UCSD students are known for their whining skills. Whether the subject is parking, diversity enrollment or the lack of a social life, you can expect top-notch non-substantive arguments from La Jolla’s Finest. Yet, looking past UCSD’s draconian alcohol policy or the reported liberal bias of a humanities professor, some legitimate questions about UCSD’s integrity as an academic institution come through.
Able-minded undergraduate students might wonder why their professors have no discernible teaching skills, or why upper-division classes are jam-packed with 150-plus students in what is supposed to be the “13th greatest University in the World.” Other students might wonder why, in the midst of massive, crushing budget cuts, UCSD is building new engineering buildings, while chemistry facilities are falling into disrepair and ruin.
Former UCSD Chancellor-turned-UC President Robert Dynes’ remarks during the conclusion of his statewide tour last week have finally settled this matter once and for all. After a few colorful anecdotes about the state of several nearly decrepit campus buildings, he dropped a bombshell about the University’s plan for improving the state of higher education: continue to cut undergraduate programs and funnel the money into graduate programs instead. Dynes took an almost flippant view of undergraduates at UCSD, stating that “We have actually been sacrificing the graduate programs to continue to meet the tidal wave of undergraduates. Now that that’s going to level off.” He spoke of undergraduate education as little more than a prerequisite to graduate level education.
Of course, this attitude toward undergraduate education is nothing new. During the planning stages to create UCSD in 1960, several key figures, including UCSD’s “godfather,” Roger Revelle, fought to create a graduate-only institution devoted entirely to science, as a satellite operation of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Yet despite current and past bias against undergraduates, UCSD administrators must realize that they are obligated to provide a competent curriculum for undergraduates as well as graduates, and not rely on graduate programs to shoulder the burden of actually educating students.
An informal poll conducted by this author on the respective qualities of undergraduate and graduate programs in the mechanical engineering department found a dangerous “competence gap” between senior-level undergraduates and first-year graduates. By narrowing this gap in the MAE department and other departments, UCSD could provide a better quality education for both those who stay through the graduate level and those who choose to enter the workforce or change schools after obtaining a bachelor’s degree.
But perhaps it is best to look at this from a business perspective, to see whether UCSD is wasting its time with undergraduate programs, or if the university should put the time and effort in to improve them. Instead, UCSD’s name-recognition power comes primarily from its high rankings on various “best of” college lists, and the school scored a major victory with its recent ranking as 13th worldwide in academics and research, according to the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Yet, according to U.S. News & World Report, UCSD only ranks 32nd in the United States for its academic programs.
This may not seem like a major discrepancy, but the fact that UCSD’s academic programs rank far below its combined academic/research score confirms that which any self-respecting student already knows: UCSD’s prestige rests solely on the shoulders of its research.
If your school is riding on its research credentials, it makes perfect sense to ignore the quality of undergraduate education: After all, graduate schooling generally equates to doing grunt work on faculty research projects, so why not have some well-trained lab assistants/graduate students to keep all of your research projects running smoothly?
Yet why does the university feel the need to put in this “extra effort” on its graduate students, particularly those who were undergraduates at UCSD? Why does the university need to play “catch-up” with these students, when a sufficient undergraduate education would eliminate the need for such a crutch? Or, to put it more bluntly, why is the university shooting itself in the foot by failing to train its undergraduates and then wasting funding on excessively training its graduate students instead?
The answer to this question mostly has to do with numbers of students. Despite the fact that effective undergraduate education would pay off by reducing the need for review in graduate courses, allowing for even more research time, the daunting “tidal wave” of undergraduates presents a logistical nightmare for the university if it wishes to stray away from the “drive-thru degree” model and improve the quality of undergraduate work. True, the university could increase its research output enormously by utilizing the untapped power of undergraduates in labs, but without an improvement in the basic education of undergraduates, the university would soon see the folly of undergraduate lab training; under the current educational model, gross incompetence would rule the day.
Yet, despite the logistical nightmare it offers, the university must forge ahead and do something about the state of the undergraduate education it offers. If the UC president is advocating cutting back on undergraduate education to divert even more time and resources into graduate progress, then the time to act is now. Before undergraduates are lowered even further on the pecking order, it is time to give them a chance.
The necessary changes to improve undergraduate education wouldn’t be too difficult. Bring UCSD’s greatest accomplishments into the undergraduate classrooms by allowing guest lecturers, or even force researchers to teach an undergraduate course every once in a while. Bring down class sizes so students aren’t encouraged to shut up and free-ride their way through their undergraduate classes. Pay your faculty who deal with undergraduates decent wages. Repair your buildings, so students and faculty who are not working on UCSD’s “pet projects” actually have a sense of pride in their working environment. If you can integrate undergrads into research, then sponsoring companies will line up offering to pay for the necessary improvements.
Simply ignoring undergraduate education and allowing it to waste away in favor of newsworthy graduate projects is no way to keep UCSD a part of “the finest university in the world,” as UC President Robert C. Dynes named the University of California.
