Executive Summary
In this Strategic Plan we describe a vision of the College of Arts and Sciences in the year 2005 and offer six principal goals for effecting that vision. Under each goal is articulated a series of objectives and strategies for their accomplishment. A full description of the rationale for this plan and the priorities that are established here is to be found in the full text.
Goal 1: Improve the Educational Experience of Undergraduates
- 1.1 The College should consistently renew its curriculum with the objective of educating students broadly across the spectrum of the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. It should ensure that students receive instruction at a high standard in the core skills of writing and math.
- 1.2 Within the limits of available resources the College should increase the opportunities for undergraduates to learn in small class settings.
- 1.3 The College should support individual opportunities for students to work with faculty actively engaged in research and creative work by increasing support existing programs, while creating new incentives for faculty to offer individual instruction and supervision of student research and creative projects.
- 1.4 The student/faculty ratio must be reduced in those disciplines where it has grown unacceptably high.
- 1.5 Non-tenure-track faculty should be used in teaching assignments where necessary and appropriate. They should also be compensated appropriately for their contributions.
- 1.6 The College should consider expanding the Honors Program and extending to all graduating seniors the opportunity to write a thesis or conduct their own research or creative project.
- 1.7 The College should share its expertise with the community by developing more community and service learning programs in conjunction with its course offerings.
- 1.8 Students in large lecture classes should receive the best possible learning experience, through a combination of increased support for instructional technology and added incentives for senior faculty to participate in lower division instruction
- 1.9 The quality of instruction provided by graduate teachers should be improved by fostering collaboration with the Graduate Teacher Program and encouraging departments to institute discipline-specific training programs.
- 1.10 The College should provide an academic advising program, including appropriate information technology, to ensure that all undergraduate students can find the instructional resources of the College that will meet their individual needs and abilities.
Goal 2: Improve the Educational Experience of Graduate Students
- 2.1 Cooperation between the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School should be improved by designating an Associate Dean to coordinate programs and initiatives with the Graduate School.
- 2.2 A more transparent, efficient, and equitable financial aid system for graduate students should be designed by a joint task force between the Graduate School and the College of Arts and Sciences.
- 2.3 Fellowship and financial aid packages in the graduate programs of the College of Arts and Sciences should be increased to enable the University of Colorado to compete with its peer institutions for the most promising applicants.
- 2.4 To ensure that graduate students receive instruction from qualified faculty of all ranks in all varieties of graduate instruction, the College should develop policies that will ensure that departments make effective use of their junior faculty in graduate instruction.
Goal 3: Build and maintain excellence in selected departments and programs across the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
- 3.1 To require each unit in the College to develop and apply rigorous measures to assess quality in research and creative work, teaching, and service, recognizing that this is already a part of the culture of the College.
- 3.2 Planning by departments and programs should be integrated into the Strategic Plan of the College, with more active participation by the Dean's office in the Program Review process of A&S departments.
- 3.3 Planning by departments and programs should be coordinated with realistic assessments of the resources available to the College.
- 3.4 The College must allocate its faculty resources according to rigorous priorities and criteria.
- 3.5 In order to couple resource allocation to assessment of quality, the College should initiate its own formal three-year-cycle review process that is coordinated with PRP.
- 3.6 Any reallocation of faculty lines should be made by open and transparent processes, conducted according to principles of fairness and a commitment to academic values.
- 3.7 New initiatives in interdisciplinary teaching, research and creative work should be encouraged.
- 3.8 Rigorous standards for awarding tenure must be maintained by the Arts & Sciences Personnel Committee.
Goal 4: Enrich the Community of Scholarship and Learning through Diversity
- 4.1 The opportunities available to talented low-income and first generation students to matriculate in the College of Arts and Sciences should be expanded by developing funds for academic scholarships and outreach programs directed towards low-income and first generation students.
- 4.2 The College should expand the opportunities available to students, faculty, and staff to support each other in the pursuit of their academic and professional goals by expanding existing successful programs.
- 4.3 The College campus must provide support to faculty in order to provide classroom facilities, proctoring and other services required by students of differing abilities.
- 4.4 The progress of the College in creating a more diverse faculty, student body, and staff should be monitored by an Associate Dean charged with compiling data about recruitment and retention of students, faculty and staff in the College.
- 4.5 The College should increase the international component of the curriculum, by expanding Study Abroad opportunities for its students expanding its offerings in areas not currently represented in the curriculum, including the languages and cultures of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and southern Asia.
Goal 5: Improve the ability of students and faculty to conduct research, produce creative work and integrate scholarship with teaching.
- 5.1 The College should provide first-class facilities laboratories, faculty offices, classrooms, and studios in which students and faculty can conduct research and develop creative works.
- 5.2 The College must support the development of an outstanding library by attaching the highest priority to the construction of the proposed Science Library and the reconfiguration of Norlin Library as a Humanities and Social Sciences facility.
- 5.3 The College should provide untenured faculty members with ample opportunity to demonstrate their talents in research and creative work by asking departments to account for the workload assignments of their junior faculty.
- 5.3 The College should endeavor to maintain the competitiveness of startup packages across the disciplines and should identify competitive startup funds as a critical priority in its annual budget.
- 5.4 Opportunities for faculty to obtain release time to conduct research and develop creative works should be increased.
- 5.5 The College should increase support for the scholarly activities of faculty by allocating some portion of any incremental revenues to increase the funds available through the College Accounts.
Goal 6: Expand and diversify the resources available to the College in order to achieve these goals.
- 6.1 The College of Arts and Sciences must represent its mission of the College of Arts and Sciences by facilitating participation by departments in initiatives that bring members of the state community onto the campus and take members of the faculty into areas of the state outside of Boulder.
- 6.2 Faculty involvement in the development activities of the College should be increased by establishing a faculty advisory committee to work with development officers in the College and the University of Colorado Foundation.
- 6.3 The College must cultivate its ties to alumni/-ae and friends by providing financial and technical support for departmental newsletters.
- 6.4 It is critical that the University of Colorado Foundation become more effective in developing resources for the College from private sources by implementing the reforms recommended in the recent review of its operations.
- 6.5 The Dean and the administration should continue to endeavor to raise the standing of the College in the budget priorities of the campus by demonstrating that the most effective way for the campus to accomplish its collective goals is to support the College in implementing this plan.
