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Self-Study, Volume II, Chapter I: Undergraduate Education
Case Western Reserve University offers 73 undergraduate degree programs in 63 subjects (10 natural science and mathematics subjects are offered for both the B.A. and B.S.), administered by more than 30 academic departments. Instruction of the more than 3,000 undergraduates is provided by a core undergraduate faculty of nearly 200 in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), and another 109 in the Case School of Engineering (CSE). In addition to these two principal divisions, considerable undergraduate teaching is done by three professional school faculties: the Weatherhead School of Management (accounting, economics, and management majors), the School of Medicine (biochemistry and nutrition majors), and the Bolton School of Nursing (nursing majors). CWRU also offers undergraduate degree programs jointly with the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Institute of Pathology in University Hospitals.
Case Western Reserve University enjoys distinctive contextual and structural advantages that provide enviable qualities in undergraduate education. As a major private research university (the only such in Ohio), CWRU is both a small, highly focused undergraduate institution and a sophisticated research university. Teaching is highly valued, small classes are the norm for most undergraduate subjects, and the great majority of courses, including those at the freshman level, are taught by full-time professors rather than graduate teaching assistants. The presence of fine graduate and professional schools means that undergraduates often have the opportunity to participate directly in research, and many take advantage of this. The university's close relationships with the other leading private institutions in University Circle - such as the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Cleveland Institute of Music, University Hospitals, the Natural History Museum, and the Western Reserve Historical Society - provide our undergraduates with opportunities for on-campus research, internships, and cultural exposure that would be difficult to equal anywhere else.
The faculty and administration of Case Western Reserve University believe that the function of undergraduate education is to help develop 'highly trained professionals and broadly and humanely educated men and women . . . . For this reason, [CWRU's undergraduate] mission is to provide a quality of curriculum and diversity of program that will prepare . . . students to enter the larger community, and an educational environment that, by encouraging a lifelong commitment to learning and service, will enable them to become the leaders we need.' (Plan for CWRU 1990-1995, p. 25). Specifically, in addition to the obvious goals of professional competence and career qualifications, the university seeks to produce:
Current university provisions require undergraduate students to select and complete one major as well as one of the three alternative core curricula (discussed below). Dual majors are common, occasionally even triple majors for B.A. degrees. Completion of a minor program is required for the B.A., but not for the B.S. degree.
At the federation of Case Institute of Technology (CIT) and Western Reserve University in 1967, there was faculty support to structure the new university as a college of arts and sciences allied to an engineering school. However, the administration chose instead to create a single structure consisting of constituent faculty groups apportioned between Case Institute and Western Reserve College (WRC): humanities and arts; social and behavioral sciences; natural sciences and mathematics; and engineering. The intent was the ideal of combining all the faculty to educate a common undergraduate student body. However, many faculty as well as some administrators and trustees have always felt that this structure overlooked the differing educational interests of engineering and liberal arts students; moreover, the bureaucratic structure belied very real (and understandable) separatist traditions and forces. The last quarter century has seen a series of incremental organizational changes, which reached its logical culmination with the creation of 'the Colleges' (a name chosen in order to avoid using Case or Western Reserve), in which all of these undergraduate academic units, with their faculty, were placed under the leadership of a single 'Dean of the Colleges.'
Soon thereafter it became clear to many in the university community that this unification had not resolved the problem of the different interests, skills, and motivations of engineering and liberal arts students, and that student enrollment was flat or declining. President Pytte initiated several programs to attain higher numbers and quality of undergraduates - an initiative that has been eminently successful. For their part, the faculty also took initiatives. In 1992 the faculty of engineering voted (virtually unanimously) to be organized as a separate School of Engineering, a request that was supported whole-heartedly by President Pytte. Shortly thereafter, the faculties of humanities, arts, and social and behavioral sciences and of natural sciences and mathematics agreed by an overwhelming majority vote to request that they be combined as the College of Arts and Sciences, a request that was also supported by President Pytte. This new organizational structure was in place by 1993. Thus, for the first time since the creation of CWRU in 1967 there is a rational organizational structure for undergraduate education. Perhaps more important, the creation of CSE and CAS will provide organizational stability, enabling the faculty to put their attention on educational issues rather than worrying how best to position their particular programs in anticipation of the 'next' reorganization.
From 1967 to 1993, the strong Western Reserve tradition in the humanities and social sciences was overshadowed by the sciences and especially the engineering disciplines represented so powerfully in Case Institute of Technology. No doubt this trend was partly due to the world-class character of CIT to which WRC was paired, partly surely due to the accidental circumstance that 'Case' became the first word in (and in fact a common shorthand version for) the name of the university. Another factor was the presence of the strong medical school, which meant that CWRU was attractive not only to engineering students but also to pre-medical students. Whatever the actual reasons, for years high school students undecided about their future major or inclined towards the humanities and social sciences - that is, students who normally apply to liberal arts colleges - have not chosen CWRU in numbers comparable to those at peer institutions. While two or three of the departments in the humanities and social sciences were weakened in the 1970s and 1980s, most have remained strong. It should therefore be a priority of the new College of Arts and Sciences to broaden its profile to the public so as to recruit an undergraduate student body better balanced by disciplinary interests.
In preparation for this self-study, this subcommittee asked every undergraduate department and interdisciplinary major program to summarize its activities and goals, discuss any significant changes that its curriculum has undergone during the last ten years, and describe its assessment structure at the departmental level. We regarded this kind of grass-roots approach as valuable not only as a way to collect data, but also as a route to engage the entire undergraduate faculty in a serious evaluation both of our goals and of our continuing self-assessment. The following summary applies mostly, though not exclusively, to the departments in CAS.
All departments stressed the goal of developing their students' expertise and competence in their respective fields. Prominent in the statements was also an emphasis on providing breadth, context, and appreciation of knowledge, for both majors and non-majors taking courses in the department. Nearly all mentioned the desire to develop skills and attributes common to properly educated citizens, such as critical thinking, creativity, the ability to analyze evidence and solve problems, to speak effectively and write clearly, and to be sensitive to ethical and social issues. Several mentioned their department's mission to serve their school, their university, their profession, and the larger society.
