Members of the Representative Assembly met Tuesday at the Academic Senate meeting and were updated on the status of the Next Generation Network Plan.
The assembly voted in favor of establishing three new programs of graduate study and revising the academic requirements for Roosevelt and Revelle colleges.
The Next Generation Network, which is the new telecommunication plan for UCSD, will be implemented on July 1, 2001. The new plan will merge voice, data and Internet to make intracampus connections faster.
Real-time video, audio, high-volume transfers and other high-end capabilities will become easy-to-obtain services. The Next Generation Network will result in an overall net reduction in the telecommunication bill for the university.
As a result of the plan, long-distance phone charges are expected to drop approximately 40 percent, according to Associate Vice Chancellor David Miller, who spoke about the new plan.
There will be a $60 monthly communication user fee for some campus employees.
The total cost for the Next Generation Network is approximately $10 million per year, which includes equipment, staffing, supplies and connectivity charges to the external service providers. The communication user charges are estimated to provide $6.5 million; the deficit will be subsidized by campus-wide state funds.
Campus committees will provide oversight and monitoring to assure quality of service and cost control, and during the third year of assessment of the new technologies, they will establish the next year’s Next Generation Network networking plans.
The assembly also voted in favor of a proposal to establish a program of graduate studies in bioinformatics for the Ph.D. degree.
The new Ph.D. program will provide research and an education structure dedicated to the development of sophisticated computer-based handling tools used for understanding the integrated functions of thousands of genes in the post-genome sequencing era.
In addition, the assembly voted in favor of the proposal to establish a program of graduate study leading to masters of education degree. The program was submitted by the Teacher Education Program at UCSD and will further articulate the existing credential programs at the university.
The M.Ed. will be an intensive 15-month professional degree designed specifically to help elementary and secondary teachers earning their initial teaching credential at UCSD. The program will allow students to earn their teaching credential and M.Ed. degree before entering the teaching profession. The new program was developed in response to the demand for well-prepared teachers in California.
The program for graduate studies in art history, theory and criticism for the Ph.D. and M.A. degrees, which will be established by the department of visual arts, was the third proposal the assembly voted in favor of.
Modifications to the Roosevelt college general education requirements for entering freshmen were voted on. The assembly voted in favor of amending Regulation 625. The changes were proposed to enhance curricular flexibility for students by increasing the applicability of some advanced placement credits toward college requirements, providing scheduling room for electives and shortening time to degree for students with highly structured majors. The modifications also seek to improve the distribution of undergraduate student enrollment across the colleges by increasing the alignment of ERC’s requirements with those of other colleges.
The proposed changes include changes to the foreign language, fine arts and natural sciences requirements. For specific course information, see ERC academic advising.
