CHAPTER 5: Accomplishment of Purposes

Undergraduate Education

The University of Colorado at Boulder has rededicated itself to strengthening the quality of undergraduate instruction and to stimulating efforts to revolutionize the undergraduate educational experience. To that end, the Division of Academic Affairs has adopted a strategic plan, one principal goal of which is to make the undergraduate experience at CU-Boulder more personalized, especially for first- and second-year students.

Another principal goal is to expand the undergraduate curriculum to incorporate undergraduate students into scholarly research programs more broadly. For many years, CU-Boulder has actively involved undergraduates in research activities. It is the university's intention to expand this component of undergraduate education, particularly for first- and second-year students.

Academic Neighborhoods

The campus has made a significant and increasing commitment of resources to special learning opportunities called "academic neighborhoods" that offer the benefits of a major university within a small-group environment. In 1998, the campus reported to CCHE that almost two-thirds of its graduates who entered as freshmen had participated in at least one such academic opportunity. The ultimate goal is that every undergraduate has the opportunity for these personalized, small-group academic experiences.

Examples of such experiences include the popular residential academic programs (RAPs), which are designed to create small neighborhoods of living and learning. Class sizes are kept small, courses are taught in the residence halls, and the students are encouraged to develop common study groups and collaborative learning both in and outside of class.

Another new initiative directed toward undergraduate education on the campus is the Norlin Scholars Program. Interdisciplinary in content and outlook, the program offers a range of educational benefits and financial incentives for students of exceptionally high academic commitment and individual creativity. The program, which began in fall 1999 with 24 first-year students and 12 juniors, offers: special courses; honors opportunities; experience in original research under faculty supervision; priority registration for courses; opportunities for service learning, internships, and overseas experiences; and individual faculty mentorships. In addition, each Norlin Scholar receives a merit-based award of $2,000 per year.

Other academic neighborhoods fostering close faculty-student interaction include: the independent study and internship options offered by every department and program; the College Honors Program, where classes are always limited to seminar size and where students can, through a combination of course work and a thesis, achieve honors designations; and the honors programs available within each major, which involve an independent research or creative project under the direction of a faculty supervisor. Other neighborhoods are the Academic Access Institute that offers advising, monitoring, tutoring, and academic skills training to students with academic potential who need support during their freshman year; and a cluster of courses known as FallFEST that allows a number of freshmen to share a common schedule of small classes.

Small Class Opportunities

Like other comprehensive universities, CU-Boulder offers a number of large lecture courses in the undergraduate curriculum. However, the Boulder campus also offers many opportunities for small-group learning experiences in which students and faculty come together for close mutual consideration of questions and issues. In 1998, 74 percent of lower-division courses across campus were 30 students or fewer.

In the College of Arts and Sciences, for example, 61 percent of the courses enroll 25 or fewer students. Throughout the campus, many departments include seminars or other small classes in their major curricula. Classes with small enrollments are integral to a number of the classes offered under the "skills" component of the core curriculum, such as the lower- and upper-division writing classes and the foreign language classes. The six-hour Herbst humanities component of the engineering curriculum limits enrollment to 14 students per section. About 25 percent of engineering students take these courses.

Undergraduate Research Experiences

As a comprehensive research university, CU-Boulder fosters the profound connection between faculty research and teaching. Many faculty members involve students directly in their research. This may take a traditional form, such as the assistance of graduate students in a laboratory, but the university also works to involve undergraduates in research efforts through programs such as the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP).

UROP provides funding for students and faculty to work together on a research project of mutual interest. While many of these projects are scientific, many others are sponsored by faculty in the social sciences and the arts and humanities. Nearly $2 million in stipends has been provided to more than 2,000 undergraduates since 1986, allowing them to work closely with faculty on projects ranging from genetics and archaeology to English literature and engineering. In the 1997-1998 academic year, approximately 450 individual research projects for undergraduates were funded by the campus.

Other opportunities for undergraduate involvement in research include the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Program (SURE) and the College of Engineering’s Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory (ITLL), discussed elsewhere in this Self-Study. Building on the successes of ITLL, the engineering college has initiated plans for a Discovery Learning Center (DLC) that will engage students in inquiry-based learning at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. The new DLC facility will create a team-based research environment in which undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members, and industry partners work together to solve current research problems.

Teaching Quality and Expectations

The faculty of the university is intimately involved in the teaching mission at every level. The appointment of all regular faculty members (tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track instructional) includes the expectation that they will teach regularly, and that their teaching will be evaluated rigorously. Teaching evaluations occur during annual reviews and all reappointment, tenure, and promotion decisions. Except in special circumstances, teaching normally constitutes 40 percent of each tenured and tenure-track faculty member’s workload, although the number of courses that comprises the normal workload varies across campus by discipline. Faculty members are required to develop and maintain plans for their teaching as part of the Faculty Professional Plans recently instituted by the post-tenure review system.

