Provost's council to release report on undergraduate education at U.

When the Provost's Council on Undergraduate Education releases its report for faculty review this summer, the nebulous concept of creating a 21st century undergraduate experience on campus will begin crystallizing into a set of pilot programs and student-faculty committees. Provost Stanley Chodorow said last week that PCUE's deliberations during this semester took a dual approach, focusing on the characteristics and context of a "Penn education." The group examined a wide range of the activities available to undergraduates, including service learning, access to graduate and professional schools for independent study and research, and participation in international programs such as study abroad or other "out-of-culture" experiences. PCUE members also evaluated the undergraduate advising system, opportunities for improving the use of new technology and the future of on- and off-campus residential communities. Their suggestions focus on creating coherence among disparate parts of the undergraduate experience -- for example, service learning by working on an oral history project in one of Philadelphia's ethnic communities and maintaining fluency in a foreign language through interaction with these native speakers. Chodorow also said PCUE wants students to feel comfortable with emerging electronic technologies, since students "will play a direct role in helping us to determine how to use them." University President Judith Rodin said projects on the drawing board in this area include an improved electronic information system that would enable students to register and get their grades more easily. Chodorow also said he would like to draft an admissions application to be posted and submitted by prospective students via the World Wide Web. Also included in the PCUE recommendations is a proposal for "virtual colleges" -- four-year communities composed of 200–500 students drawn from both dormitories and off-campus locations, Chodorow said. He added that this proposal -- based roughly on a plan drafted by the Residential Faculty Council in February -- is intended to "provide students with a University community of a human scale," with opportunities for leadership, social activities and academic assistance, if needed. Rodin said she is pleased with PCUE's work, adding that the group has generated broad and interesting recommendations that will be offered to the full University community for comment and input in the fall. She also said she has been struck by how much undergraduates love the University -- that they approach her on Locust Walk to tell her how excited they are to be on campus, she said. Change resulting from PCUE's work must be structured so that it "amplifies and increases the positive parts of the experience," Rodin added. "I don't think Penn has changed very much from the time I was an undergraduate," she said. "[It is] a place that offers a diverse array of opportunities. For a student who's willing to work hard to negotiate Penn, it is extraordinary in its richness -- what we want to [do] is to make it a lot easier to negotiate the system." The Council of Undergraduate Deans, acting through student-faculty committees, will manage the process of implementing pilot programs derived from PCUE suggestions during the upcoming semester, Chodorow said. He added that PCUE was able to accomplish its goal of generating a report after just one semester of work because of the "efficient and effective" work of Kim Morrisson and Robert Lucid, co-directors of the 21st Century Project on the Undergraduate Experience. Chodorow also praised the group's "unruly" and forthright discussion -- which he said often included criticism directed at him -- as well as the reports generated by committees charged with studying the state of undergraduate education at the University in previous years.

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