SUMMARY

STUDENT CONCERNS AND PRIORITIES GATHERED AT THE UVA STRATEGIC PLANNING STUDENT OPEN FORUM SPRING 2013

On April 11, 2013, student-members of the Universitys Strategic Planning working groups held an open forum in the Harrison Auditorium for students wishing to voice their concerns and ideas to the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. Undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of the Universitys schools attended the event. This document contains the comments made at this event. Many of the comments provide creative solutions to some of the Universitys pressing challenges, and some raise concerns that are new to the discourse on the Universitys strategic vision. Primarily, the forum addressed three areas of interest to students: Topic One: Advising Topic Two: The UVa Classroom Experience Topic Three: Learning Outside the Classroom A brief note on the event itself: The open forum was split into two segments two concurrent small group discussions and an open microphone portion. The small group discussions, lasting about thirty- five minutes, consisted of two working group students leading conversations with participating students on three topics: advising, teachers and classes, and learning experiences outside of the classroom. Students were encouraged to voice their opinions on the topics covered and were also encouraged to write down on notecards additional ideas or problems they felt the University should address. Each group consisted of a scribe that recorded any comments that were made. The open microphone portion lasted for twenty minutes. This segment of the event allowed students to share additional concerns and comments with the entire group on topics not addressed during the smaller discussion groups. Comments made during the open microphone session are also included in this document. At the conclusion of the event, participants were given small notecards and were asked to write down a top concern. The comments written on these notecards are listed at the end of this document. The ultimate goal of the Student Open Forum was to provide students a direct channel for presenting their ideas and opinions about the Universitys strengths, shortcomings and opportunities to the Steering Committee as it goes about designing its strategic plan for the University. Please contact Katharine Sadowski (kcs3au@virginia.edu) or Lansing Lee (lcl5x@virginia.edu) for any questions about the Open Forum or this report.
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STUDENT TOP PRIORITIES The following list of top priorities captures the student recommendations that had the widest support at the Open Forum. As a threshold issue, undergraduate and graduate students both asked that the Steering Committee make a sincere effort to communicate its strategic priorities to the student body as soon as possible, in order to give students time to comment. Despite the efforts of the strategic planning members to the contrary, many students feel disconnected and uninformed about the changes the University is considering. Top Priority #1: Restructure the Advising Program for Undergraduate Students. The University should begin a process of thoughtfully considering what it is that students need out of an advising program, and it should design a new program that meets these needs. Students recommend benchmarking against advising programs at the Universitys graduate schools and peer institutions. Students are aware that the advising program uses a constrained resource professors time and have creative ideas for restructuring the program in a way that could make better use of this resource and leverage some other available resources, through peer-to-peer advising (fourth years to first years), graduate student advising of undergraduates, online video resources that answer some of the most common questions about choosing a major and fulfilling requirements, and using recent alumni as a resource for career advising. To make the advising process more student-friendly, the University could consider establishing a student advising committee to administer the advising program, much like programs on grounds such as the Honor Committee, Residence Life, and University Guides. Some students felt that professors should still serve as advisors, but only for students that have chosen their area of expertise as a major; a select cadre of professors or administrators should be trained in and compensated for advising students in their first two years at the University on the distinct issues that arise before choosing a major. Top Priority #2: Enlist Student Groups in the Effort to Make Technology Services More Useful to Students. The University should take steps to centralize technology services, educate students on technology resources available, and involve students in the technology development process. Students recommended presenting some of the Universitys technological challenges (such as SIS) to groups of students, and providing incentives for them to work toward creating new systems or updates to existing systems. Students believe that this process would create more accessible and useful technology while giving students ownership over the resources they use. Students also recommend a required pre-matriculation online course designed to familiarize incoming students with systems like SIS, the Source and ITC. Finally a more accessible and centralized ITC support system where students can go to get help with technology problems is recommended. Top Priority #3: Emphasize Learning Outside the Classroom. The University should make it easier for students to identify research and externship opportunities and to collaborate across schools in pursuing those opportunities. Students recommended establishing a periodic public day for publicizing current research, incentivizing the sharing of research across disciplines, creating a monthly research symposium, setting aside funds for cross-school or cross-discipline student teams engaging in community projects and interdisciplinary research, and establishing an office for research and project experience that, like the International Studies Office, could serve as a resource for students looking to pursue research or externship interests.

