When an important decision happens, students are often the last to know. But the CUE report (Commission for Undergraduate Education) offers a chance for the administration to finally get it right.
Hammered out by a group of administrators, faculty and students, with input from the community, the CUE report recommends substantive changes in the Hopkins undergraduate landscape that should be implemented.
That's key: they must be implemented. And students should participate as decision-makers, something this administration has been unwilling to do on a scale beyond small "representative" members.
For the new students, a recap: President Brody and Provost Steven Knapp convened the Commission on Undergraduate Education. Under the leadership of Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Paula Burger, the commission reported deep and substantive problems in the undergraduate experience at Hopkins.
An interim report was issued January 31, 2003, and the final report was released on May 15th. The changes, according to Burger, were driven by the input the commission received. She noted that the commission missed its self-imposed May 1st deadline because it wanted to ensure that they "took seriously inputs we got" and that each commission member personally endorsed the report.
Almost as significant as the proposals themselves is the detailed examination of the shortcomings of undergraduate education and student life at Hopkins. A brief sample:
There are "Too many students who are dissatisfied generally with access to faculty, class sizes, and the perceived degree of faculty commitment to the undergraduate experience."
"Students are not satisfied with academic advising in some departments where they perceive some faculty as inaccessible, uninterested, or over-burdened by advising loads."
Students "lack spaces to socialize and to engage in group study."
These criticisms cannot be dismissed as mere rants of disaffected students. They come after careful study and evaluation. They must be acted upon.
Already, the implementation process has begun, according to Burger. She says another reason the report was released at such an awkward time -- at the end of the school year -- was not to bury the findings, but because it was important for "things to get hustling on immediately."
But as we move forward, the administration must pursue a second goal: openness. In order to combat the "disconnect" between administrators and faculty's apparent enthusiasm to improve undergraduates experience and students' perception of their efforts, all further efforts to implement CUE should be made public and should attempt to involve students as the process continues. There should be no perception that the administration is pursuing a hidden agenda for its selfish benefit.
Hopkins will have a first opportunity prove its commitment to students with the scheduling issue. This issue involves whether to change the current MTW, ThF class schedule into a much more widely used MWF, TTh schedule. The school deans, Andrew Douglas and Daniel Weiss have already committed to resolving the issue this year, according to Burger.
To prove their commitment to an open and responsive administration that fundamentally cares about its students, this committee should have student members, including ones not in Student Council, and important meetings should be open to the public. All deliberations and discussions should be available afterwards for examination by the community at large.
Even if no one attends, the gesture is as important in this enterprise.
Finally, the will of the student body should be assessed in a school-wide election. To use the words of the CUE commission, such discussion and input will encourage "ownership" of the issue by students. It will also encourage students to re-engage in campus life.
And the need for openness and public scrutiny extends to the entire CUE implementation process. Students should be able to judge for themselves the progress and resolve of the administration.
Hopkins leaders act often in so much secrecy that students assume that someone else's interests are being served before theirs, even as leaders protest. Policies about our well-being always have this ring of the white man's burden to them: rules handed down as the best thing for us without wide-spread input and involvement, but in fact serving other interests.
This must change. The CUE commission made a good start on this openness by holding public hearings and consultations with student leaders. Even more wouldn't hurt the process. In the end, openness and disclosure is the only true solution to "One of the most disturbing findings by the Commission," which is, "the extent to which many students perceive that no one cares." A willingness to treat students as equals in decision-making would go a long way toward solving the problems of cynicism, community and disconnect that CUE identified.
As the CUE interim report says about faculty and administration efforts: "How is it that this level of ... concern has not resulted in wider recognition that some, and indeed many, do in fact care?
"The answer is simply that students expect more than good intentions."
That we do. And that we will.
