Strategy VI
Invest in students by removing barriers to learning and
progress to graduation.
Quality and efficiency in education can be enhanced by improving the
conditions of learning. The most important barriers to student progress
are: overwhelming curricular requirements; restricted access to courses
and majors; indecision about what to study and matching interest with
ability; and inadequate financial aid. To the extent that these problems
are under our control, we must fix them before we enter the period of
rapid growth.
Recommendations
-
Calibrate degree requirements. Academic units consider the progress
of their students and insure that the curriculum is organized and
presented in a way that the necessary knowledge and skills of a discipline
can be acquired within the equivalent of four years of full time study.
-
Improve advising. Provide students with the advice, counseling and
mentoring they need to expand intellectually, succeed academically, choose
their course of study wisely and progress efficiently toward graduation.
Specifically provide:
-
Advising clusters for all new students
-
Advising intervention for extended pre-majors
-
Improved ratio of advisers to majors in departments
-
Assignment of all majors in departments to a faculty mentor
-
Manage the curriculum. Organize and maintain the curriculum to
provide reasonable access to courses, majors and professional programs
students need to meet academic goals and progress to degree.
Specifically:
-
Provide access to bottleneck courses
-
Provide qualified students access to high demand majors
-
Review entrance requirements for programs and majors to avoid excessively
restrictive entrance requirements
-
Increase financial aid. Act to influence public policy at state and
federal levels to provide balanced and sufficient financial aid permitting
students to concentrate on academic achievement and progress. Raise
private funds to supplement financial aid provided by federal and state
governments.
