Provost's council starts working toward goals

The Provost's Council on Undergraduate Education is slowly progressing toward its goal of making a 21st century academic community a reality on campus. PCUE will now focus its energies on the development of "propositions embodying the characteristics we think a Penn undergraduate experience of the early 21st century?should have" and on the nature of the future University community, Provost Stanley Chodorow said. Now that PCUE's task has divided into nine smaller segments, subcommittees have been determined and their chairs -- all PCUE members -- have been appointed, said 21st Century Project Executive Director Kim Morrisson. Each subcommittee will probably have between five and seven faculty and student members, Morrisson said. The students will be selected later this week from a pool of names generated by the Nominations and Elections Committee. "The idea is that each [subcommittee] will engage the community -- or the relevant parts of the community -- in an effort to come up with ways in which its proposition could be implemented," Chodorow said. College Dean Robert Rescorla is heading a group that will study scholarly engagement with faculty, focusing on the role of research in the undergraduate experience. "It's only when you try to add to knowledge that you understand what knowledge is all about," he said last night. "It's important and exciting to do that." Specifically, Rescorla said his group will discuss how to make research open to all undergraduates, because of the unique learning environment independent study and investigation provides. Mary Naylor, associate dean and director of undergraduate education in the Nursing School, is the chairperson of a subcommittee that will evaluate undergraduates' access to professional education and professional school faculty. Communications Professor Oscar Gandy has direction of the community service and service learning subcommittee, while Wharton junior Satya Patel, chairperson of the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, will work with a group examining peer educational experiences. Acting Vice Provost for University Life Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum's subcommittee will look at "other culture" experiences. McCoullum said yesterday that she believes these experiences "which serve to prepare our students for [the] global community are?essential to the Penn vision of the 21st century undergraduate experience." Engineering Associate Dean David Pope has been assigned to a subcommittee that will analyze advising, and Professor of Operations and Information Management James Laing is in charge of a subset of Pope's group targeting student information systems. Wharton Vice Dean Bruce Allen is chairing the admissions and publications subcommittee. Finally, Engineering Dean Gregory Farrington will head the subcommittee looking at usage of state-of-the-art technology on campus. "My committee will deal with the impact of the information revolution on how we educate, how students learn, how students and faculty interact with each other," he said. "I am eager to engage in the discussion and creativity that will be involved." Chodorow said he has asked the subcommittees to report back to PCUE in about five weeks.

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