EDUCATIONAL AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE 2009-10

Membership:

CHAIR: TBA

Alan Sahakian (MEAS): sahakian@ece.northwestern.edu

Activities of the GFC Education sub-committee 2004-2005

The sub-committee focused on issues regarding intercollegiate athletics and its role in education. The sub-committee worked with the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA), which is an alliance of over forty-five NCAA Division IA faculty senates. This year the coalition addressed issues on:

1. Admissions
2. Scholarships
3. Curricular Integrity
4. Time Commitment, Missed Class Time, and Scheduling of Competitions
5. Policies Concerning the Office of Academic Advising for Athletes

The Coalition developed a document in consultation with representative members of the faculty governing bodies. A working document was developed at a meeting of the Coalition at Vanderbilt University in January. Bruce Wessels attended on behalf of the GFC.

A final document was submitted to the Coalition for a vote in March. The executive summary of the document is listed in the GFC web site. The Coalition members voted 30-1 in support of the document, with Northwestern voting in favor. The Coalition is now working with the NCAA leadership about some of the proposed rule changes. The Coalition is also discussing issues with a faculty athletics representatives (FAR) working group. A number of best practices are under discussion.

In the future the Coalition and its steering committee will have opportunities to meet with various outside groups to discuss issues of financial management and cost control in intercollegiate athletics, and the appropriate principles to guide commercial engagement. The Coalition leadership expects to be learning more about these issues from a national group of athletic directors ADs. Most significantly, the steering committee has been told that we'll have opportunities to interact with the finance subcommittee of a new NCAA presidential task force on athletics, and later in the summer with the task force itself. 

The GFC through the education sub-committee expects to continue to be an active participant in Coalition activities on financial management and cost-control in intercollegiate athletics.

COIA executive summary

COIA Governance

Athletics sub-committee

Coalition Draft Charter

Coalition Activities

"Dear Big Ten Colleagues,
The academic year has ended for many of us and is in the final weeks for others. This message will bring you up to date on where the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics Initiative (COIA) stands as we move into what will likely be a period of reduced activity during the summer. I hope that all of you who have been involved with this effort through this mailing list will agree that we have established a significant faculty voice, which has added momentum to the movement for academic reform. I also hope that you will keep me informed of transitions in faculty senate leadership and other colleagues who may be asked to serve as liaisons between your institutions and our Coalition. (Given the transition in academic years, this message is being sent both to outgoing and incoming faculty senate leaders.) There are four significant items about which I would like to update you.

1) In March, we circulated by email a draft "Charter" document, defining the structure and general goals of the Coalition. The revised document, which is attached here, should be regarded as the basic statement of who we are. At this stage, the Coalition remains a group of individuals - faculty senate leaders and those whom they have designated as liaisons - rather than a group representing their institutions. The Steering Committee continues to work on a detailed outline of the Coalition's reform goals to propose to the larger group. Once that is agreed on, there will be a clearer basis to consider linking the Coalition more directly to faculty senates.

2) In April, ten of the thirteen members of the Steering Committee met in Chicago with representatives of the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) and the NCAA. Our meeting uncovered a great deal of common ground on priorities for athletics reform, and we agreed to work together. The Steering Committee contributed four members to a joint group to lead this "alliance." A press release concerning the meeting can be found at the
following URL: http://www.agb.org/_content/fpr42903.cfm

Alumni Giving Proposal

The GFC was disturbed to discover in the course of the discussions with the Board of Trustees in December that Northwestern's annual rate of alumni giving languishes around 30%. This disadvantages the University not only in the computation of the national rankings for research universities, but also, and more seriously, in its ability to bring financial resources to bear in order to raise its standing, improve its offerings, and better serve its mission, since at most universities, alumni giving goes dollar-for-dollar to support annual operations, hence is the functional equivalent of endowment funds twenty times the size of the amount contributed. Therefore, the GFC urges the administration of the university to develop a program that will raise the annual giving rate to 40% by the end of the academic year 2005, then to 50% by the close of the academic year 2010.

To this end, the GFC suggests that the University Development Office and the Alumni Relations Department work closely together in order to accomplish the following goals:

Inculcate a "giving consciousness" among undergraduates even before they leave Northwestern

Beef up the infrastructure and offerings of the NU Alumni Clubs network nationally

Assemble an on-going system of annual giving by class, in which members directly solicit their fellow graduates several times a year, always emphasizing that no gift is too small

Enlist prominent faculty in offering an array of weekend or short visit events for alumni willing to go to the expense of participating in them (e.g., guided tours of interesting sites, such as the Fermi Labs, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, speeches to alumni, clubs, accompaniment on alumni trips, participation in the Alumni College, generation of new, academically oriented programs of potential interest for alumni etc.)

No doubt the professionals in Development and Alumni Relations will have other ideas concerning how to reach the numerical targets set above and will know which institutions' current practices ought to serve as a model for ours. We urge the Administration to devote increased attention and resources to enabling these offices to do so and thereby to make success in this endeavor one of the top priorities for Northwestern during the coming decade.

Proposal on Field Studies / Internships

This proposal is a result of discussions that began during the December 1999 meeting between the Board of Trustees and the General Faculty Committee. The GFC Subcommittee on Undergraduate Education recommends that, in the next five years, the field studies/internship programs be expanded to reach the following goals: first, to open opportunities in field studies/internship programs for twenty percent of Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, School of Education and Social Policy, School of Music, and School of Speech undergraduates in their junior or senior years; second, to expand already existing field studies/internship programs and to establish new programs to create spaces for 500 students in each academic year; and third, to establish secure funding for expansion, student support, directors and faculty, administration, and facilities in support of both new and

If accepted, this recommendation would require a doubling of the number of spaces in field studies/internship programs in WCAS, Music, Speech, and Education and Social Policy from the present 250 to 500, and the establishment of new field studies/internship programs. To support new and expanded opportunities will require significant new funds. At present, these programs operate with small budgets supported by various University units. Such support undoubtedly would continue and might very well grow. But new endowments would make possible a very significant expansion. The Subcommittee recommends five areas for special attention and funding:

Program expansion

An Administrative Home for Field Studies/Internship Programs

Directors, Faculty Advisers, and Instructors

Student Support

Physical Facilities