Ensuring a high quality of teaching at every level is a central concern of the university. Teaching quality is monitored in a variety of ways, including the use of evaluations by students. The Faculty Course Questionnaire (FCQ) allows students to rate their courses and instructors every term, in every course. Over 10 years of FCQ data are used to report annually to departments on individual instructors' performance over time. FCQ data are used by students to select courses, by faculty for course improvement, and by administrators for salary, promotion, rehire, and tenure decisions.

In 1998-99, a committee of the systemwide Faculty Senate was formed to recommend revisions or alternatives to the FCQ. The committee considered faculty dissatisfaction with the public nature of the results, the seriousness with which students complete the forms, and perceived effects of class size and other factors on faculty ratings. It also considered faculty needs for private formative evaluations prior to the end of the terms.

In its report submitted in summer 1999, the committee recommended creating two separate evaluations by students. One would provide confidential "formative" feedback to the instructor regarding teaching and course quality and would be administered by the instructor midterm in at least one class per academic year. This evaluation is intended to help the instructor improve the course as it is being taught. The second would be a combined "summative" evaluation and gathering of information on each course and instructor each semester. Results of this evaluation would be utilized in promotion decision making and would be published for reference by students. The committee called for each campus to design this summative/informational evaluation in accordance with regental direction. More information on the study is available at www-math.cudenver.edu/
~wcherowi/fcq/fcqrep.htm.

The FCQ is an important accountability tool, helping ensure that student satisfaction with courses and teaching is a factor in institutional management. However, by campus and university policy, decisions on teaching quality for promotion and tenure are not made on the basis of FCQs alone. Multiple measures of teaching quality are required, selected from outcomes assessment, student letters, peer reviews, class interviews, and other methods.

A teaching mentorship program for junior faculty has been established to help beginning professors succeed. The Faculty Teaching Excellence Program (FTEP), discussed in Chapter IV, offers a variety of services for those teachers who wish to improve their teaching skills or to work on a specific problem. The award-winning Graduate Teacher Program (GTP) supplements the teacher training of the individual departments and offers a variety of resources to ensure that graduate student teachers on campus are successful.

At CU-Boulder, procedures are in place for rewarding good teaching. In keeping with the standard faculty workload, teaching represents 40 percent of each faculty member's annual merit evaluation for possible salary raises. According to the Laws of the Regents, tenure may be awarded only to faculty members with demonstrated meritorious performance in each of the three areas of teaching, research or creative work, and service, and with demonstrated excellence in either teaching or research/creative work. More than half (56 percent) of the 170 tenure awards made between 1992 and 1998 were based on excellence in teaching; the remainder were based on meritorious teaching plus excellence in research.

Moreover, the campus sponsors a variety of awards and honors to recognize teaching excellence. Examples include the prestigious systemwide President's Teaching Scholars, a majority of whom are members of the Boulder faculty, and the annual awards sponsored by the Boulder Faculty Assembly and the Student Office of Alumni Relations.

Pedagogical Enhancements

The Boulder campus has implemented a number of pedagogical innovations that enhance the undergraduate learning experience. These innovations center around the creation of active learning environments, where students learn by doing — whether in the laboratory, residence hall, or classroom. They often feature new uses of technology in the classroom and research. And they draw upon the campus’s interdisciplinary strengths to integrate differing perspectives on a subject of learning.

CU-Boulder faculty receive support for effective teaching innovations from the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program (FTEP), which provides consultation and assistance in a number of areas such as the use of the Internet in teaching. Also, the ATLAS initiative promotes faculty development in the innovative use of technology in the classroom. The campus’s centers and institutes, such as the Center for Entrepreneurship operated jointly by the College of Engineering and Applied Science and the College of Business and Administration, encourage multidisciplinary perspectives in the examination of specific topics.

The university’s mission also includes a deep commitment to an intellectual engagement with the question of values, including personal, social, and civic values. The core curriculum of arts and sciences includes a three-hour requirement in "Ideals and Values," which can be satisfied by a variety of courses in such departments as religious studies and philosophy. The concept of "service learning," in which students work with faculty members on projects in the community, has taken firm hold within the university and is, for example, an emphasis of the Farrand Hall Residential Academic Program.

Herbst Program in Engineering Focuses on Humanities

Undergraduate students in the College of Engineering and Applied Science can expand their nontechnical education through the Herbst Program of Humanities, named for long-time CU supporter Clarence Herbst Jr. Students in the program study Shakespeare and a variety of other texts, films, concerts, plays, and art. Through seminar-style classes, the program helps students develop the breadth of vision, flexibility of mind, and capacity to communicate that will help make them better citizens and more successful engineers. About one-fourth of all engineering undergraduates participate in the program.

Special Advisor to Groom Students for Fellowships

The Boulder campus has committed funds for a new position to serve as a special academic advisor and mentor to students who have strong records or potential as academic high achievers. These students are likely to become strong candidates for prestigious fellowships, such as Truman, Marshall, and Rhodes. The advisor will help interested, high-achieving students to prepare themselves early in their academic careers for such opportunities.