Those departments that normally provide immediate professional degrees (such as art and music education, nutrition, nursing, accountancy, medical technology, some science and all engineering departments) are understandably concerned with helping their students to meet the requirements (both formal and implicit) for their respective professions. Those departments whose subjects require graduate or professional school degrees (astronomy, history, philosophy, and so on) emphasized their role in preparing students for such advanced education, or for eventual careers in law, medicine, education, social work, and the other professions. Many humanities, arts, and social science departments stressed the fact that their B.A. degrees provide necessary structure not only for advanced humanistic and social science studies, but also for a variety of immediate careers in government, business, arts, and the non-profit sector. Several reports (such as those for astronomy, biochemistry, engineering departments, and music) stressed the role of research, internships, and performance at the undergraduate level.
Most departments have instituted changes since our last reaccreditation. Many of the alterations were simple updating and upgrading of curriculum, for the content and methodology of every subject is in constant flux. Changes in student and job-market demand also produce adjustments within fields, and even the elimination and creation of degree programs (for instance, we have eliminated a major in undesignated 'humanities,' but added new nursing, applied math, and aerospace engineering programs).
Several departments have increasingly stressed computer skills and oral and written communication. Some have incorporated research, or more of it than hitherto, into their undergraduate curriculum, and most of the science and engineering departments stressed the upgrading of laboratories, instruments, and equipment. Art education and music education noted that they have developed a much more rigorous and formal assessment structure, partly due to urging by the Ohio State Department of Education.
Several humanities departments stressed that they have developed their curricula to more fully reflect multicultural education, interdisciplinary approaches, and a global perspective. For example, the English department believes its curriculum is now more modern (less reflective of period and author approaches and more culturally focused), and less vocationally oriented than it was in 1985. Similarly, the history department has fully revised its undergraduate program, adding a new core course on modern world history and a fully renovated core course in American history. Art history has also made changes to reflect a less exclusively Western orientation. Several new interdisciplinary studies programs have been instituted, such as women's studies, Asian studies, and German studies; even a program in international studies has been formed.
A general discussion of outcome assessment appears below; in this section we present a summary of assessments at the department level, focusing particularly on majors in CAS (a similar discussion of department-based assessment for CSE majors appears below). CWRU has no mandated or formalized outcome assessment structure at the departmental level, and our faculty continue to rely largely on conventional methods of evaluating student success and faculty (teaching) performance. Nonetheless, in the documents prepared for this report nearly all departments addressed the subject seriously and thoughtfully.
Traditionally, faculty have relied on indicators of student performance and progress through the curriculum to help them judge the effectiveness of their efforts. Nearly all departments mentioned such mechanisms as (1) grades; (2) formal and informal departmental advising and counseling; and (3) required seminars, projects, performances, and internships. Several departments specified a more elaborate formal structure for continuous student monitoring and evaluation; art education, music education, and communication sciences, for example, have a formal multipartite evaluation structure, including capstone experiences and exit interviews. The English department is considering requiring a writing portfolio as a means of assessment. Other departments rely almost entirely on grades and conventional advising.
A second method of evaluating instruction is provided by a variety of review mechanisms for maintaining and improving the quality of classroom teaching. Numbers of majors and enrollment statistics represent one kind of indicator of instructional success, and these are followed carefully by all departments. For the past six years, detailed student course evaluations have been mandated by the university administration; they are studied and heeded at all levels (see the discussion of outcome assessment measures later in this report).
In sum, CWRU faculty and administration believe that our present internal system of instructional assessment is a robust and effective element of quality control. In addition, some departments (e.g., biochemistry and history) have additional formal structures for regular peer review of both curriculum and teaching effectiveness, for every instructor and every core course.
Acceptance of graduates into postgraduate education or job placement is another measure of undergraduate educational outcome. Those departments whose majors need postgraduate education for career qualification measured their outcomes partly by the success of their graduates in entering first-rate graduate and professional schools, their success at winning fellowships, and their performance there. Some departments keep careful records of such outcomes: for example, 71 percent of CWRU astronomy majors have been admitted to graduate schools since 1960, 60 percent of biochemistry majors since that program began ten years ago, and 100 percent of the communication disorders majors in communication sciences. All nutrition graduates in the last three years have passed the National Dietetic Examination (well above the national average), and two-thirds of the accountancy graduates during the years 1981-85 have succeeded in becoming CPAs. Overall, about 37 percent of CWRU graduates go on to advanced studies immediately; many more proceed to graduate or professional education later.
Most departments also mentioned placement rates as an indicator of success. Statistics over the last eight years indicate that only about 9 percent of our graduates are still seeking employment six months after graduation. A few individual departments keep records. Placement success is at or near 100 percent in some departments that normally provide B.A./B.S. career paths (e.g., accountancy, music education, nutrition, and medical technology, and placement in the management program remains 'above acceptable levels'). Departments that mostly feed students into graduate programs also were able to cite favorable statistics, in the form of lists of ultimate positions taken (such as at elite universities).
No matter what degree program pursued, students are required to complete a core curriculum. This is one important way in which undergraduates participate in a common educational experience at the university. The core component in undergraduate education is designed to give students 'an informed acquaintance with the natural sciences, literary and artistic achievements, historical and cultural roots, and the workings and development of modern society' (p. 58 of the General Bulletin).
There are three alternative core curricula, summarized below, each of which 'is designed to develop quantitative, analytic and communications skills, and a heightened awareness of human values and institutions.' Each of the curricula has an English composition requirement that can be satisfied in one of two ways - by taking a course, or by showing evidence of competence by a score of 4 or 5 on the College Board Advanced Placement Examination in English, which takes into account the differential skills of entering students. There is also a non-credit requirement of two semesters of physical education, which is designed to ensure that students will develop the habit of routine exercise in adult life. Distributional requirements can be satisfied by choice from a list of related courses.
