Since its inception, UCSC has distinguished itself from other research universities by the importance it has placed on undergraduate education. The founders of the campus envisioned a learning community in which students would have frequent and informal contact with a wide variety of faculty members, providing the opportunity to explore academic ideas. Indeed, the campus's collegiate structure was designed to encourage such interactions.
Scholars who shared this vision were drawn to this campus, thus creating conditions in which students could pursue their academic programs in a context that fostered and nurtured educational innovations. Although many recent initiatives to enhance the campus's offerings have focused on adding or strengthening graduate and professional programs, an effort has been made to ensure that those programs complement, rather than diminish, the quality of undergraduate education. Providing undergraduate students with high-quality educational experiences continues to be fundamental to the campus's mission.
Undergraduate teaching has many dimensions that are important at UCSC. This section of the self-study focuses on the qualitative aspects of teaching evaluation, the support of instructional improvements, and the recognition and reward of excellence for Senate faculty and lecturers. Change in instructional practice which accommodates the learning needs of an increasingly diverse student population is also an important issue for teaching and is discussed in the sub-section "Diversity in the Academic Environment" in "Undergraduate Diversity."
Among the many reports and trends that have emerged during the review period and shaped this summary statement are the following:
Taken together, these reports and trends suggest that the teaching environment has become even more complicated and challenging than it has been historically.
In preparing this self-study, the Steering Committee reviewed policy documents, interviewed the deans of the academic divisions and the chairpersons of key committees of the Senate, and surveyed the chairpersons of the boards of studies. The result is a "snapshot" (rather than a history) of teaching at UCSC today, and a simple projection of the ways in which it might evolve in the near future.
The evaluation of teaching is, first, highly decentralized. For example, each board of studies has its own approach and makes up its own forms for evaluating teaching, and the academic divisions expend little effort to establish common practices or criteria.
Second, practically all of the board chairs, deans, and Senate chairs expressed the view, directly or indirectly, that the only purpose of evaluating teaching is to support personnel actions. None acknowledged the role evaluation plays in the improvement of instruction. The campus's Center for Teaching has pursued this second objective and a few boards have recently started using techniques, such as classroom observation by peers, that address the improvement of instruction.
Third, in nearly all boards, the evaluation of teaching relies heavily on student evaluations of courses and instructors. Some boards report using one or more additional approaches, including faculty self-evaluations, classroom observations by peers, and exit interviews of graduating students. At least one board also examines syllabi, workload, and class size profiles, and considers advising, supervision of independent studies, and other factors. Several boards address teaching within the board (but not individual instructors) through discussions during board meetings, discussions with undergraduate and graduate students in the major, and, in one board, an annual survey, conducted by the board's undergraduate student association, that includes questions on the teaching effectiveness of the board's faculty and lecturers.
The writing and language programs employ more detailed and formalized approaches for the evaluation of non-tenure-track instructors. These approaches include: review of the course's purpose, goals, and curricular materials; review of the instructor's narrative evaluations; letters from informed observers; classroom visits and observations; and review of students' course evaluations.
Board chairs reported a fairly high level of satisfaction with existing approaches to teaching evaluation; however, several expressed desires to improve the evaluation of teaching. Other responses indicated a lack of information about alternatives for evaluating teaching by tenure-track faculty, although this issue appears to be less troublesome with non-tenure-track faculty.
The deans of the academic divisions currently evaluate teaching effectiveness only in connection with personnel actions, and rely on reports of the board chairpersons. It should be noted, however, that one divisional dean recently established a task force on undergraduate education issues, including the evaluation and improvement of teaching effectiveness. In some cases, deans also receive and consider reports from external review committees and current and former students. The deans agree that teaching is now being weighed more heavily in the personnel process and that the campus needs new and more effective methods for evaluating teaching. They suggested using multiple measures, e.g., review of curricular materials; peer evaluations; follow-up studies of students' academic success; and systematic surveys of students before and after graduation. Some deans feel that to improve evaluations of teaching, they need explicit guidelines and criteria.
