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Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 12/30/10 |
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In
the News Archive - Year:
October 22, 1999 UWGB's 'Compelling Idea' moves forward The school's new learning plan can be adjusted without harming integrity, one professor says By Melinda Naparalla
The academic staff approved the plan Wednesday but handed in its formal report Thursday, said Lisa DeLeeuw, chairwoman of the Academic Staff Committee that represents instructional and non-instructional staff.
The plan includes 11 recommendations intended to enhance student learning. They include helping students explore their interests and needs, connect to the community through community service and teaching, learn through teaching others what they know, and create a "real-world" environment.
Students would be required to develop a written personal learning plan.
After 11 months of work on the proposal, Harvey Kaye, professor of social change and development, said he was pleased with the Faculty Senate's 17-6 decision Wednesday to approve the learning plan. The Student Senate approved the plan 19-5 Monday.
Forrest Baulieu, an associate professor of math and member of the Faculty Senate, said the plan will refresh the university and aid in returning the school to the sense of mission it had when it first opened in the 1960s.
In many university situations, the faculty tends to get bogged down in overwork, so it's difficult just to reach status quo and teaching gets lost under the daily grind, Baulieu said. It's essential to the university community not to get lost and this plan can stop that from happening, he said.
But not all professors totally agree with Kaye and Baulieu. Although the professors agree the overall concept is a good idea, some of the details bother them.
Robert Howe, professor of environmental sciences, questions the feasibility of the plan and is concerned about the students' creating a learning plan and portfolios.
"The plan falls short of providing compelling new substance to the education of students," Howe said.
They're not bad ideas, but if done well they will require time and students already have a hard enough time dealing with course requirements, he said.
The university should be trying to make it easier to get knowledge by concentrating on such efforts as technology to advance students.
"I want to preserve common ground and add elements the university is going to need to address," Howe said.
The Humanistic Studies department opposed the 11 recommendations on grounds they were insufficiently general. The department didn't like the idea of 15-person freshman seminars because it would be a time-consuming venture for professors and the seminar is specified as a "learning to learn" exercise that concentrates on remedial college information, said Gilbert Null, senate member and professor of humanistic studies.
Professors are nervous about what might happen in the classroom with concepts like learning by teaching, because it seems the way professors teach and the content would be at least partially dictated, Null said.
Baulieu said The Compelling Idea wasn't intended as a specific planning document. It lays out broad ideas, but the specifics need to be worked out. There is no question that adjustments can be made without hurting the project, he added.
Baulieu said it was significant that students are in favor of the plan and are willing to pay more for it.
"There's a realization that the university could be more exciting than it is," he said.
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