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NOTES FROM THE STUDENT OPEN FORUM

CONTENTS 1. Recommendations Specific to the Synergies Working Group 2. Recommendations Specific to the Technology Working Group 3. Small Group Discussion Topic One: Advising 4. Small Group Discussion Topic Two: The UVa Classroom Experience 5. Small Group Discussion Topic Three: Learning Outside the Classroom 6. Notes from the Open Microphone Portion 7. Student Notecard Responses

RECOMMENDATIONS SPECIFIC TO THE SYNERGIES WORKING GROUP x Interdisciplinary minors at UVA o An example of an interdisciplinary minor is the global sustainability minor: it has an interdisciplinary nature, which leads professors to interact with students/ other faculty in order to do research together. This should be expanded. o Prossome specific great opportunities for students. o Consnot all departments are fully on board or know how to properly manage minors. Nano-star opportunity could be expanded to include more themes o This initiative brings together disciplines that have to do with Nano-technology once a month. There are presentations and a bag lunch. This is similar to a research conference. Idea to have a public day o Choose one of the best theses by every department to present to the entire school in a public area. This will illustrate how interdisciplinary research is already conducted, but also encourage students from other schools to give new perspectives on current research, thereby providing recommendations for future research possibilities. Some agree that interdisciplinary is already done well and that there might be some difficulty in instituting at a larger scale. Research should be done by looking at other schools who do interdisciplinary research well. More interaction with graduate students for mentorship, research, some social activities. Perhaps develop a framework for matching grad and undergrad pairs to serve as resources for each other. Potentially expand similar thinking to alumni and include cross-school ideas. More research opportunities (grant/award/credit) between schools. Career and even grad school life are by no means covered by one department. We need to promote linking students from different departments to develop more enhanced research. Link graduate students (name/ photo/ research interests) under their advisor on department websites, so when students browse faculty research interests they can find grad students with similar interests. Student Council Dinners at the end of a semester could be a great way to connect the University and allow CIOs to communicate with one another creating bonds between student leaders for the future.
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x x x

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There need to be more interdisciplinary/ cross-listed courses. Consider putting on a job fair for graduate students. Have the strategic planning committee research other successful advising programs from other universities.

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RECOMMENDATIONS SPECIFIC TO THE TECHNOLOGY WORKING GROUP x We need to come up with a way to link students from all schools across the University with similar interests. This could potentially be done with a website database containing student information. The website would fulfill two purposes: o First, it would create a link between student leaders sharing similar interests from different areas across Grounds. A database containing the names of various organizations along with student contact information, a schedule of events, and a description for each organization will hopefully encourage other students/ student groups to team up with organizations already on Grounds. o Second, it would be useful to the various schools. Having students post their contact information along with descriptions of their research projects will help to connect the various disciplines found at the University. This will hopefully encourage students to take an interest in other schools research and additionally share ideas on how to improve research by adding a new outlook. o Another alternative recommendation for connecting Universitys schools is to link graduate students (name/ photo/ research interests) under their advisor on department websites, so when students browse faculty research interests they can find grad students with similar interests. x There needs to be a system in place for teaching professors and students how to use new technology. Many times technology innovations are not explained to faculty, staff, and students, and instead of that technology being a resource to the University, it is wasted. x General requirement courses should be altered to address the changing world. There should be required technology courses added to the core curriculum of the University. Students feel coding, math, and general Internet courses would be useful to putting the University of Virginia at the cutting edge for the future. x Lack of technology knowledge by students could be solved in two ways: o First, creating mandatory technology classes for students. o Second, creating a mandatory online technology tutorial for students to take before enrolling at UVa (this could be used to understand specifically how to use University systems i.e. SIS). x When there are new designs for technology, UVA rarely uses students to develop those resources. o UVA should think about using students in Computer Science departments when redesigning SIS or other technology related systems; this would give students the opportunity to have a stake in these technological pursuits. x There is a lot of interesting technology found at different schools around the University, for instance the Architecture and Engineering schools both have 3D printers, which could be beneficial to the medical school. Therefore it is recommended that the University promote interschool sharing of technology resources, so all schools can benefit from the Universitys various technologies. x Technology is used in a productive way in graduate classes and should be expanded in similar ways to enhance the Undergraduate experience. o Darden uses simulations with different business problems for teams to work together on. These are popular and could be used in non-business courses. o It would be helpful to provide courses for undergraduate faculty to learn how to use technology in the class and how to use technology for research purposes. Faculty

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who are employing technology in the classroom could be paid to provide instruction for those who would like to introduce more technological tools into their teaching.