The Western Reserve Core (30-31 semester hours)
The Liberal Arts/Mathematics-Based Alternative Core (Lambda Core) (56 hours)
The Case Core (60 hours)
In the last decade there have been two serious proposals to revise the core curricula, neither of which has been adopted. However, many individual instructors have changed the content of specific courses to take account of issues that have been raised nationally about the content of the undergraduate curriculum. For example, humanities faculty have been including aspects of non-Western civilization, international relations, gender relations, and multiculturalism in the United States, into their courses.
There is a general sense in the faculty (though not shared by all members) that the Western Reserve Core, instituted 15 years ago and adjusted at the margins ever since, needs a thorough overhaul. Most faculty agree that choice in distributional requirements is desirable, but some of the Western Reserve course menus have been so accreted over the years that they seem awkward and lacking in focus. Nor are the rationales for menu items always very clear. For instance, a course called Natural Philosophy, which consists of history and philosophy of science, satisfies either the natural philosophy requirement in the Lambda Core or the history and culture requirement in the Western Reserve Core. Similarly, a separate course in the history of science satisfies either humanities sequence credits for Case Core students, or science distributional requirements for Western Reserve Core students.
The Lambda Core was designed to attract students interested in a quantitative, analytical framework for their liberal arts studies. Unfortunately, that expectation has not been realized, as only five students have elected this core in the five years of its existence. Perhaps the Case Core's longer historical tradition made the somewhat more flexible science and mathematics/computer requirements of the Lambda Core not distinct enough to attract a new set of students, and the Western Reserve Core may have seemed more attractive by requiring significantly fewer credit hours. It appears very likely that this core alternative will be abolished in the next systematic faculty review of undergraduate programs.
The Case Core will be discussed and evaluated in the next section.
The recent creation of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Case School of Engineering provides the context and occasion to reinvigorate the presentation of the two distinct but related undergraduate core curricula that are likely to survive (the Case and Western Reserve Cores).
A systematic review of the core curriculum is in progress by the CAS Committee on Educational Programs. It is expected that the process led by this committee will be far enough along so that the results will be available to share with members of the NCA visiting team. In the spring of 1994 a preliminary draft proposal to develop a single common core curriculum for all CAS undergraduates was circulated by the Committee on Educational Programs. According to this proposal, CAS students would be required to take four courses in each of the three traditional curricular areas (arts and humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and natural sciences and mathematics), thus expanding the credit-hour requirement from 30 in the current Western Reserve Core to 39 (counting the additional required 3-hour English course). In each of the three areas, two of the four courses would constitute an approved sequence in a discipline, and the other two would have to be appropriately distributed in the curricular area, including one each from course groupings entitled 'Perspectives on Science and Society' and 'Perspectives on Culture and Society.' Although this draft proposal represents only the beginning of a long process, CAS faculty and administrators were encouraged by the positive reactions and fruitful discussion at a faculty forum on the proposal.
CSE is in the midst of preparations for its next reaccreditation by the professional engineering societies, and any major review of its core curricula is unlikely to occur until that review has been finished.
Since the last NCA reaccreditation visit, the School of Nursing has started its B.S. in Nursing degree, adding to the number and diversity of students at the undergraduate level. At present, the B.S.N. utilizes the Western Reserve Core, but specifies a more limited set of courses to meet some of the distributional requirements - in the natural sciences and mathematics, and in the social and behavioral sciences.
The need for a formal arena for discussion of undergraduate issues common to these curricula as well as those in the Weatherhead School of Management (in economics, management, management science, and accounting) and in the School of Medicine (in biochemistry and nutrition) led to the creation of the University Undergraduate Faculty body. This group has started to act on issues concerning the common undergraduate curriculum and on ways of interfacing with the faculty committees that correspond to the administrative organization into colleges and schools. We believe that these organizational changes will enable the undergraduate faculty to be more responsive to enduring and evolving issues in undergraduate education such as those that have been discussed nationally: communicating effectively in English; understanding the impact of science and technology on society; the interaction of evolving pluralism with core American values and behavior (multiculturalism); the increasing interaction of countries with each other (globalization); and other issues.
The Case School of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences together represent the principal locus of undergraduate education at CWRU. CSE was established on July 1, 1992 as a professional school dedicated to serving society and meeting the needs of industry, government, and academia through programs of teaching and research. It is composed of nine departments, which award thirteen B.S. degrees in engineering, and eleven centers of research excellence, which afford students and faculty opportunities for interdisciplinary research.
CSE aims to educate its students to think creatively and to lead the engineering profession with integrity. The school is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and its practical application, and seeks collaboration with industry, government and other academic institutions in technical partnerships.
CSE has initiated a comprehensive plan to review student programs, faculty development, professional activities, industrial relations, recruiting, laboratories and facilities, fund-raising, and image. One outcome of this review will be modifications to the basic core of courses upon which the B.S. engineering degree programs rest. Independent of this internal review, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is also reviewing the CSE engineering degree programs in the fall of 1994. At present all ten programs that sought accreditation four years ago are accredited and will seek renewal, along with two new programs (industrial and aerospace engineering) which are seeking accreditation for the first time.
At present the requirements for a B.S. engineering degree are fulfilled by three distinct sets of required courses: the Case Core, the Engineering Core, and the Major Discipline Core. This leaves little room for emphasis within the chosen discipline; however, students normally have three or four technical electives and two or three open electives from which to build a specific expertise, if desired, within the degree program of choice. Alternatively, the elective choices can be combined with not more than two engineering core courses to form a five- or six-course minor in an engineering field outside the major discipline field. By adding two appropriate courses to the humanities and social sciences core requirement of four in a sequence, a minor in one of these fields can be satisfied.
The Case Core is the general education curriculum for engineering and B.S. science students, and is summarized in the previous section.
The Engineering Core, which is designed to provide professional engineering development, has evolved over the years to reflect the school's commitment to breadth in the engineering sciences. In its present configuration, the Engineering Core requires that each program contain the equivalent of six three-credit courses distributed among at least five of the following areas:
Each engineering program must contain at least four engineering courses (which may or may not be engineering core courses) outside the major field designation. Each student must also demonstrate proficiency in graphics by examination or completion of EMAE 192 (graphics) and proficiency in communication by completion of ENGL 398 (professional communication).
