January 26, 1995: Vol26n14: Undergrad ed changing, Council hears

By CHRISTINE VIDAL
Reporter Editor
TRechnology is changing the complexion of undergraduate education at
UB, Nicolas D. Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education, told
the UB Council Jan. 19. Reporting to the Council on the progress being
made in undergraduate education, he described how electronic
technology is improving the way registration, class scheduling and
student advisement are handled.
	In addition, he talked about new scholarship programs, the new
administrative structure in the Arts and Sciences and efforts at UB to
produce better curricular cooperation with other schools. "If we look
at all this, we can see a vision of what undergraduate education is
going to be," Goodman said. "I expect to see an enormous diversity of
students, of programs, of different educational experiences."
	Among the new technologies benefitting undergraduate education
is Schedule 25, a program that helps schedule courses, Goodman said.
The new technology shortens the scheduling process by five to six
weeks.
	"In the past there was always a sense of disappointment,"
Goodman said, when students received schedules that didn't meet their
expectations. Thanks to Schedule 25, instead of receiving their
schedule for the fall semester in July, students will know their class
schedule in April, he said.
	A touch-tone registration system called BIRD (for Billing,
Inquiry, Records and Drop/Add) also is functioning and is expected to
be fully in place by spring. "About 4,000 students used the system
yesterday ...and in April that will be the means of access to the
registration program," Goodman said.
	The system will allow students to complete all their
registration and drop/add needs by touch-tone phone. BIRD also will
enable students to have access to its information "from their homes,
from anywhere in the state, anywhere in the country," he said.
	Student advisement also will benefit from technology through a
program called DARS, expected to be up and running in the fall. It
provides students with a list of the courses they have taken, as well
as those they still need to fulfill their requirements. 
	"Some of the clerical burden of advising will be eased," said
Goodman, who praised the work of UB's academic advisors.
	"UB's academic advisors have typically been in those jobs
many, many years," he said. "The workload is horrendous. They're
seeing students all day, every day. Students are stressed and it's an
emotional strain dealing with them. There's a tendency to burn out in
a job like this. Under the circumstances, they do an excellent job."
	Goodman also told the UB Council that as a result of the
Triggle Report, there is a new administrative structure in the Arts
and Sciences at UB, and more coordination of academic activities in
the Arts and Sciences.
	Among the changes is the formation of the Council of Arts and
Sciences Deans. Another "very positive development," Goodman said, is
the Arts and Sciences Program and Curriculum Committee, which has made
recommendations on how to modify the program.
	There also is improvement in access to
"service courses," prerequisite classes students must take in order to
enter more advanced classes. "By and large we have been able to make
service courses available to students....I think the problem has
improved significantly."
	Advising also is changing in the Arts and Sciences, Goodman
said, with departments providing advisement to majors and undecided
students receiving group advisement on general interest areas.
	Because articulation is a major problem for transfer students,
the vice provost said, UB has hired Jennifer Gottdiener as transfer
and articulation coordinator to solve the problem of ensuring that
academic programs among different colleges and universities fit
together so transfer credits can be accepted.
	Articulation requires painstaking work to make the programs
fit together, especially since "most students have at least some
transfer credits," Goodman said. UB is working to ease the
articulation problem through on-going discussions with Erie Community
College, Genesee Community College, Jamestown Community College, and
Niagara County Community College, Goodman said. The university also
has signed a joint admissions agreement with Monroe Community College.
	Goodman also told the UB Council that students will have new
scholarship opportunities as a result of the recent $1.6 million
anonymous gift to provide Distinguished Honors Scholarships. He noted
that the full four-year scholarships, which will be awarded to 20
students entering UB in 1995 and 1996, are important to UB's honors
program, "which has not always been able to compete financially with
other universities."
hile UB has been successful in eas-
	ing the problems that undergraduates face, there still are
"significant unsolved problems," Goodman told the Council. Access to
programs is perhaps the most troubling of those problems, he said.
Students who have not declared a major are at risk of losing financial
aid, especially TAP, and at risk of needing more than four years to
graduate. In fact, only about 30 percent of first-time, full-time
students graduate from UB in four years.
	At least part of the problem, Goodman said, is the "lack of
fit between students we've admitted and resources." For example,
demand for admission to the engineering program is down. "Where we
have the capacity, we no longer have the student demand," he said. The
health sciences now are in high demand, but there are limits to how
many students can be admitted, in part because of the availability of
clinical settings.
	UB is looking at solving the problem by possibly admitting
students directly into programs as freshmen, but "at the moment I
don't feel confident doing that," Goodman said, or by providing
provisional admission to majors. "There aren't easy solutions," he
said.
	In his report to the Council, President William Greiner said
he is concerned about the 1995-96 state budget. "The signs from Albany
are not good," he said, warning members of the Council that higher
education could be entering a "very dicey period" in New York State.
Greiner also told the Council that because of rapidly rising interest
rates, UB will not at this time continue with its plans for a student
housing project on campus.
	In other business, the Council welcomed Roger Blackwell as a
new member. Blackwell, a commissioner on the Erie County Board of
Elections, succeeds Rose Sconiers, a 1973 UB law school graduate who
served on the Council from 1978 to 1994.