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SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION TOPIC ONE: ADVISING x Some believe area-targeting advising might not improve the advising system overall. However, if there were more faculty advisors, there would be fewer students per advisor, and could advisors could have longer and more productive meetings with students. One idea is to have a well-rounded group of advisors (non-faculty) to help first and second years without majors. (This is supported by the majority of students in attendance.) o Once students have a major, they can be better aligned with the right faculty for true advising. o This will help prevent students not wanting to meet with advisors because of irrelevancy. o Some debate over whether there should be general advisors vs. faculty advisors because the latter have the full academic picture. Another idea: there should be a hierarchy of advisors. o In order to avoid an overload of advisees, use peer advisors at the younger level and then move up to faculty advisors once you have a major o Consider expanding peer advisory program (buddy program) with 4th year students who can then guide students through the advisory experience (potentially give high performing students opportunity to serve as an advisor for credit). o Endorse the idea of students checking on each other (small pockets of students are already doing this). o This will lower the burden that is on faculty advisors. o Might be hard to get students who just graduated to give back right away, but there could be ways to use young or older alumni in this model. What type of research has been done on advising programs at other top schools? What lessons can we learn from other schools who may do advising better? Perhaps consider replicating the career coaching program at Darden with other graduate schools for undergraduates career coaching. UVA should consider developing a team of general advisors vs. faculty who really understand how to advise students in the areas of core development. Students need advisors for a variety of needs. We need to break down what the core needs are for advising as UVA moves forward to realign the advisory system to meet those needs. Advisors need to help students with finding research and opportunities. There needs to be a form of oversight for advisors. o The issue is that the faculty seems very disconnected. Many faculty cannot speak to anything out of their department. o Advisors do not know what to tell their advisees, so there should be some sort of class or training that all advisors have. o The system is ineffective and there is too high of a faculty to student ratio. Put a cap on the number of advisees a student can have. o There should be a handbook for advisors of information they need to know.

x x x x x x

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x x

Have the strategic planning committee research other successful advising programs from other universities. Have the graduate students become engaged in the advising process because they were undergrad students more recently than faculty. o Add career advising as a graduate course. o Concern - there is no way that the university has a way to incentivize grad students and faculty to be good advisors. Its important to answer first: what do you expect an advisor to do? There are different parts to advising and thinking about how to change the advising system. Do undergrad students need social help? Academic help? Career help? Graduate student undergrad students. o Supplement system of faculty advisor with additional staff positions in medium and large majors; keep up with major regulations they can hire full time person. o Have someone you can talk to after meeting with professor regarding logistics. Graduate student: example from a previous school of a hierarchy of advisor where there was no faculty advisor until after they had declared a major. o They had a peer mentor first. o Had an honor department where you can walk in and get advice at anytime (UC Santa Barbara). o Take load off faculty should be carrying a load of 50 students. o Handbook made for advisors. Make it possible for students to access advising information about majors online.

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SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION TOPIC TWO: THE UVA CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE

Some professors use power points in lecture classes to drive student dialogue o They cold call at certain points in a power point presentation at the consequence of grades. o Reading directly from a power point is ineffective. o Seminars that have been effective started off with cold calls that spark discussion, promotes small group learning via group assignments.
English classes often start with an open-ended question that sparks student thinking and engagement (starts with 5 minutes of writing to ponder and argue your case). o EXAMPLE: Who is a better life coach: Freud or Jesus? Opening with five minutes of writing to get you in the mode of the class and pondering what the course and the day is going to be like. Variety is important in the course. Start with writing, then lecture, then dialogue, then small groups. Some areas like biology/premed lack opportunities for engagement due to demands of class and faculty approach (some dont know names, dont invest in office hours, etc.). Need more faculty who are committed to investing in the students and who they are (and not just numbers). Best, most engaging professors change up the way they teach to keep students intrigued and on their toes (ranging from live experiments to theatrics). Seminars that have been effective started off with cold calls that spark discussion, promotes small group learning via group assignments. o The best professors always change up their teaching tactics within the class time. Its also effective when cold calls lead into good discussions. Also, in Economics classes: having group homework assignments. Interacting with different students and getting to learn from them (also many cons with this approach if your group is bad). Classes that take whats very theoretical and apply it to your daily, undergraduate life are well- regarded. Professors at Darden have simulations or competitions: whether you win or lose you get recognized in front of the class. You dont want to look bad in front of your fellow students so everyone tries harder. Interesting ways you can see UVA expanding learning outside of the classroom o Grad student- undergrad interactions with residential college system. o Creating artificial set of identities that they would have on top of fraternities and sororities. o Allow for smaller scale interactions with faculty. Quality of life improvement; increased sense of community; research is better in this type of community. Any experience working outside of the classroom that improved your job outside of classroom o People who want to do consulting work on 8 month project. o At Darden you have for-credit second year peer program advising.
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x x

