Reporter Volume 25, No.24 April 14, 1994

Undergraduate education is focus of report

The Provost's Advisory Committee on the Structure of the Arts and
Sciences delivered its report this week, recommending significant
changes in the way general undergraduate education is delivered at the
university. The committee of senior faculty and other interested
parties, chaired by David J. Triggle, Distinguished Professor and
Dean, School of Pharmacy, was appointed by Provost Aaron Bloch in
October, 1993, to assess proposed alternatives to the university's
present configuration of arts and sciences faculties.
	"I think the committee did a remarkable job," Bloch said on
Monday. "They had to deal with a set of extremely complex issues and
to consult very broadly. The report is the work of a lot of people
from many points of view who brought positive, constructive energy to
their deliberations."
	The committee addressed a variety of issues implicit in
restructuring the arts and sciences faculties but found that
responsibility for providing undergraduate education is the one most
in need of urgent attention.
	"Without a committed and responsible approach to undergraduate
education by the University, both scholarship and service are
compromised," Triggle said in letter of conveyance accompanying the
report (see left).
	The charge delimiting the advisory committee's work directed
it to evaluate any proposed structural change in the arts and sciences
with at least the following five criteria: How would it accommodate
delivery of general undergraduate instruction? How would it lend
institutional identity to the humanities and sustain their development
as a central intellectual and scholarly focus of the university? How
would it support a new focus on the fine arts? How would it affect
graduate education and research? What are its implications for future
university-wide development of the sciences?
	In a summary of the committee's report, Triggle, writing on
behalf of the committee, states that: "In the present organization,
the delivery of undergraduate education, particularly, but not
exclusively, its general component, is seriously dysfunctional."
	To remedy this deficiency, the committee recommends that the
responsibility and accountability for undergraduate education be
located "in the faculty or faculties that deliver the component."
	"We have piled new structure upon old with too little thought
for their organization, responsibility, accountability or sustenance,"
the committee's report states, stressing the need to link structure
and function. "Our undergraduate curricula demand both general and
specific components, yet much of the former defies clear lines of
responsibility, authority or resource. Resolution of this issue is
important both to the quality of undergraduate education and to the
faculties responsible for its delivery."
	On the matter of what kind of Arts and Sciences faculty
structure would best support this recommendation, a majority of the
committee favored the formation of a Faculty of Arts and Sciences
comprising the three existing Arts and Sciences faculties, headed by a
single dean. A significant minority favored retention of the present
tripartite faculty system but with the addition of formal
responsibility to coordinate the delivery of undergraduate education.
	Either model would effectively assume the responsibilities and
role of the Undergraduate College. "This is necessary and consistent
with our recommendation," Triggle's summary states. 
	"The members of the Undergraduate College have worked hard and
are responsible for important curricular innovation," Bloch said about
the recommendation. "The best way to sustain what they've achieved is
to find ways to bring the College home to the Faculties that provide
support for its mission."
	The report also suggests consideration of a number of
management changesQin the areas of curriculum, enrollment, resource
flexibility, analysis of course offerings, and department size and
functionQthat could relieve problems that now exist in undergraduate
education.
	In a second set of recommendations, the committee called for
further study of the directions of graduate education at the
university and recommended against forming a separate faculty of
Visual and Performing Arts without further study.
	Addressing faculty structure in general terms, Triggle's
summary of the committee's work points out that the issues they
explored were more functional than structural and that there are,
indeed, a variety of successful faculty structures in North American
universities. But structure can also impede function. "This is
certainly the case for undergraduate education at Buffalo," he
concludes. "The best structure will be the one that optimizes
commitment, responsibility and accountability for the University-wide
mission."
	"The committee has focused our attention on the most urgent
problem facing the Arts and Sciences and has considerably sharpened
our thinking about options for the future structure of these
faculties," according to Bloch, who is now consulting with deans,
Faculty Senate committees, the Undergraduate College, and other
affected groups. He plans to announce preliminary steps to address the
recommendation on undergraduate education within the next few weeks.
	"This is not going to be something that sits on the shelf,"
Bloch said. "We will be following up the recommendations with some
energy."
	For his part, Dean Triggle said the committee worked hard to
ensure that a wide variety of opinion was heard and held frequent
meetings at various levels and with external consultants. He and
committee staff member Dr. Mary Wurm Schaar of Pharmacy traveled to
Ohio State University and Indiana University in Bloomington to study
other models of academic structure.
	The group had four sub-committees that addressed separate
elements of the provost's charge. There were about 25 meetings
including open hearings and large and sub-group meetings with a wide
range of university constituents. They received about 60 letters or
documents and recorded carefully the entire deliberative process,
making for what Triggle called "a very good record of the progress of
thought."


"We have piled new structure upon old with too little thought for
their organization, responsibility, accountability or sustenance."
	- Advisory Committee Report