Annual CU workshop examines university issues and priorities

Provost-elect Biddy Martin, right, with Verdene Lee, associate director of admissions in the College of Human Ecology, listens in on a workshop on "Learning Across Differences" during the Academic Leadership Series session May 8 on the Ag Quad. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Jacquie Powers

Some 265 faculty, staff and students spent the morning of May 8 exchanging ideas on two priorities important to the future of the university: "Learning Across Differences" and "Planning for the Financial Future."

The May 8 workshop, in David L. Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall, was part of the ongoing Academic Leadership Series (ALS), cosponsored by President Hunter Rawlings and Provost Don Randel.

Rawlings noted at the opening session that "although ALS is not a policy-making body, it allows leaders across campus to offer their perspectives on a wide variety of issues."

Richard Light, professor of education at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, gave the keynote address, "Teaching, Learning and Advising: Suggestions from the Harvard Assessment Seminars."

Light was one of the organizers and participants in the assessment seminars, in which some 65 campus leaders from schools in the Northeast agreed to collaborate on a method of evaluating what their institutions were doing and how well they were doing it.

The group collected data from students on a variety of issues in in-depth, one-on-one interviews. With each set of carefully developed questions, 13 students were interviewed, one by a faculty member, the others by undergraduate students.

Light shared these findings from the assessments:

·Advising is the single most important and most underestimated factor in how satisfied students are with their college experience. Light said that 10 years ago he would spend 10 to 15 minutes with an advisee, suggesting which courses he or she should take. He said now, after reading these findings, he still spends that initial 10 to 15 minutes on course selection, but then asks, "What is your real job this semester?" After they fumble for an answer, Light tells them their real job is to get to know one or two faculty members well. That way, at the end of four years, students will have a number of faculty advocates, professors who can mentor and write recommendations for them.

·Most graduating seniors tended to be very satisfied with their academic experience. But for those who were not, the difference was in course sequencing. Those not satisfied often adopted a strategy they deeply regretted: "I'll-get-the-requirements-out-of-the-way-first." Instead of taking one or two small courses that interested them, and allowing for personal interaction with instructors and classmates, they ended up in huge, impersonal introductory lecture halls.

·Many schools found students entering as science majors but then opting out of science. Data showed that regardless of gender, students who study in outside study groups rather than alone are far more engaged with, and persist in, science. Further, male students are more likely to study in groups, and men are more likely to persist in science. Now, at Harvard, science students are encouraged to study in groups. Light noted that this involved a change of culture, because previously it was considered cheating to discuss homework outside of class.

·Graduating seniors were asked what one or two key college events might stay in their minds forever. Eighty-one percent identified an event outside of class, and the vast majority clustered around the first weeks of freshman year. "Orientation set the tone. The first weeks set the tone, and sometimes changed lives," Light said.

Light said that one Harvard proctor talked with small groups of students in his residence hall about college being a "unique, perhaps once-in-a-life opportunity to live, work and play with someone not like them to get to know someone different from them."

That led to an enormous effort by proctors, academic advisers and faculty "to reach out, to transcend boundaries," Light said.

Kathryn Abrams, professor of law and women's studies, introduced the topic "Learning Across Differences." Abrams said a pilot course, "Ethics and Student Life," will be introduced in fall 2001, to coincide with the move of all freshmen to North Campus. The one-credit course will begin during orientation and continue through the fall semester. The focus will be to engage faculty with a small group of students, to introduce them to ethical principles and to underscore the importance of ethical decision-making in daily life. It also will involve living and learning across group-based differences, through a series of hypothetical problems.

Ronald Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics and director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, introduced the topic "Planning for the Financial Future of Cornell University."

Ehrenberg noted that while remaining roughly constant at 28 percent of median family income during the 1970s, Cornell's endowed tuition rose to almost half of median family income by 1992, and it has remained at that level. And while Cornell's endowment has grown dramatically because of strong alumni giving and an excellent endowment performance, endowment per student is still relatively low compared with some peer universities.

In addition, state appropriations for the statutory colleges have declined in real terms, indirect cost recovery rates for research have declined and demands for matching federal funds have increased.

Given these financial realities, Ehrenberg noted, Cornell has become increasingly dependent on two sources of revenue: tuition and fees and income from direct gifts. The question he posed, then, is how can the university develop other sources of revenue "to secure a viable economic future?"

Participants broke into small groups for an hour and a half to discuss one of the two topics. Notes from those discussion groups will be published and distributed to participants and the administration for further discussion and possible action, Provost Randel said.

Randel said, in closing, "We are one university, statutory and endowed, with a unique set of strengths. We need to capitalize on those strengths, on the Cornell hustle. We have done much more with our resources than any other institution, and we can't let that hustle die out. We have to be very careful about thinking about what we are going to do with our resources."

Provost-elect Biddy Martin said that while listening in on discussions at various tables, she heard concerns and questions "about which we need a great deal of debate." She said many felt the teaching of ethics was a great idea, as was the concept of integrating the living and learning environments on campus. But others were concerned about what ethics means, how it would be defined and feared that ethics might mean only moralistic or politically correct ideas.

Martin said these are valid concerns that need to be addressed. But, she said, at one table she overheard a set of "rational ethical ideals to which we can all aspire: sincerity, loyalty, solidarity, hope, joy, curiosity and exploration. These ideals are really compelling."

Finally, she noted, one of the things members of the Cornell community "want is more transparency about the way decisions are made, on financial issues and on educational policy. The way to do that is to hold more forums like this one. Let's work together to try and create more opportunities for intellectual exchange."