The Major Discipline Core requirements within each degree program are determined by the respective departments and must meet the criteria of ABET. For example, the Major Discipline Core for mechanical engineering specifies 13 courses in addition to the Case and Engineering Core requirements, and requires that the technical electives be selected from an approved list to provide a minimum of two credits of design.
The needs of the engineering profession today require that CSE examine the purpose of the core program and recognize the limitations inherent in the highly structured approach to engineering education described above. A weakness of the present core is that it leaves little flexibility to develop comprehensive elective sequences within a major field. Furthermore, students are hardly ever properly introduced to interdisciplinary engineering. It is increasingly important for engineers to be cross-trained in a variety of disciplines, act effectively as members of a team, and consider social, environmental, market, and strategic factors in their professional work.
To meet this challenge, CSE has joined with ten other universities to form the Gateway Engineering Education Coalition, part of a multimillion-dollar National Science Foundation program. An exciting alternative course to the traditional Case and Engineering Core curriculum has been developed for the freshman year. Students study principles underlying the various branches of engineering concurrently with the basic sciences. Laboratory experiments span several engineering disciplines and require cross-functional engineering practices. The fundamental differences and similarities between the sciences and engineering are emphasized by the use of mathematical, computational and experimental models to obtain quantitative problem solutions that yield predictive capability beyond the immediate problem solution. The present cores, however, do not help students understand the connections between the math and computer skills they are taught and the solution to physics, chemistry, and engineering problems they will confront.
The Engineering Core has many courses more detailed and specialized than needed by most engineering students. For instance, students should not have to choose between full courses in 'engineering mechanics - statics' and 'engineering mechanics - dynamics.' What is needed is a three-credit introduction to applied mechanics which integrates the fundamentals of statics, strength of materials, and dynamic systems into a comprehensive course on the fundamentals of applied mechanics. Similarly, must a student choose between fluid mechanics or some other transport course and thermodynamics? What is needed is a three-credit introduction to fluid and thermal transport which integrates the thermodynamic principles that govern energy with the transport of mass, momentum, and energy so that the fundamentals of heat and mass transfer are understood. Also needed are requirements that provide broadly-based understanding of systems and control, economics of engineering decision-making, electronics, and materials (metal, ceramic, and polymers), all of which are essential for the modern engineer.
The CSE curriculum committee is addressing these issues and recommending new cores. The major field core requirements and the ABET restrictions need to be re-evaluated. There should be more room for technical electives within each major program. Engineering schools seeking accreditation for their degree programs have been strongly encouraged by ABET to develop courses with more design content. This trend has led, at times, to courses with questionable technical content in the senior year when students are ready for and need the challenge of complex synthesis across disciplinary boundaries to solve realistic engineering problems.
In response to the above problems in the present four-year engineering degree programs, students have increasingly found two five-year alternative programs attractive: the cooperative education program and the combined bachelor's and master's program. The cooperative program affords the student two seven-month industrial internship opportunities by combining either a fall or spring semester with the adjoining summer. Often the work performed for the company makes an excellent senior project on a significant industrial problem with financial and personnel support to make the completion of the project possible. Companies are increasingly finding the co-op program an effective recruiting and screening process for the hiring of new engineers. Cooperative program students have an advantage with not only the company for whom they worked, but with non-co-op companies who value the experience the co-op student has gained. It is clear that co-op students seeking an entry-level engineering position have a distinct advantage over traditional four-year students.
A variation on the above five-year model is the combined B.S./M.S. program in engineering designed for students who, by the middle of their junior year, have excelled in their course work and shown interest in research. Graduate courses, senior project and master's thesis research are integrated into the program of study beginning as early as the summer between the junior and senior year and are continued through the senior and fifth years, resulting in the completion of both bachelor's and master's requirements by the end of the fifth year. As the co-op students gain industrial experience, B.S./M.S. students gain technical maturity which distinguishes them from traditional four-year students.
Overall evaluation of the effectiveness of CSE degree programs is provided from several sources: corporations and graduate schools; performance statistics on the fundamentals of engineering licensing examination; and internal and external evaluation of senior design projects by faculty and engineering design competition judges respectively. The senior design project of each graduating engineering student is evaluated in each degree program and provides the most comprehensive and systematic internal measure of the effectiveness of each degree program to the responsible department faculty. Statistics from the Office of Career Planning and Placement provide each department information on graduate employment and graduate school admissions. Other assessments are based on performance of a subset of the graduating engineering students:
Taken together, these assessment mechanisms provide reassuring indications that CSE is providing its students with an educational experience of high quality. Nonetheless, deficiencies exist (some are identified in this section), and there is a need for continuing robust outcome assessment measures at the university level. This issue is addressed later in this report.
The university's array of strong, nationally recognized graduate programs and professional schools contributes significantly to the strength of the undergraduate curricula. Within CAS, 15 of the 21 departments have graduate degree programs; with the frequent double (300/400 level) listing of courses, upper-level undergraduate students have close contact with graduate students. Some of the departments without active graduate-degree programs (such as political science and philosophy) encourage qualified students to pursue an Integrated Graduate Studies degree or a five-year combined B.A./M.A. degree. To a large extent, undergraduate students are taught by faculty who also teach advanced students, thus providing increased breadth and scope to their studies.
Selected undergraduates who are interested in post-baccalaureate studies and careers in the professions may be accepted into accelerated programs that allow them to begin graduate and professional studies as juniors and seniors. A number of upper-level undergraduate lecture courses are taught by faculty teams from two or more departments, with the courses cross-listed by participating departments: for example, faculty in biology and biochemistry team-teach courses in molecular biology and in proteins and enzymes, and faculty from biology, neurosciences, physiology and biophysics contribute to an advanced undergraduate laboratory in neurobiology. The departments of anthropology and communications sciences also have regular contacts with the School of Medicine.