x x

x x

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Your job as a second year student is to advise these students academically and meet regularly. o Matched with people with similar interests. o Darden does good idea of getting in touch with local partners in Charlottesville. o Its important to utilize UVA alums. Get Alums to post internship or jobs. One graduate student commented that as an undergraduate at UVa, she used On-Grounds interviewing and found a job that way. o User friendly system for OGI; made a lot of sense and was clear for the ruling. o Was important especially if you dont have contact (alum). What about international features? How can you be global citizen? There is no internal dialogue of benefits of study abroad. Not a lot of awareness. Global sustainability minor: interdisciplinary nature leads professors to interact with each other and do research together. The Nano star facility: brings together grad students and professors together in anything that has to do with Nano technology. Rotate who gives seminars. Its like attending a research conference but at the university. Institute something called a public day: every department would pick the best thesis project and then before graduation there would be a big public demonstration of research where the departments would showcase what their students would be doing. Need to change the way that general education requirements work. Shouldnt think about them as something to get out of the way, but rather an opportunity to learn something about youll never study again. Bad idea to reward the scholars (high SAT scores, etc.) with getting out of general requirements such as first writing requirements. One way UVA could distinguish itself: bringing people together by systemically looking at the problems in the world and thinking about how we can offer a new perspective on these problems. o A lot of academic motivation will arise from these experiences. o More enthusiasm and interests instead of throwing people together but there is an issue/idea that they care and passionate about. Self-interest is great motivator for students. o What is academia all about? The university on a whole will work from the top down to address these problems. Creating 3rd space where undergraduates and interact with faculty who arent in their major area but they share some broad intellectual interest that students have o 10-12 topics that students are interested in (ex sustainability) take 12-15 of these students assign them to a professor and professor given a budget and this group gets together with the professor at their house; one more intellectual community Darden open door policy; professors dont post office hours up to you post office hours o Problem: this depends on students, some still dont seek out professors help o Some students organize receptions with professors
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Placing students in smaller groups in discussion seemed a better way in getting discussion o UVA foster creativity or regurgitation? o Depends on the field such as science but writing requirements seemed more creative o Required for certain classes st 1 2 years memorizing but last 2 years was more about problem solving o Science shouldnt be taught by making students memorize o Should be taught in relation to something else a framework to bring it back to; relatedness Medical student the curriculum is pretty innovative- 3 years old o Learn the best when you teach each other o Almost dont need professor o Brick and mortar system of all these professors isnt going to work longtime allowing students to teach each other makes economic sense Technology used in a productive way in the classroom o Darden use simulations with different business problems in teams- fun o Very formalized system where you have learning teams; meet with every night prepare the cases in advance o Medical students: assumption oh they dont know anything but all UVA students have something they can teach

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SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION TOPIC THREE: LEARNING OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM x Sentiment that University in good standing with CIOs, schools, and activities for students to pursue learning opportunities outside the classroom. Relatively high satisfaction with extracurricular opportunities. More interaction with graduate students for mentorship, research, some social activities; Perhaps develop a framework for matching grad and undergrad pairs to serve as resources for each other (or more likely for undergrads). Potentially expand similar thinking to alumni and include cross school ideas. From a graduate student, some feel there arent a lot of teaching opportunities to teach lectures (unless major lecture hall). Could be great to develop a program that pairs Phd students with Faculty to rotate and co-teach lectures to expand opportunities. Limited opportunities for field internships and shadow experiences for specific fields due to financial constraints. Perhaps replicate winter architecture opportunity through which UVA placed students for shadowing opportunity. Some believe that the career office (UIP) already has resources to help place students, but funding and opportunities beyond Charlottesville are still limited. UIP could improve its communication (be more organized and concise) to better align students opportunities with interest. Students may not know about opportunities due to over communication. Perhaps offer more short-term exposure opportunities to professional fields (days to weeks) to help undecided students figure out what theyd like to do in the future. Set housing assignments for students based off of their interests o Used common room for study sessions (everyone was in science) o Mix groups up for cross learning o Learning from students is tailored more into things you are interested in

