The Undergraduate Program
The College’s undergraduate mission is to provide an intimate learning experience in the context of a thriving research enterprise. To accomplish this, the College must offer an integrated liberal arts and sciences curriculum that focuses on research and inquiry, on social responsibility and civic engagement, and on building connections between students' coursework and their lives. It must take account of the increasingly complex world in which students live and offer them a wide variety of opportunities to understand that world and engage with it as informed, educated citizens.
- Expanding Undergraduate Science Enrollments
- Increasing Enrollments in the Arts
- Supporting Undergraduate Research, Creativity, and Discovery
- Expanding Study Abroad Opportunities
- Creating Fifth-Year Programs
- Strengthening Lower-Division Advising
- Highlighting Diversity in the Curriculum
- Building New Teaching and Learning Space for the College
Expanding Undergraduate Science Enrollments
The University has made a strategic commitment to increasing enrollments in the sciences and engineering. Consistent with this goal, Arts & Sciences has started several programs intended to expand and enhance undergraduate science education. First, in order to help recruit talented undergraduates interested in majoring in the sciences, we initiated the College Science Scholars (CSS) three years ago. The program is designed to enroll approximately 20 new students per year who work directly with senior faculty mentors and participate in a year-long research seminar. The CSS program has been very successful at attracting strong students to the sciences and keeping them engaged with faculty active in their fields of research. A number of other programs have been established in order to increase attention on science for our existing students as well. For example, for each of the past three years, the Summer Science and Engineering Scholars programs have brought together students working in labs over the summer for seminars in a relaxed and collegial atmosphere. Further programs are being considered targeted to first and second year students who have expressed or demonstrated serious interest in science. The College has also inaugurated a B.A. in Computer Science in collaboration with the School of Engineering. We are confident that these programs are important first steps towards building undergraduate science at U.Va.Goal: Double the number of majors in the physical sciences and mathematics by 2015.
Increasing Enrollments in the Arts
We believe that the model of the College Science Scholars can be extended to the arts as well. Many of our undergraduates want to continue learning about and participating in drama, art, music and dance, and our programs must provide them the opportunity to grow and develop in the fine arts. We propose creating a College Arts Scholars program to focus on recruiting talented and creative students for our undergraduate arts programs. Like CSS, it would assign students a faculty mentor and offer a seminar or studio experience to expose them to the broad array of forms, practices, and professional opportunities in the arts. We have recently created a new marching band and a new minor in dance. In the near future, we hope to institute a fifth-year BFA program in Studio Art and to enhance our music performance program significantly.Goal: Create a College Arts Scholars program to help recruit top students to the fine and performing arts, and have at least 20 Arts Scholars by 2010.
Supporting Undergraduate Research, Creativity, and Discovery
To create a truly integrative learning experience for students in the College, we must promote undergraduate involvement in research and discovery. The David A. Harrison III Undergraduate Research Awards have been instrumental in supporting students who wish to work with faculty members on their own research projects. This program has been extraordinarily successful and has supported 40-45 students per year doing substantive research in such areas as neuroscience, religious studies, chemistry, and environmental science. Many projects have a strong public service and outreach component as well, effectively integrating research, civic engagement, and the curriculum in ways that students can not only understand, but directly experience. The effectiveness of this program argues strongly that participation should be available to a broader spectrum of our students, including those in the fine and performing arts, and to a larger population as well.Goal: Expand number of undergraduate research awards to 100 and support students wishing to conduct projects in the creative arts.
Expanding Study Abroad Opportunities
Arts & Sciences must expand the international scope of its teaching and research activities and offer students more opportunities to study abroad, ranging from semester-long and summer programs to research trips. By 2015, a study abroad experience should be an expectation that every entering first-year hears about and plans for. Recently, direct credit study abroad programs have been established in Valencia, Siena, and Cairo. Other programs have been proposed by Anthropology (with St. Andrews University in Scotland), Drama (with theater programs in London and Moscow), French (an academic center in Lyon), Religious Studies (cooperative relationships with University of Tibet and Chung-Wa Institute of Buddhist Studies in Taiwan), and AMELC (programs in Korea and Southeast Asia). We must increase the number of such programs in ways that are consistent with the standards of the College curriculum and that complement the strengths of our academic disciplines. We must also lower the barriers to participation by making more information available about study abroad programs, increasing the transparency of the transfer-credit process, and offering affordable opportunities and financial support to students of lesser means.Goal: Expand the number of study abroad programs, increase the efficiency of the transfer-credit process, lower administrative and financial obstacles to participation, and double the total number of College students studying abroad every year from 1,000 to 2,000 by 2015.