Perhaps most important, undergraduates have the opportunity to engage in state-of-the-art research in a variety of environments provided by university faculty. Because most of these operations are small, undergraduates who join a research group are accepted as junior colleagues whose contributions to the total effort are highly valued. The undergraduate can become an integral member of the group, forming close personal and professional relationships with the faculty mentor and his or her graduate and postgraduate students. The student in this environment learns first-hand how to conduct research, an educational experience that may be among the most exciting that CWRU provides. Such an experience also allows the student to 'sample' a potential career choice before graduation. The faculty mentor is very important in providing career counseling, and in helping students make the next step in professional development. Letters of recommendation from research advisors frequently have great weight in applications for employment or for admission to graduate or professional school. Taking these factors into account, it is clear that the CWRU undergraduate has unique and extraordinary opportunities for educational and personal advancement through interactions with the professional and graduate schools.
The Case School of Engineering. Probably more than any other unit of the university, CSE faculty regularly engage undergraduate students in research projects. This is due partly to the large amount of funded research done at CSE in which students have the opportunity to play a role, and partly to the strong research orientation of senior projects. A detailed description of the educational context in which such research is done is provided in the preceding section.
School of Medicine. Students interested in biomedical research and in attending medical school participate in research projects in basic and clinical research laboratories in the School of Medicine. This is a productive experience for students, for the reasons given above. The quality of their experience is augmented by the opportunity to participate in the Michelson-Morley Undergraduate Research competition each spring. This program provides experience in writing up research results and, for semi-finalists, in presenting the results of experiments orally. When good fortune and hard work prevail, undergraduates have the thrill of being a co-author on a published paper or abstract, and may attend scientific meetings to present their work. A grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute enables five or six undergraduates each year to attend a national meeting for undergraduate research. If funds are available, undergraduate research advisors frequently provide summer research stipends so that undergraduates can continue their projects during the summer.
Bolton School of Nursing. Students in the B.S.N. program obtain clinical experience at University Hospitals and other health care agencies. In this setting, B.S.N. students interact with health professionals at all levels. In addition, senior nursing students and senior medical students share interdisciplinary learning experiences for the purpose of fostering collaboration and improvement of health care delivery. Students interested in obtaining research experience have the opportunity to work with funded researchers in the field.
Weatherhead School of Management. The Weatherhead School of Management offers 21 academic programs leading to bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. On the undergraduate level are the programs in management, management science, accounting, and economics (the latter department moved in 1992 to WSOM from the Colleges). The curriculum content meets the requirements of the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). In the last quarter-century the school has had a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship with CAS and CSE. Core requirements for undergraduate degrees in WSOM have always been modified versions of the Case Core and Western Reserve Core, and until last year curricular authority had been jointly shared between WSOM and the other undergraduate units.
Beginning on July 1, 1993, WSOM became exclusively responsible for management, management science, and accounting degree programs (economics degrees continue to be taught in WSOM but granted by CAS). The program structure for the two degrees has been left unchanged, but now curricular authority resides within WSOM. At this time no major curriculum changes are being contemplated; however, the business component of the curriculum is and will continue to be reviewed. Changes in the Case and Western Reserve core requirements will also be monitored in terms of their applicability to the three business degrees.
Notwithstanding future curricular adjustments, the educational philosophies and traditional relationships will presumably be retained. One reason for this is that the size of the student body and the need for freedom of movement with respect to changes in majors makes programmatic sense. Furthermore, the Weatherhead faculty respects the educational benefits which the arts, the sciences, and engineering bring to the business student. And finally, the AACSB has urged that the study of business be made a 'liberalizing experience.' Implementation of this philosophy is found in the specification that half of the courses required for a degree be outside the business school.
By attending college on the CWRU campus, undergraduates have a unique opportunity to take advantage of the facilities and resources offered by the more than 40 educational, medical, scientific, cultural, and arts organizations that are federated into University Circle Incorporated (UCI). Concerts of the Cleveland Orchestra, the vast collections in the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the 2.5 million volumes housed in the various research libraries within the Circle, are world-class cultural and research opportunities found on few university campuses.
The resources of the many institutions in the Circle are regularly utilized by students and faculty on an informal basis, such as trips to the Asian collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art in a course on Eastern religions. In addition, there are four areas in which the university has formal joint programs: (1) music with the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM); (2) art education with the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA); (3) art history and museum studies with the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA); and (4) communication sciences with the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center (CHSC). While the degree of 'jointness' varies with each program, they all serve the needs of undergraduate education in creative ways and expand the opportunities available to students at CWRU.
In the joint CWRU/CIM music program, students take classes at both institutions and the faculties teach required courses for each other to an extent unprecedented elsewhere in this country. Thus, students in music classes have the opportunity to learn from music school professionals and to share the classroom with future musicians. A joint task force is currently evaluating the CWRU/CIM relationship, to further improve cooperative programs. Art education also maintains a joint program with CIA in which qualified undergraduates pursuing a B.S. degree enroll in art studio classes at a professional art school.
Since neither the CMA nor the CHSC are degree-granting institutions, these joint programs have a somewhat different character. All classes in art history are conducted at the museum, often in the galleries themselves, so that students have the opportunity, rare in higher education, to study at first hand some of the finest examples of art in the world. Since most of the curators are adjunct faculty at CWRU and lecture on a regular basis in the introductory survey, students also learn about art from the experts who acquire and display it. In communication sciences all majors are involved in clinical practicum experiences and observation opportunities at CHSC.
Recommendations:
Ten years ago, the CWRU library system was generally regarded as an element that badly needed strengthening. Soon after his arrival on campus in 1987, President Pytte initiated an elaborate review process, which eventually included a national conference on campus and detailed interviews with hundreds of faculty and students regarding library and informational needs. Acquisitions budgets increased dramatically, and new technologies were applied. The utilization of computers and the fiber-optic network, discussed elsewhere in this self-study, has provided important enhancement of the common educational experience of all undergraduates, but especially as regards library and information services. Construction on the new $27-million Kelvin Smith Library is under way and expected to be complete in 1996.
