Author: Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Dear UAA Colleagues,

President Emmert and Provost Wise have asked the University to envision and academic plan for the next two decades. The initiative, named 2 Years to 2 Decades, is underway and some reformations in Undergraduate Academic Affairs are worth mentioning.

Janice DeCosmo and Debbie Wiegand are stewarding a conversation with colleagues in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity and Student Life about creating a holistic approach to serving students. We are significantly closer to our vision of expanding and deepening engagement for students across these administrative divisions. This allows us to ask some important questions including:

• How do we best advise students?
• How do we expand opportunities to premier learning experiences?
• How do we create communities of engagement and learning?
• What is our response to teaching and helping all students have a sense of vocation? By vocation I mean the ability to pursue their calling.

Related to this work, academic advisers on campus are “transforming” the way academic advising happens at the University of Washington. There is no better time for this as we begin to create a vision for growing the freshman class over the next few years.

A third transformation may well be catalyzed by the Report on Teaching and Learning. Betsy Wilson, Jerry Baldasty, and I called some of our most talented educators on campus to help envision how we can create a collaborative and visionary teaching and learning center. Lisa Coutu led the committee and a leadership meeting will happen soon to go over the details of the committee’s work.

Finally, a theme that should define our moment in this economic downturn is a call to service. Two weeks ago I was honored to address over 1,000 Americorps members. President Obama would like the country’s Americorps membership to increase from 75,000 members to 250,000 members over time.

The UW has deeply-embedded roots in service. These roots and this moment in history peak in our service learning courses. This fall quarter, the Carlson Center is reporting more students participating in service learning than any other quarter. Typically, the average number of students involved in service learning is about 400 per quarter. Only one time have we broken the 500 student mark. This quarter, 648 students are involved in service learning.

Additionally, JumpStart surpassed its goal of 90 Corps Members and recruited a record 110 Corps Members to help preschool age students prepare for kindergarten. And, the Pipeline Project has seen record numbers of student involvement with 278 UW students working with 4,800 K-12 students across the city.

The 100 part-time Americorps slots the Carlson Center works to fill are all filled. This work usually takes until March or April.

If our students are an accurate gauge of our time, civic consciousness may in fact guide the work of the University and guide the work of our community in the next two decades.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean

Dear UAA Colleagues,

In this message are some things I’ll want to draw your attention to that will impact our work in the coming year.

You’ll hear a lot of conversation about activity based budgeting as a model we may be moving toward. The primary purpose of this model is to bring more transparency to how budget decisions are made and to find more efficient ways of allocating resources on campus.

A second initiative and related is the “two years to two decades” initiative President Emmert and Provost Wise have asked us to embark upon. The purpose of the “two years to two decades” conversation will be to look at the University model and a business model within the next two years and through the next two decades. In effect, we return to the question, “Who do we want to be as an institution and what foundation is necessary for us to get there?”

There will be a number of discussions about both of these initiatives. How does it impact our work? We will want to continue to look at where we can be efficient in our work and where we need to expand. The exciting moment for Undergraduate Academic Affairs is that much of the focus and much of the attention of the coming year and the coming years will be related to the undergraduate experience. A movement toward higher tuition and higher undergraduate enrollment will call on us to find even more ways—innovative, efficient, effective, and creative ways—to serve students on our campus.

I’d also like to draw your attention to potential moves within Mary Gates Hall that will bring our work with students closely aligned with our colleagues in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity and Student Life. Plans are being formulated to co-locate academic advising, experiential learning, academic programs in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, and academic support, in order to take significant steps towards a comprehensive experience for our students.

Nana Lowell and Cathy Beyer and OEA staff have worked diligently on University accreditation, and we can expect in the next two years and the next two decades to lead and innovate in classroom technology and learning environments.

I want to acknowledge Grant Kollet, Becky Francoeur, and Namura Nkeze for their efforts in assessment of Freshman Interest Groups. Indeed Freshman Interest Groups are the first step into the University for many of our freshman and transfer students. The research is clear that students who are engaged on campus have a richer academic experience, a richer social experience, and a deeper interpersonal experience. The leadership of our First Year Programs staff has been outstanding.

We’ll miss Stan Chernicoff at next week’s Fall Kick Off as he and some Dream Project students will be in New York City preparing for their presentation at the National College Board meetings. We’re proud of them and wish them well.

What I appreciate most about you as colleagues in Undergraduate Academic Affairs is that I see leadership manifest in your work and in your actions in countless ways. Let’s continue to work together to make the University of Washington undergraduate experience the best that there is in the country.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean