CUE Report: Introduction & Overview

CUE REPORT:  INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW                   Sections 1 & 2
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1.  INTRODUCTION:  THE AIMS OF UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
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In his charge to the Commission, President Casper asked us "to
articulate the educational goals of Stanford's undergraduate program."
He correctly insisted on the plurality of these goals. The aims of
undergraduate education are necessarily varied, in part because students
come to the university with different talents and for different reasons,
in part because the university itself has many purposes. The aims of
university education, therefore, cannot be reduced to conveying a body
of material "every educated person" should know. A successful education,
as Alfred North Whitehead wrote, depends on "a delicate adjustment of
many variable factors. . . .The evocation of curiosity, of judgment, of
the power of mastering a complicated tangle of circumstances, [and] the
use of theory in giving foresight in special cases-all these powers are
not to be imparted by a set rule embodied in one schedule of examination
subjects"-or, we would add, in one rigidly defined set of degree
requirements. (Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education (New York,
1929), p. 5.)

At the heart of the university's various activities, the source of its
central values and fundamental aspirations, is the search for knowledge.
The most important aim of undergraduate education is to involve students
in this search, where teaching and learning, instruction and research,
the communication and discovery of knowledge are combined in a single
enterprise. This aim has a special meaning for a research university
like Stanford, in which students can have the opportunity to work on the
frontiers of new knowledge.

To participate in the search for knowledge, students must be able to
think critically and communicate effectively, those two closely
connected abilities upon which all intellectual achievement rests.
Students must be proficient in a second language, both to gain direct
access to another culture and to understand better the nature of
language itself. They must also be proficient in the language of
mathematics, which is a prerequisite for the acquisition of scientific
knowledge in all its forms.

Because they must be aware of the cultural context within which their
search for knowledge takes place, students must acquire the comparative
perspective and critical capacity that come from studying the history,
values, and ideas of several different cultures.

An undergraduate education should be a judicious blend of flexibility
and compulsion, breadth and depth.

Students must study several different kinds of knowledge. They must
understand the nature and significance of scientific inquiry. And they
must be introduced to the methods of analysis and ways of imagining to
be found in the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts.

Students must study one subject in some depth. This will show them how a
particular discipline collects, analyzes, and communicates knowledge.
Moreover, the cumulative study of one subject should make students into
active participants in the search for knowledge by allowing them to
share in the joy of discovery, to acquire a taste of mastery, and to
recognize how much more there is for them to learn. These are the
foundations for a lifetime of intellectual inquiry and development.

The university must be an environment that sustains the search for
knowledge, an environment that challenges and nurtures its students,
blends intellectual rigor with human compassion, encourages self-
reliance and builds confidence. The university must insist that students
take responsibility for their own education, while ensuring that they
have competent advice and responsible instruction. It must set them free
to go their own ways, but also create a community where they can learn
from their teachers and from one another.

The university cannot survive without an unqualified commitment to free
inquiry. As President Casper has written, the search for knowledge "must
be carried out by critical analysis, according to standards of evidence
that themselves are subject to examination and reexamination. They
cannot be set by a political Diktat." (Gerhard Casper, "Concerning
Culture and Cultures: Welcome of Freshmen and Their Parents," Stanford
University, September 23, 1993.)  A commitment to free inquiry means the
willingness to resist political interference, as well as the pressures
of group loyalty and the pull of our own unexamined assumptions.

In every community, respect for the rights of others is a necessary
precondition for freedom; the more diverse the community, the more
essential this respect becomes. In the university, respect extends to
other people's opinions as well as their rights. This is not
indifference or neglect, nor is it merely a passive tolerance of
different viewpoints; in the university, respect for the opinion of
others includes a willingness to debate and dissent, to criticize but
also to accept criticism, to persuade others and to be persuaded
oneself. Without this active engagement with different ideas, the great
promise of the university's diversity will remain unfulfilled.

The university should encourage many qualities of mind and spirit-a
potential for leadership, a devotion to public service, an appreciation
of beauty-but its special mission, and its distinctive contribution to
the well-being of society, is to demonstrate the value of free inquiry
and tolerant debate by engaging its students in the search for
knowledge.



