ACADEMICS ‘mdash; The senior-seminar program, in place since Fall Quarter 2006, was designed to facilitate closer contact between faculty and students through more intimate, less academically taxing courses ‘mdash; but like so many other student services, it now faces extinction.
Rather than cut funding and leave the rest up to faculty and their respective departments, the Office of Academic Affairs should create other incentives for professors to offer these courses.
According to Barbara Sawrey, associate vice chancellor of undergraduate education, the senior seminars were a small casualty within the shrinking budget. All budgetary decisions concerning instructional allocations are made by Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Paul Drake. Drake confers every month with a program review committee comprised of administrators, faculty and two student representatives from Associated Students and the Graduate Student Association. The committee works with the senior vice chancellor and his office to recommend how to best organize funds and maximize educational value for students, and saw eliminating money for senior seminars as relatively insignificant, given that the severity of the budget crisis put 47 faculty position searches on hold. But freshman seminars retain full funding.
‘The goal was to maintain the academic core mission,’ Sawrey said, referring to the need to maintain the lecturers, teaching assistants and other bare-bones faculty and staff positions that make it possible to offer a wide range of classes at the university. Normally, 40 to 50 senior seminars are offered annually, with each participating professor receiving a $1,500 stipend that usually goes toward research.
But the elimination of the senior-seminar program only widens the disconnect between professors and students. Senior seminars offer the rare chance to interact with professors in a close environment without having to stress over a grade ‘mdash; an asset for a reccommendation-thirsty senior. Seminars also allow professors to present material they may not be able to tackle in a traditional four-unit class. In Spring Quarter 2009, 16 departments and a few colleges offered a total of 27 senior seminars, with topics ranging from ‘Sex and Democracy’ to ‘Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Science Hit or Science Hype?’
Though faculty members can still work with their departments to present a proposal for a senior-seminar course, the associated $1,500 research stipend will be eliminated.
While many faculty members teach these seminars out of the goodness of their hearts, students can expect a drop in course offerings.
At a research-focused university with merit reviews coming every few years, the limited incentive to teach an extra class without compensation will likely convince professors to opt out of the program. One solution is to convince faculty that teaching a senior seminar without receiving a stipend would be looked upon nicely by merit-review personnel. Reviews are based on teaching, research and service ‘mdash; no doubt teaching a seminar course. Sawrey said the Office of Academic Affairs recognizes that every professor teaching a senior seminar is doing so on top of his or her normal workload.
According to Sawrey, Academic Affairs is currently considering four senior-seminar proposals for Fall Quarter 2009 and she said there is likely to be some reduction in the number of courses offered. Rather than eliminate all funding for senior seminars, perhaps the Office of Academic Affairs could reduce stipends while eliminating some funding for the freshman program. According to Sawrey, the freshman seminar course offerings outnumber senior seminars by three to one annually.
Instituting creative funding compromises like this is but one way the Office of Ac
ademic Affairs can keep the program afloat ‘mdash; and in order to do that, it must also realize that the program demands greater respect than it’s currently being afforded.
Readers can contact Brent Westcott at [email protected].