The Academic Senate Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) reviews proposals for all new courses. It looks at issues of overlap and quality at the time a course is proposed as well as during external reviews. Its current chair asserts that the CEP would like to assume a more proactive role in evaluating teaching effectiveness and in monitoring the actual offering of approved courses.
The Academic Senate Committee on Academic Personnel (CAP) examines how problems in teaching are being addressed and, when needed, makes specific recommendations to improve teaching. The CAP has indicated its desire to ensure that teaching evaluations are objective and that they include measures other than students' course evaluations.
In the spring of 1992, the Associate Academic Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education drafted a plan for the evaluation of teaching, for discussion. This draft plan, which remains under review but has not as yet been implemented, includes the following proposals:
Like other UC campuses, UCSC does not have a systematic assessment program for teaching and learning. UCSC's boards, programs, committees, and administrative units collect a wide variety of student outcomes data, but there is no central oversight of these activities. The program review process is the main impetus for boards to collect information about their effectiveness.
The general consensus is that UCSC provides a high-quality education. A recent survey conducted by the UCSC Alumni Association found that graduates rated the overall quality of their education to be high. Alumni ratings of overall quality and faculty quality decreased from those graduating in 1965-75 to those graduating more recently (1984-92). Anecdotal reports from transfer students and former students who have gone on to pursue their educations elsewhere suggest that UCSC faculty are more student-oriented than at other campuses and the quality of classroom instruction is very high. On the negative side, alumni (especially recent graduates) reported overcrowding in classes as a significant and increasing problem.
Although it would be convenient to cite a single measure of student learning as evidence of the quality of teaching at UCSC, no such measure could capture the many facets of the learning and teaching environment or the needs of the variety of audiences involved. Students want to know how well they are doing and how to improve; instructors want to know what students are learning and how to increase their understanding; boards need to know the effectiveness of their curriculum and faculty; and campus administrators need information on the overall quality of undergraduate instruction. Table A.1 summarizes how the quality of instruction is evaluated at UCSC. Some evaluation practices cited in the table may be used only in specific instances (e.g., only a few boards use peer evaluations).
In addition to standard evaluation methods and to its own system of narrative evaluation with the senior comprehensive requirement, UCSC has devised a process of external program review that includes the assessment of teaching. The primary purpose of academic program review is to guide long-range planning and to improve program quality. Each academic program undergoes a review every six years. The review requires an internal self-study. This is followed by a visit by a team of at least three external faculty members within the discipline. The Associate Academic Vice Chancellor for Planning and Programs is responsible for working with the dean to strike the review team's charge, schedule the visit, and coordinate the follow-up activities. The criteria of evaluation cover the board's curriculum, research, students, budget, facilities, and faculty. Student learning concerns include: student morale; consensus in the program regarding core material that students should learn; methods for assessing effectiveness in conveying the desired core; student interest in the program; efforts to attract, support, and serve the needs of students from non-traditional groups; and proportion of courses that have waiting lists or are over-enrolled. To help ensure that the review recommendations are carefully considered, the dean submits a progress report three years after the review is completed.
The campus does not possess direct measures of the quality of teaching and could better coordinate its use of those measures already available. Evaluation of student outcomes is largely limited to indirect measures of success (retention and graduation rates, acceptance rates into advanced degree programs). While retention and graduation rates have improved dramatically since the time of the previous WASC review (more than 40 percent now graduate in four years), it is difficult to assert that the improvement is due to increases in educational process or quality (versus, for example, higher fees). Recent alumni surveys have found that a high percentage (more than 90 percent) of the UCSC graduates who applied for postbaccalaureate study were admitted into at least one program. Though this proportion is based on a smaller percentage than typically submit applications at other UC campuses, over half of our graduates eventually go on to graduate or professional schools. Acceptance rates into medical schools and MCAT scores are at the statewide average even though UCSC offers no health science programs.
Board chairs, deans, and Senate committee chairs seem generally aware of the range of available techniques for evaluating teaching. Several expressed interest in adopting more sophisticated approaches. All regard the evaluation of teaching almost exclusively as a component of personnel reviews, rather than as a component of a (separate) instructional improvement program.