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2.  UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION AT STANFORD:  AN OVERVIEW
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A great deal has changed since the last full-scale examination of our
undergraduate programs, The Study of Education at Stanford, was
conducted in 1968. From the organization of international affairs to the
fabric of private life, old certainties and structures have been shaken,
and new opportunities and challenges have emerged. To take one obvious
instance, consider how the computer, which was still an exotic and
cumbersome novelty in 1968, has become an everyday part of our
existence; it is difficult to remember how-or even when-we lived without
it. Like the computer, all of the changes in the larger worlds of
politics, society, and culture have had an impact on the smaller world
of Stanford, on the kind of students we teach and what we teach them, on
the cost and character of our research, on the ways we live and work
together. Once again, one obvious example will illustrate the sort of
transformations we have in mind: in 1968, the undergraduate student body
was still predominately white; now over 40 percent come from minority
groups.

The changes in the world and at Stanford are the context and the impetus
for the work of the Commission on Undergraduate Education. President
Casper charged us to "review the undergraduate curriculum and related
programs with regard to the changing needs and expectations of our
students and their families, the emerging opportunities and challenges
of the 21st century, and the unique strengths and resources of Stanford
University."

Among Stanford's greatest strengths and most precious resources are its
undergraduates. Each year, the university enrolls about sixteen hundred
new students, chosen from over thirteen thousand applicants. These
students include some of the most talented high school graduates in the
country; they come with excellent grades, high test scores, and numerous
other achievements. Most of them have Advanced Placement credits for
college-level courses taken in high school. After receiving their
degrees, many go on to the nation's best graduate schools. Stanford
undergraduates have won 70 Rhodes scholarships, 51 Marshall scholarships
(including an unprecedented six in 1993-94), and numerous other
prestigious national and international awards.

President Casper instructed the Commission "to consider whether the
present curriculum, including the range of undergraduate degrees, majors
and distribution requirements, adequately and effectively meets the
needs of our students." To do so, we have examined every aspect of the
curriculum and of the academic environment in which it operates. We have
interviewed faculty and staff, analyzed enrollment data and survey
results, and examined descriptions of departmental and interdepartmental
programs. Above all, we have asked students and alumni about their
experiences. We met with undergraduates informally over dinner in their
dorms and at public meetings arranged by the Commission's Student
Advisory Group; we organized focus groups on particular themes; we
participated in surveys conducted by the Office of Residential Education
and the Associated Students of Stanford University; and we sent out our
own survey to 750 alumni. As a result of these efforts, we believe that
we now have a more complete and accurate picture of undergraduate
education at Stanford than has ever been available.

There is a great deal in this picture of which we can be justly proud.
In the course of our investigations we have encountered countless
individuals who go out of their way to serve undergraduates: resident
fellows, librarians, and the staff at the Center for Teaching and
Learning, the Undergraduate Advising Center, and the Office of
Undergraduate Research Opportunities-to name just a few. We came upon
many faculty members who inspire as well as instruct their students both
inside and outside the classroom, and many departments and programs that
provide challenging courses and well-designed majors. We have been
impressed by the flexibility of Stanford's curriculum and were delighted
to find so much willingness to innovate among our colleagues.

We were especially pleased to observe the growing number of
undergraduates who participate in the university's research mission.
Over the past decade, the percentage of students in the School of
Humanities and Sciences (which contains about 80 percent of all
undergraduates) doing honors work has increased from 14 to 25. At the
same time, thanks to the generosity of several donors and foundations,
the resources available to support undergraduate research have
significantly increased: in 1984--85, 52 students received grants
totaling $55,000; in 1992-93, there were 302 grants totaling $332,000.
As a result, a growing number of students have published original
research before they graduate.

A great many Stanford undergraduates take advantage of the remarkable
opportunities available to them. They do research in the university's
libraries and archives, which contain an extraordinarily rich collection
of materials. In Stanford's laboratories, they work with some of the
world's best scientists on the moving edge of research. Almost 30
percent of the graduating class spends some time in one of our seven
overseas centers, which students and alumni consistently rate as among
their most rewarding educational experiences. Stanford in Washington
offers students the chance to season their scholarly understanding of
public affairs with immediate experience in government. Last year, the
Haas Center for Public Service helped twenty-five hundred students to
become involved in public service, sometimes as volunteer workers,
sometimes in combination with an academic project. Two-thirds of the
graduating class performed some sort of public service.