Creating Fifth-Year Programs
Students are increasingly interested in exploring a discipline in greater depth than that typically afforded by a conventional major, especially in fields in which a minimal level of advanced study offers a professional credential or enhances career prospects. The most effective such programs are often collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts among different departments and schools across Grounds, for example the B.A./M.T. program run jointly by Arts & Sciences and the Curry School. The College supports the creation of a new interdisciplinary fifth-year program in Public Policy, which will bring together the resources of the departments of Economics and Politics as well as the Miller Center of Public Affairs. We propose creating a new five-year B.F.A. program in the McIntire Department of Art, which would allow students to build a more extensive portfolio and obtain a meaningful professional credential. We also want to work with the Commerce School to explore opportunities to create fifth-year curricula in such areas as finance and accounting. Another possible fifth-year program is a Professional Portfolio program in Media Arts, which would provide students with additional skills to enter the professional world of the arts or apply to MFA programs.Goal: Create new fifth-year programs in targeted areas by focusing on existing academic capacities, student demand, and efficiencies that can be achieved through collaboration.
Strengthening Lower-Division Advising
Lower-division advising (the advising of first- and second-year students before they declare a major) is a crucial component of undergraduate education in the College. The faculty advisor helps students understand the structure of the curriculum and encourages younger students to range widely in their choice of courses while also thinking about future areas of focus. The College has instituted several major new initiatives in lower-division advising: With support from the Parents Program, we currently have engaged 40 College faculty to serve as College Advising Fellows; for this program, we select those faculty we know are excellent advisors and provide them with ongoing training and funds for outside-the-classroom activities with their advisees. The College is also seeking to create better advisor-advisee relationships through a shared classroom experience. With the support of private donors, the College piloted a new first-year seminar experience, COLA 101. Instructors for the COLA seminars serve as advisors to all the students in the seminar until the students declare a major. For both of these programs, faculty are rewarded for their additional work and ongoing commitment with an annual research stipend. The College has also restructured the way advisor assignments are made in the first year, to better align student and faculty interests. The College offers ongoing training to lower-division advisors through workshops each semester. Our goal is to develop an endowment that can support appropriate specialized advising for all incoming students.Goal: Increase the number of Parents Program Advising Fellows, Griffin Advising Fellows, COLAs and other targeted advising programs to extend at least one of these new programs to every lower-division student in the College.
Highlighting Diversity in the Curriculum
The College is currently re-designing its area requirements to place more emphasis on cultural diversity, both in the United States and globally. The current "non-Western" requirement will be reconfigured to require two courses instead of one, the first focusing on global diversity, the second on U.S. diversity. There are currently about 60 courses in the College curriculum that can fulfill the new (U.S.) requirement. The Provost's Office has recently dedicated funding to encourage faculty to develop new courses in this area. The College is cooperating with the Vice President for Student Affairs to make U.S. diversity courses a priority for first-year students. In addition, the College supports the creation of new interdisciplinary concentrations that focus on issues of cultural diversity; for example, last year faculty started a new concentration in Asian and Asian-Pacific-American Studies, and the program is flourishing. This example illustrates how important it is to hire key faculty with teaching and research interests in these areas, as they provide the catalyst for curricular innovation and spark student passion and interest.Goal: Create 20 new courses that will meet the new U.S. diversity requirement and continue to hire energetic faculty whose work critically engages issues of diversity.
Building New Teaching and Learning Space for the College
The College needs facilities whose form and function reflect our fundamental mission and whose objective is consistent with the founding vision of Thomas Jefferson: to create a community built on the relationship of student and teacher. Most of the College’s teaching facilities are antiquated and ill-equipped to support modern instructional techniques and technologies. A recent study showed that the College had a total space deficit of over 300,000 square feet relative to its peers, 100,000 square feet of which was in classroom and instructional space. We need to invest in new buildings in every area of Arts & Sciences: the fine and performing arts, the humanities and social sciences, and the sciences. Our first priority is the completion of the South Lawn Project, which will host up to 12,000 student visits per day and house a wide variety of classrooms, seminar rooms, and auditoria, all designed and equipped to suit the needs of students and instructors. Renovation is needed in several existing buildings. We must also build new and expanded teaching facilities for our performing arts departments, especially drama and music. And if we are to strengthen our undergraduate science programs, we need to build better instructional laboratory facilities.Goal: Build new facilities across the curriculum that support the teaching mission and enhance the relationship between student and teacher.