During the review period, UCSC has made varying uses of its annual allocation of funds from the University's Instructional Improvement Program (IIP). Initially, academic deans awarded competitive IIP grants to faculty members who proposed initiatives to improve teaching. Subsequently, the campus administration allocated these funds to the college provosts for the support of core courses. More recently, the Academic Senate's Committee on Teaching worked with the campus administration to establish a Center for Teaching on a three-year trial basis. The Center has since become a casualty of budget cutbacks.
During its two years of operation, the Center conducted activities in three areas: (a) enhancing campuswide visibility for teaching; (b) providing feedback and suggestions for the improvement of teaching (including observations and publications); and (c) distributing and administering the Instructional Improvement Program grants. Many of the Center's activities have been redistributed among other campus units. For example, responsibility for the orientation and instruction of teaching assistants has been reassumed by the Graduate Division. The library of resources on teaching has been placed in the hands of the library Media Services Department. The distribution of instructional improvement grants, to the extent that the budget makes this possible, will be handled by the Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Affairs based on recommendations by the Senate Committee on Teaching. In other areas, the resumption of activities in which the Center was engaged will have to await more favorable budgetary circumstances.
People often feel extremely vulnerable as teachers.
There is virtually no coherent, organized preparation for [teaching].
We learn by experience.
A board chairperson
The deans support teaching effectiveness primarily through personnel actions-merit increases (for which deans now have final approval in most cases) and tenure and promotion recommendations. In response to the Committee's survey, some deans identified the need for explicit criteria of excellent teaching as a point of reference in working with board chairs to improve teaching. They also expressed need for additional resources for the support of teaching. For example, one dean was interested in doing more to provide instructional technology resources and related training for faculty members.
Board chairs described a variety of activities through which they and their board colleagues support teaching effectiveness. These activities include:
The board chairs also provide administrative support such as the purchase of instructional equipment and the maintenance of manageable and evenly distributed teaching loads. Most board chairs intend to continue their current practices. Some regret the loss of the Center for Teaching. Some plan to introduce peer mentorships, encourage new approaches to teaching, and "listen more closely" to related comments by graduate students, especially teaching assistants.
Some board chairs would welcome initiatives by the divisions and central administration to reward senior faculty for teaching excellence and restore the Center for Teaching to provide faculty workshops and other activities to improve teaching. Additional suggestions by board chairs include providing incentives, such as graduate student researchers (to compensate for time taken away from research), teaching assistants, and instructional improvement program grants.
The Committee on Teaching and, in varying degrees, the boards of study support the improvement of teaching. For many faculty members, "support" is indistinguishable from "reward" (or "punishment"), and often takes the form of remediation rather than an ongoing, developmental activity for all faculty members. The closure of the Center for Teaching signals the discontinuation of seminars, workshops, and related efforts to enhance teaching. The campus needs to consider ways to encourage the academic divisions, boards of studies, and/or the Committee on Teaching to assume new roles in this area.
The Committee on Academic Personnel reports that it places a high priority on teaching in personnel actions and gives teaching a weight that is equal to that given to research. It considers teaching performance both positively and negatively. The Committee also is considering the initiation of a practice of recommending one-time merit increases for faculty members who are providing excellent teaching and would not otherwise receive a merit increase.
The deans also express their expectation that the campus will recognize and reward excellent teaching primarily through personnel actions that assign equal weight to research and teaching. In the same vein, several board chairs strongly expressed the need for the university to modify its personnel policies to provide more incentives for teaching improvement. In July 1992, the "Instructions for Review Committees" were changed concerning the evaluation of teaching. The revision called for more than one kind of evidence to accompany the review file and specifically asked for "commentary from other faculty on teaching effectiveness." Nevertheless, only about 8 percent of the UCSC faculty members feel that good teaching is rewarded in personnel actions; this percentage is only slightly higher than that reported for institutions of higher education generally. Other faculty members feel that teaching is only considered negatively.
There is only one campuswide award for teaching.
Some divisions make separate awards for teaching or for the combination of teaching and research.