Enrollment Trends. The arrival of President Pytte and his strong emphasis on undergraduate education are reflected in our enrollment and programs. Enrollment has grown steadily, 26 percent over the last seven years (Tables 1 and 2). A factor in this remarkable growth was the reinstitution of the B.S. in nursing program in 1990 after an absence of nearly two decades (the current full time enrollment in that program is 336, about 10 percent of the undergraduates). Also significant has been the increase in minority student enrollment, up from 367 in 1986 to 669 in 1993. Our current undergraduate enrollment is drawn from all fifty states and nearly 40 countries (Table 3).
Admissions.
In the years following the last reaccreditation we had a relatively flat applicant pool and several small entering classes. We recognized the need to strengthen our recruiting program, and pursued initiatives to increase our name recognition (including the use of videos), increase merit scholarships, and eliminate our application fee. We have subsequently seen significant improvements in both the number of applicants (4,075 for fall 1994 compared to 2,090 for the fall of 1985 - see Table 4) and the size of the entering classes (Table 5). As the geographic diversity noted above would suggest, we continue to have a national draw with a strong regional base. Ohio applicants have composed 40-50 percent of the total each year, and 52-62 percent of each entering class.
In addition to improvements in quantity, the quality of our students has also been quite strong. The middle 50 percent of admitted students in 1985 had combined SAT scores of 1100-1290. For the 1994 admitted class (excluding nursing students for comparative purposes) those numbers had improved to 1150-1360. More than 70 percent of our admitted students rank in the top 10 percent of their high school class, and 90 percent are in the top 20 percent.
Retention. In addition to recruiting able students, it is also important to retain them. We began the review period with 82 percent of our freshmen returning for the sophomore year, and a graduation rate of 62 percent. Those numbers have improved steadily, so that now over 90 percent return for the second year, and our graduation rate approaches 70 percent (Table 6). This represents significant progress toward our goal of a graduation rate above 80 percent.
Educational Support. Academic advising is coordinated through the Office of Collegiate Affairs, and is provided in two phases. All entering students are assigned a freshman advisor from the faculty or administration to provide assistance in planning a course of study. Upon selection of a major, but not prior to the second semester of the freshman year, students are assigned a faculty advisor in their chosen department who may remain with the student through graduation.
The university has made a strong commitment to educational support services. For example, use of tutoring services provided through Educational Support Services has increased by 140 percent since 1987, and participation in related programs has increased by 165 percent. Use of personal counseling services has increased by 103 percent.
A broad range of career services is offered to students, including workshops, information, personal counseling, and practica. An average of 160 students per year participate in the cooperative education program, with an additional 60 in the Professional Practica Program. In addition, over 50 students participate in special internship opportunities for minority students. Our students have experienced considerable success in pursuing both graduate study and employment upon graduation, although the latter has been affected somewhat in recent years by adverse national economic conditions (Table 7).
Student Life. The university has an active, multifaceted campus life which has developed considerably over the past decade. Many of the student activities for undergraduates on our campus are funded by an activity fee which supports the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), the University Program Board (UPB), the Student Media Board, and some activities of Greek Life. During the review period, revenue from the activity fee has increased by 87 percent to the current annual level of $370,000.
USG has developed as a responsible representative student organization and has become an effective agent for change on campus. In addition, USG administers funding for over 60 undergraduate organizations which represent a broad range of student interests (see Appendix A). The UPB offers over 50 events ranging from parties and concerts to educational programs and lectures. The Student Media Board includes a newspaper, a film society, a radio station, the yearbook, and several journals. One indication of the growth of student activity during the review period is a 142 percent increase in the number of scheduled activities in the student center.
A significant development in recent years has been the growth of student interest in volunteerism and community service, leading to the addition of full-time staff support this year. A number of service and honorary organizations are very active on campus. Students take advantage of numerous cultural opportunities in University Circle, including free access to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Western Reserve Historical Society. An endowment fund allows students to participate in weekly drawings for free tickets to the Cleveland Orchestra. Numerous departmental and faculty programs add to the array of opportunities.
The campus has become increasingly residential. During the review period the number of undergraduates living in university housing has increased from fewer than 1,900 to well over 2,300. Over 400 programs and activities were offered in our 17 residence halls last year. In addition, an active Greek system includes five sororities and 17 fraternities with a combined total of over 900 members. The residential experience has been enhanced through the installation of the fiber-optic computer network, to which every campus resident has direct access.
Recreational and athletic activity has also grown substantially. Physical education enrollment has increased by 81 percent, an active club sports program has been established, varsity participation on our 21 teams has increased by 27 percent, and the number of intramural teams has increased by 225 percent. To accommodate this growth in activity, the university plans to open a new convocation, sports, and recreation center in 1997.
Summary and Recommendations. It is clear from the above data, and it is just as clear to the campus community at large, that CWRU is on the whole healthy and moving in a positive direction. Indeed, it would be difficult to overstate the improvement in the campus mood between 1985 and today; a general sense of frustration and dissatisfaction has been replaced by widespread satisfaction.
There is, however, a price to pay for health as well as illness. The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in student numbers, especially at the freshman/sophomore level, and consequently in demand for facilities and resources. We have not responded to that increase in demand to the extent necessary. In particular, the various student-intensive support functions - that is, the monitoring and counseling activities in such offices as collegiate affairs, student affairs, financial aid, admissions, educational support services, and university counseling services - are significantly overstretched. Consideration needs to be given to ways to alleviate this problem.
More broadly, the Office of Student Affairs has undertaken a vigorous strategic planning process, from which emerged a set of strategic themes. We recommend that these themes and their related objectives continue to be pursued:
In November 1987, the Office of the Provost appointed an ad hoc faculty Committee on Educational Outcome Assessment, charged with developing a university-wide preliminary assessment plan. The resulting report, proposing specific outcome criteria and recommending a follow-up project to design and implement the measurement structure, was delivered on June 17, 1988. The second-phase report, delivered on March 31, 1989, ratified and adjusted the criteria proposed in the first phase1 and engaged a vigorous and fruitful discussion among the executive committees of all of the constituent faculties. However, implementation was not undertaken, and there has been no third phase of the process. Consequently, CWRU has no formalized outcome assessment structure, and our faculty continue to rely largely on traditional methods of evaluating student outcomes and instructional quality. When taken seriously and implemented vigorously, as they have been here in the seven years since President Pytte arrived, such methods are not to be underestimated. Nonetheless, it is clear that CWRU could benefit from more structural outcome assessment efforts. A new ad hoc faculty committee on outcome assessment should be formed at the provost's level, to follow up on the recommendations and lead implementation of the program begun in 1987-89.