x x

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OPEN MICROPHONE PORTION Medical student x Hope strategic planning committee and university as whole dont lose track of the purpose of academia in the university. x Take steps to ensure the viability of the university long term as financial system as well as being socially useful in developing leaders who can use what they gained here to do something. Fourth-year in the college x What ways can the university take advantage of its graduate student population? Is there a possibility for more partnerships between undergraduates and graduate students? These opportunities havent been realized. x This can be done by department Fourth-year in the college x When there is university wide competition, it is a mix of undergrad and graduate students they take advantage of the technology . x Want to better communicate these things; huge entrepreneurship push and emphasize their success by pushing schools together. x Also, A school and E school have 3d printer that may be beneficial to med school. Third-year in the college x Advising: discussion look at other institutions. o No reason to reinvent the wheel. o Look externally to improve these things internally. Medical student x How technology can be used to help people with similar interest and issues that they are passionate about? o Link us through a website and their interests and causes. Fourth-year in the college x Its time to revisit core requirements. x She is an Echols scholar that has never had take science classes; especially in terms of interdisciplinary research, this is not a good thing. x Why are smart students being rewarded by taking away these requirements? Fourth-year in the architecture school x Its great that were always looking for cutting edge in technology, but dont go after technology for technologys sake. x How students feel about required course of the language about technology- such as coding, math requirement; requirement about knowing how the internet work may be useful in the future. Third-year student in the college

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UVA should think about using students in CS department when redesigning SIS or other technology related systems gives students opportunity to take a stake in these technological pursuits.

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STUDENT NOTECARD RESPONSES x x x x x x x x x x x x Create an incentive for graduate students to connect with undergraduates o Maybe creating a requirement for graduate students to teach an advising course. o Provide course credit for a graduate advising course. We need to improve the transparency of the strategic planning process. o More public information sessions especially on the graduate level. o Possibly creating an on-going conversation, not only every 5 years. Technology- The Source is extremely unfriendly to users. There should be a better system in place. Many other organizations have more efficient reservation systems (Law, Darden). Learn from those systems that are in place. Possibly create a way to allow for e-mentoring with alumni. o This could save time and money if there was an outlet online for mentoring. More research opportunities (grant/ award/ credit) between schools. Career and even grad school life are by no means covered by one department. Also we need to link students from different departments. Make the Source more like Bookit! UVA, or like the library system. Link graduate students name/ photo/ research interests under their advisor on department websites, so when students browse faculty research interests they can find grad students with similar interests. There need to be more opportunities for externships. Study Abroad needs to be promoted, but also at the same time made more affordable. Student Council Dinners at the end of a semester could be a great way to connect the University and allow CIOs to communicate with one another creating bonds between student leaders for the future. There need to be more interdisciplinary/ cross-listed courses. The only effects of the Strategic Planning initiative that graduate students have experienced is shortening time to completion and raising tuition for existing grads. Many undergraduates bring up the ideas of working more closely with grads or to be mentored by grads, and yet grads are explicitly told not to make teaching a priority. This is an upsetting disconnect between the treatment of graduate students and what is expected/ desired of them. Many faculty members may have never had the responsibilities of teaching/creating classes and having to balance mentoring students while doing research and therefore become spread so thin that mentorship tends to fail. If faculty had their own mentors during the first years on grounds as well as a required program that helps them learn how to teach and how to mentor would facilitate learning on all levels. Often there is no clarity in expectations from either side (student or professor). Since we already have a teaching resource center for graduate students, this seems like a pre-existing group that could offer courses and mentoring for faculty to help them have clarity and to help them run their responsibilities more efficiently and more transparently. Pair students with faculty advisors early by potential major.

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