Several non-academic units and extramural agencies recognize outstanding teaching by UCSC faculty.
UCSC recognizes effective (and ineffective) teaching primarily through personnel actions. Some divisions recently have instituted programs to honor outstanding teachers. The apparent discrepancy between the faculty's perceptions of the importance of teaching in personnel actions and the Committee on Academic Personnel's reported policy clearly merits attention. It is important that the reality and the perception of the personnel process be brought into closer alignment.
COURSELOAD
Courseload Policy and Historical Trends
The campus's policy for the number of courses taught by ladder faculty members was established in 1978. Each faculty member is expected to teach five courses or their equivalent (independent studies and senior theses) each academic year. This standard was modified in an Academic Senate resolution in 1991 which required that all Senate faculty teach an additional one- to three-credit college course every three years (or offer comparable service to undergraduate education in a college or board).
Since the start of the present WASC review period the campus has adjusted courseload policy downward in some divisions to reflect the increased effort in the areas of graduate instruction. This adjustment recognizes the many forms of faculty contact with graduate students which do not appear in formal counts of courses offered. The yearly courseloads shown in Table A.2 reflect consequent reductions in the divisions of the Arts (1988-89), the Humanities (1989-90), and the Social Sciences (1989-90). The number of students taught per faculty member also decreased except in the Arts Division. During this same period, average class sizes have increased.
Courseloads are managed within each board of study and reflect disciplinary differences. In a summary of 1991-92 board policies, five boards expected their members to teach five courses, eighteen boards expected between 3.5 and 4.5 courses, and four boards (all in the natural sciences) expected three courses. Comparing the courses taught in 1991-92 with board policies showed that only four of the twenty-seven boards met or exceeded their expected courseloads.
Until recently, discussions about courseload policies focused on reducing courseloads within specific boards and divisions, and there was no centralized enforcement. In response to change associated with the new budgetary constraints (including the early retirement of faculty), the Executive Vice Chancellor (EVC), working with the divisional deans, has been attempting to effect meaningful increases in the number of courses available to an undiminished stream of undergraduates. The 1992-93 statistics in Table A.2 indicate that this initiative has had some effect, particularly in the social sciences where an appreciable increase in courses taught resulted.
Current Factors Affecting Courseload
A combination of factors combines to influence the number of courses ladder faculty will be required to teach. (These do not take into account other faculty responsibilities of research and service which may affect individual loads.) These include:
State appropriations. Recent reductions have significantly reduced the funds available for hiring lecturers and other non-permanent faculty. With campus enrollments remaining stable, the permanent faculty will be required to teach many courses previously taught by temporary faculty. This situation alone could cause faculty courseload to rise to the level prescribed by campus policy, although re-evaluations of the curricula could be undertaken to keep the courseload at its current level.
Early retirement incentives. Nineteen ladder faculty retired with the first early retirement incentive and fourteen with the second. Of these 33, five have been recalled for teaching. An appreciably larger number of senior faculty is expected to retire by the end of this year with the third round of early retirement incentives. This offers an opportunity for many boards to re-examine their curriculum and who teaches their courses. However, where disproportionate numbers of early retirements fall within a single unit, this may also exacerbate problems stemming from the uneven distribution of faculty among programs. (See faculty resource allocation below.) Depending on what resources become available and how they are used, the number of courses offered could either be increased or decreased. In the short term, many retired faculty may be recalled on a temporary basis to meet the demand for courses.
Faculty resource allocation. The 1986 team recommended that "the serious problem of disproportionate allocation of faculty among the boards be given immediate and continuing attention so that vacant and new positions are used for impacted or expanding programs, to assure a critical size of the faculty on these boards." At the time of the Fourth Year Accreditation Report, a process intended to address this problem was proposed by Executive Vice Chancellor Tanner in a draft document entitled Managing Faculty Resources (MFR). MFR is a system for reallocation of faculty resources in boards and divisions based on both quantitative and qualitative information, including such factors as disciplinary targets, the tracking of actual workload, program quality, and achievement of affirmative action goals. The level of instructional productivity expected from each division will be set after campuswide consultation and will be periodically adjusted. Once the system is implemented, both permanent and temporary faculty resources will be tied to that unit's instructional workload, among other factors.