The overall satisfaction measured by surveys of students and alumni is
uniformly high. For example, in the most recent surveys of graduating
seniors, 98 percent of those responding rated the general quality of
their education as "good" or better, 85 percent as "very good" or
"excellent." These levels of satisfaction seem to remain stable over
time: Herant Katchadourian and John Boli's follow-up study of students
who entered Stanford in 1977 found that, ten years after graduation,
respondents gave their education a score of 4.4 on a scale of 5; 92
percent said they would still choose to attend Stanford. (Herant
Katchadourian and John Boli, The Cream of the Crop (forthcoming), Chap.
1.)  All in all, the overwhelming majority of students and former
students seem to be highly satisfied with the education they have
received at Stanford.

Our investigation found many sources of satisfaction, but no reason for
complacency. If we probe just beneath the surface of the surveys, for
example, we begin to uncover some worrisome patterns. When seniors are
asked about the specifics of their educational experience, their
satisfaction levels are often significantly lower than their general
impression: the numbers of "excellent" and "very good" rankings decline
and the number of "goods" increases, as do the "fairs" and even the
"poors." In most cases, the scores remain respectable, but not at the
level of excellence we should demand of ourselves. In 1992, for example,
93 percent of the seniors ranked faculty teaching "good" or better; only
58 percent rated it "very good" or "excellent." As we will discuss in
more detail later, a number of departments and programs are ranked below
this average score.

Some aspects of undergraduate education at Stanford clearly do not work
well. In the Senior Surveys (and in the memories of those interviewed by
Katchadourian and Boli, as well as in our own sample of alumni),
advising receives uniformly low marks: in 1986, 1987, and 1988, over 40
percent of the seniors ranked the advising they received during their
first and second years as "poor," while less than 15 percent regarded it
as "very good" or "excellent." Major advising usually scored somewhat
better, but was still lackluster: around 30 percent of the seniors said
advising in their major was "very good" or "excellent," as opposed to
the 40 to 50 percent who regarded it as "fair" or "poor."

Our own impression, based on many discussions with students and our
survey of alumni, is that undergraduate education at Stanford works best
for students who take the initiative to find mentors, design scholarly
projects, and become involved in faculty research. These students
benefit from the university's flexibility, resources, and scholarly
distinction. A minority of students seem to remain largely untouched by
the university's academic enterprise. While they may be satisfied with
their time at Stanford, their academic experiences are not a major
ingredient in this satisfaction. We are especially concerned with those
students who are somewhere between the self-starters and the
academically uninterested, students who may lack the former's energy and
commitment, but who have the potential for intellectual engagement. It
is essential that those in this group be challenged and excited by their
courses, that they get good advice and direction, and that as many as
possible use wisely the wonderful opportunities Stanford provides.

Our investigations have revealed a disturbing unevenness in the
faculty's commitment to teaching and advising. Some individual faculty
members take these responsibilities very seriously; others do not. Some
regularly serve as advisors; others never do. Some often direct
undergraduate research projects; others never do. Some invest a great
deal of time and energy in teaching introductory courses; others avoid
this task or do it halfheartedly. We will return to the issue of faculty
responsibility in the penultimate section of our report, but let us
state now what will be one of our central themes: Every faculty member
at Stanford must be fully committed to excellence in both teaching and
research.

On the following pages we consider various aspects of undergraduate
education at Stanford. We begin with general degree requirements, then
discuss the major, academic bookkeeping, the academic calendar, the use
of technology in teaching and learning, academic advising, residential
education, and finally the issues of faculty responsibilities and
governance.

Before turning to our specific recommendations, we should note two
general principles that have guided our efforts. First, educational
decisions are inseparable from decisions about resources.
Responsibility, accountability, and control over resources must go
together. Second, good ideas are necessary but not sufficient.
Educational reform must always include plans for implementation,
assessment, and continuing improvement.