Department-based assessments are discussed above; here we address university-wide policies and measures.
Since fall 1988, faculty in CAS and CSE as well as in the biochemistry, economics, accounting, and management departments are required by university policy to carry out detailed student course evaluations at the end of every undergraduate and graduate course with an enrollment greater than four. After grades are submitted, these anonymous evaluations are studied by the instructor and department chair, and also (in aggregated form) by the dean. They enter materially into not only every promotion and tenure procedure, but also the annual performance reports of every faculty member regardless of rank. The evaluation statistics for each course are then made available in hard copy and on the campus computer network for all to view. Instructional deficiencies identified by this mechanism are further addressed by chair and peer review (e.g., classroom visitation), peer advising, and departmental tracking. University policy also mandates the collection of additional evidence of quality of classroom teaching - such as blind letters from former students or from colleagues who have had direct experience with the candidate's classroom performance - for all promotion and tenure actions.
Of course, not all instruction is done by permanent faculty. Since 1992, new teaching assistants are required to proceed through an orientation and training week, and to attend further teaching seminars throughout their first year. Foreign TAs are required to meet a stringent English-language proficiency standard. Some departments carry out further systematic monitoring of TA performance.
For the past five years, graduating seniors are required to fill out a detailed senior survey, designed by the Higher Education Data-Sharing Consortium and administered at commencement rehearsal every May, which provides valuable data for self-assessment. The overall response rate is usually around 60 percent. Over 85 percent of students completing the survey have expressed satisfaction with their education, and a decided majority indicated that they would encourage high school students to attend CWRU (a proportion which has increased by 25 percent over the five years of the surveys). The detailed results of the senior survey are studied in various university offices, including collegiate affairs, student affairs, and by the various deans. Several initiatives undertaken by the university over the last few years to improve both curricular and extracurricular life have begun from recognition of deficiencies identified in these exit surveys. These senior surveys should continue to be re-examined for depth and focus, adjusted for local terminology and conditions, and ways be devised to ensure even fuller response from the graduating class.
Regarding the other end of the student's college career, a Freshman Year Task Force was appointed by the provost in the fall of 1992; the group submitted a report a year later. Although there was much good news in the report (only 13 percent of freshmen in April 1993 were dissatisfied overall with CWRU, whereas 87 percent were satisfied or very satisfied), many areas for improvement were identified; detailed recommendations were offered under the headings of orientation, peer relationships, academics, advisor relations, faculty involvement, campus community, and facilities. Some of these recommendations have already been acted upon. The Freshman Year Task Force has since become a standing committee, and is proceeding actively toward implementing the recommendations. A questionnaire similar to that given to seniors is now being administered to the freshman class at the end of each academic year. In addition, a separate Quality of Life Survey has recently been instituted in order to provide continuous review of our residential programs. To the extent possible, similar information should also be obtained from all who leave the university without graduating.
For the last two years, CWRU has been planning a Faculty Teaching Center, to be administered by the provost's office. In connection with this planning, five large grants have been obtained to fund undergraduate teaching initiatives at CWRU. A major three-year grant was awarded by the Lilly Foundation, with the goal of exploring innovative teaching methods by funding 15 Lilly Teaching Fellows selected from the junior faculty. These instructors have each been granted released time to develop a new course or revise an existing one to exemplify innovation in college teaching; they also serve as advisors for further faculty development. A second set of initiatives was funded by the Hewlett Foundation in 1991-1994, covering ethics in the classroom, math and physics tutorial workshops, and a senior faculty initiative. The Nord Endowment is providing a third teaching program, in which five faculty are developing new global and interdisciplinary undergraduate courses. The Codrington and Cleveland Foundations provided funds to explore the use of the new fiber-optic network for undergraduate education. Finally, the Hewlett Endowment is providing start-up funding for the Faculty Teaching Center itself; the director will help to identify sources for continuing funds. The teaching center will implement programs such as these for faculty and curricular development, while simultaneously serving as a site for additional instructionally-focused initiatives. The teaching center should continue to receive full support from the administration and faculty.
An additional modest step that might be adopted to improve the accuracy of instructional quality assessment is the adoption of the 'plus-minus' grading system instead of the straight A, B, C, D, F system now used.
External independent measures of the quality and effectiveness of undergraduate programs are few, and the ones that do exist are generally (and justly) regarded as problematical. Nonetheless, such data are at least suggestive. Because of the extraordinary degree of overlap of courses, programs and extracurricular experiences in college, it can well be argued that departmentally-based outcome assessments are uncertain, or even illegitimate; assigning identifiable 'value-added' outcomes to specific educational events may not be valid. Moreover, departments themselves do not directly control access to job markets. Consequently, more general measures of the entire college experience may be a better approach. Some data on the entry point is ready to hand: SAT, ACT, AP scores, high school GPAs, and so on. Statistics on exit are also available, in the form of standardized advanced examination scores - GRE, MCAT, LSAT, etc. - as well as professional credentialing examinations in a variety of fields (engineering, accounting, nursing, etc., some of which are mentioned in the departmental assessment sections above, and some below).
Evaluation of External Measures. All of these measures tend to indicate that CWRU graduates are well equipped to compete successfully in the markets they enter after graduation. But CWRU is highly competitive in admissions policy; excellent entering freshmen tend to be excellent departing seniors. What these data fail to measure, then, is the value-added educational increment attributable to the four years they spend on our campus. There is also no structural feed-back loop connected to these measures, to provide substantive policy responses when deficiencies are identified. There are private companies (such as the Educational Testing Service and the American College Testing program) that are beginning to provide instruments that could be used for this purpose. The Undergraduate Assessment Program and College-Level Examination Program of ETS, or the College Outcomes Measures Project at ACT could be used to provide the incremental value-added data which remains hidden by the more traditional measures.
