the needs of the students. As this process of change in the pressures on higher education continues, the value of the types of scholarship being suggested here will be in greater demand.
Structure of the Reward System
All too often faculty here and elsewhere note that, while we say we are interested in student learning, we do not reward excellence in teaching. We reward even less excellence in advising. A truly student-learning-centered university will have a faculty hiring, tenure, promotion, and merit system that is based primarily on documented performance with regard to this principal goal. This means that if any university is going to move to the forefront in student learning, it needs to modify its rewards structure accordingly.
It must be noted that there is very little evidence that people choose to be in a university because they are reward-driven. Especially people who choose to be in the faculty make these career decisions for other reasons. However, the reward structure cannot be an impediment. Hiring processes need to emphasize the institution's orientation to enhanced student learning and candidate review should include significant criteria addressed to this issue. (It might even be appropriate to observe a candidate teaching a class.) Tenure, promotion, and merit reward standards, policies, and procedures likewise need to reflect the institution's goals. As Chancellor, I am committed to excellence in teaching and to working with you to create a climate in which effective teaching is rewarded.
Resource Distribution and Institutional Processes
If this is to become a nationally recognized student-learning-centered university, resources need to be increasingly distributed to meet institutional goals. Instead of focusing on "How does my department get another position or more funds?" we need to begin the discussion from the perspective of what we are attempting to accomplish. That is, how will this distribution of resources assist the University in enhancing student learning?
One of the most significant ways in which resources can be reallocated, and one that produces nearly no "downsides," is through the simplification of institutional processes and procedures. If less time can be spent on handling routine business, more can be spent on the major task at hand. Therefore, a national caliber student-learning environment will continuously examine its processes to see how they can be simplified to minimize their impact on time on task.
In addition to effective allocation of resources, a learning-centered University will seek funding beyond the base budget to support experimentation and development of its primary goals. Fund raising, grant programs, contract work, and the like are emphasized because of their ability to provide for the "margin of excellence" that can make the difference between a university that is good at meeting its goals and one that is great.
Much of the work of this University, if we are to move to the next level of excellence, needs to be involved with implementing this broadly stated goal and in addressing the issues presented above. However, development of a student-learning-centered university raises equally profound questions with respect to students and their performance, the curriculum, and institutional reputation as reflected in, and to a significant degree determined by, the caliber of students admitted to the university. My position on these issues will be set out in another paper in the near future. As always, I invite open and frank discussion and candid comment on the direction of this institution. It is only through the open consultation process that we can truly establish a consensus on the future of Western Carolina University.