Independent studies. Faculty who sponsor a significant number (usually twenty) of independent studies, senior theses, and internships during the year are sometimes given a course relief for this contribution to teaching. (See Table A.2.)
Legislative oversight. It is likely that the state's budget difficulties will continue, along with the associated need for greater accountability. Campuses will continue to be required to demonstrate that the taxpayers are getting "their money's worth" and there is a possibility that financial incentives from the state will be linked to institutional performance.
One- to three-credit courses. To assist in the revitalization of the curriculum of the colleges, ladder faculty members are now required to teach an additional one- to three-credit course for a college or board once every three years. This initiative will probably be reviewed as courseloads increase.
Implications
The likely effect of these factors will be that faculty members will be asked to increase the number or size of courses they now teach. Budget conditions suggest that this will not be a temporary condition. If this is true, increased courseloads will have implications for (a) the quality of instruction; (b) evaluation for merit and promotion reviews; (c) board and divisional management of curricula; and (d) research and service.
Summary
Due to ever-increasing demands for public accountability, there has been greater reliance on easily quantified measures of faculty productivity (e.g., number of courses taught, percentage of students who graduate). While these measures reflect important elements of effectiveness, they are at best partial measures of faculty performance and do not take into account research and public service obligations. Counting the number of courses taught is a very crude (and sometimes deceptive) measure, even of instructional activity. The factors included in the campus's new instructional resource allocation system (Managing Faculty Resources) should present a far more nuanced view of instructional quality. While the campus must increase the number of courses taught by ladder faculty to meet its stated guidelines, more thought and consideration need to be given to what constitutes a responsible level of instructional activity and how it should be evaluated.
The first challenge must be to convince the faculty that the campus truly assigns equal weight to teaching and research in personnel decisions, as asserted by the chairperson of the Committee on Academic Personnel. Meeting this challenge could open the door to a flood of faculty initiatives to strengthen teaching and to explore a range of innovative practices.
There are several further challenges springing from the emerging consensus among deans and board chairpersons to employ alternative indicators of teaching performance to complement the widespread use of students' end-of-course evaluations. The Committee on Teaching (COT) worked during fall 1993 to develop a proposal for evaluating teaching called the Course Portfolio. The purpose of the Course Portfolio, which has not yet been adopted or implemented, is to supplement the students' perspective (student evaluation forms) with the professor's perspective (a self-evaluation including both the history and the content of the course and plans for the future), thus facilitating a more balanced assessment of the course's development, content, goals, and current level of achievement.
Other initiatives to improve the evaluation of teaching could include: (a) recognizing the distinction between "evaluation as a component of instructional improvement" and "evaluation as a component of personnel actions"; (b) involving faculty in peer mentoring; and (c) upgrading student end-of-course evaluation forms to improve measures of teaching performance and reduce the time and effort required to analyze and summarize student evaluations.
Each board and division should consider instituting awards or other forms of recognition for outstanding teaching and for the greatest improvement in teaching. The Committee on Teaching should continue its Innovation in Teaching Awards.
In the absence of the Center for Teaching, the campus will need to decide how to maintain the viability and visibility of the Instructional Improvement Program, including mini-grants, seminars, and workshops on teaching, either as a single campuswide program or as four divisional programs.
The recent budget climate has forced UCSC to re-examine its performance standards for faculty. Resources are declining at a time when the number of high school graduates is beginning to climb dramatically and state legislators are increasingly concerned about having the University of California place a greater priority on undergraduate instruction. Newly mandated reports on the number of courses and students taught by permanent faculty are likely to be just the beginning of the state's involvement with faculty courseload. The challenge for the campus will be to meet the expectations of the public and State Legislature while continuing to fulfill the research and service elements of its mission.
Responding to the instructional needs of a more diverse student body is of critical concern. See "Current Initiatives for Undergraduate Instruction" in the "Undergraduate Diversity" section.