Taken together, all of these various assessment approaches provide valuable indications of success in meeting our goals, even though a statistician would be troubled by the unsystematic nature of much of the data. These weaknesses are intrinsic, and do not indicate any lack of interest in mechanisms to ensure quality and efficacy of our efforts. Indeed, it must be recognized that there are severe difficulties in agreeing upon objective criteria of outcome assessment for undergraduate education, and even greater obstacles in providing reliable measures for those criteria. Widespread recognition of these problems has resulted in a lack of clear understanding of outcome assessment among some faculty members.
Nevertheless, CWRU might be able to provide a more robust undergraduate assessment structure. Clearly, some departments have given more thought and taken more action in this regard than others. Furthermore, although there is much evidence presented here of our collective concern for ensuring quality (and our overall success in that effort), mechanisms to close the feedback loop are too few, and not sufficiently structural. Deficiencies do occur; sometimes we recognize them; sometimes we even succeed in solving the problem. But do we have a structure which ensures that such deficiencies are systematically recognized, and - even more important - addressed and rectified?
Establishing a department of educational research to systematically address such questions is not a good idea for an institution like ours: we have no department of education, we are a highly selective university with superb faculty and students, we have low rates of default on student loans, and our budget is small compared to large state institutions where such research departments do exist.
But there are other possibilities. Some recommendations regarding outcome assessment have been proposed in this section, such as more systematic use of external reviews and testing instruments. Although there are presently no plans to include an outcome assessment function in the faculty teaching center, this could be a logical locus for such activity in the future. The university has traditionally used 'visiting committees,' often consisting largely of alumni, as a form of oversight, but this has been a weak and ineffective structure. These committees could be transformed into a more robust means of continuing external evaluation. It is expected that additional measures will be recommended by the ad hoc faculty committee on assessment which is recommended here.
Fall 1985 2,841
1986 2,684
1987 2,489
1988 2,524
1989 2,469
1990 2,517
1991 2,677
1992 2,896
1993 3,050
1994 3,106
Excludes students from the Cleveland Institute of Music
enrolled in the joint music program.
Total including
Fall CWRU CIM/CIA students
1985 3,130 3,334
1986 3,003 3,216
1987 2,737 2,948
1988 2,763 3,017
1989 2,709 2,969
1990 2,799 3,067
1991 2,968 3,227
1992 3,213 3,486
1993 3,375 3,564
1994 3,454 3,658
U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents
Graduate &
Undergraduate Professional Total
Ohio 2,258 3,600 5,858
Pennsylvania 245 200 445
New York 167 192 359
Michigan 66 124 190
California 41 126 167
Illinois 61 55 116
Massachusetts 34 69 103
Maryland 46 53 99
New Jersey 39 49 88
Indiana 46 34 80
Florida 22 40 62
All others 380 464 844
3,405 5,006 8,411
States represented: 50 50 50
International Students
India 12 150 162
China (PRC) 10 137 147
China (ROC) 14 111 125
Canada 6 90 96
Malaysia 66 2 68
South Korea 11 54 65
Japan 26 35 61
Turkey 5 36 41
Thailand 4 35 39
Indonesia 28 7 35
All others 71 248 319
253 905 1,158
Countries represented:39 78 83
Tables include students from the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Arts & Sci/
For fall Eng/Mgmt Nursing Total
1985 2,090 2,090
1986 2,103 2,103
1987 1,709 1,709
1988 2,103 2,103
1989 1,943 1,943
1990 1,968 209 2,177
1991 2,676 336 3,012
1992 3,507 387 3,894
1993 3,586 287 3,873
1994 3,894 181 4,075
Fall 1985 614
1986 626
1987 508
1988 635
1989 508
1990 648
1991 646
1992 767
1993 713
1994 735
-------- Returned for ------- Graduated in Graduated Enrolled or Year Freshmen 2nd year 3rd year 4th year four years to date graduated 1985 613 505 (82%) 462 (75%) 431 (70%) 241 (39%) 382 (62%) 383 (62%) 1986 615 532 (87%) 465 (76%) 429 (70%) 293 (48%) 429 (70%) 432 (70%) 1987 505 452 (90%) 412 (82%) 388 (77%) 252 (50%) 390 (77%) 396 (78%) 1988 637 571 (90%) 503 (79%) 470 (74%) 263 (41%) 448 (70%) 458 (72%) 1989 505 454 (90%) 416 (82%) 388 (77%) 219 (43%) 340 (67%) 368 (73%) 1990 578 540 (93%) 478 (83%) 453 (78%) 253 (44%) 253 (44%) 428 (74%) 1991 564 520 (92%) 475 (84%) 437 (77%) 1992 677 608 (90%) 534 (79%) 1993 675 613 (91%) 1994 692 For comparative purposes, figures do not include B.S.N. students.
Advanced Other Seeking
Class of Employed Study Plans* Employment
1993 43.9% 35.2% 7.3% 13.6%
1992 41.1 38.7 8.0 12.2
1991 45.1 32.8 13.7 8.4
1990 49.0 35.4 8.5 7.1
1989 52.5 36.7 3.4 7.4
1988 53.9 37.8 2.2 6.1
1987 47.3 39.8 2.9 10.0
1986 46.3 38.2 4.7 10.7
* Travel, military, Peace Corps, return to homeland, etc.
Data are finalized six months after graduation;
annual response rates are 90-96 percent.
Various committees, commissions, and consultants have studied the form and content of undergraduate education at Case Western Reserve since federation, addressing many of the same questions. Since 1975 the University has also regularly issued a series of five-year plans, endorsed by the Board of Trustees, that set goals and objectives for the period ahead, including goals for undergraduate education. The charge to the Subcommittee on Undergraduate Education is to evaluate progress toward the goals and objectives for baccalaureate programs as outlined in the plan for the University and presented in greater detail in the more recent reports of the Task Force on Education in the Colleges and the Freshman Year Task Force. Without reviewing individual programs, the subcommittee may want to consider the following issues:
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