III. INTELLECTUAL CLIMATE OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
OBJECTIVES
We are guided throughout this report by the strong belief that activities outside the classroom do not stand in opposition to the classroom experiences of students and faculty at UNC-CH. Instead, we see constant (though often unacknowledged) connections among our diverse intellectual exchanges inside and outside formal course work. We assume that social and cultural experiences beyond the classroom are an integral part of the intellectual life of students, faculty and staff alike. In short, we recognize that the intellectual vitality of individuals and institutions depends upon and reflects a whole network of co-curricular activities that are as important to the University community as its formal curriculum.
BACKGROUND
We have an excellent foundation for future intellectual exchanges in the many departmental activities, student-faculty conferences, artistic performances, publications, and student organizations at UNC-CH. It is impossible to list all of the areas of non-classroom exchanges here, but we note typical examples to indicate a wide range of dynamic intellectual activities: undergraduate student associations in numerous academic departments; the undergraduate business symposium in the School of Business Administration; the Lab Theater in Dramatic Arts; field trips in Marine Biology; the speakers' series at the Black Cultural Center; the "Faculty Unplugged" and "Youth Angst" meetings at the Bullshead Bookstore; and student publications such as The Daily Tar Heel, The Catalyst, Extimacy, and The Carolina Review. Students and faculty also exchange ideas at various events of the Honors Program, the Johnston Scholars Program, Residence Halls, and Greek organizations. Other discussions occur regularly in the Womentoring and N.C. Fellows programs, religious centers, and student conferences of the University Program in Cultural Studies. The Great Decisions series of lectures on current issues and foreign affairs is one of the largest in the nation.
There are concerts, artistic exhibitions, visiting speakers, and special conferences throughout the academic year. At popular, important meeting places such as the Daily Grind coffee shop, students, faculty and staff gather for informal conversation every day. Finally, many students apply for prestigious awards and outside grants with the help of faculty advisors and mentors. Students at UNC-CH perform exceptionally well in national competitions for awards such as the Luce, Marshall, Rhodes, and Truman Scholarships 3/4 all of which enhance and reflect the quality of the University's intellectual life.
Students, faculty and staff take the initiative to create innovative programs and opportunities for intellectual exchange. We believe that the kinds of activities we have noted here (and many others throughout the University) offer a starting point for future intellectual life at UNC-CH. People cannot be compelled to join intellectual discussions or to enter the rich cultural life of this community, but they can be encouraged to participate in more of the already existing cultural conversations (and help to create new ones) if they see how these conversations connect to issues in their own lives. At the present time, however, the obstacles to joining the conversation may be as great as the opportunities.
BARRIERS TO INTELLECTUAL LIFE OUTSIDE CLASSROOMS
The University consists of different constituencies who know little or nothing about what others in their community are doing. Social and cultural barriers separate undergraduates from graduate students and most students at all levels from faculty; professors are separated by departmental boundaries; and neither faculty nor students have much knowledge of the staff. Students are divided according to whether they live on or off campus, and they often separate along the lines of race, ethnicity, and social group. They are also scattered in very different activities 3/4 from sports to the arts to the sciences. Such divisions are, of course, typical and perhaps even desirable in a large public university, but they also create obstacles to a shared intellectual culture.
Among these obstacles, the following issues must be addressed in any comprehensive plan to improve the co-curricular intellectual life of the University. Some of these obstacles contribute to problems of coordination; others reflect problems of commitment; and still others exemplify both.
1. Lack of information about public events and special activities. Students, faculty and staff all report that they are often unaware of events or uncertain about the purpose or themes of events they hear about. Campus publications regularly announce forthcoming events, but organizers complain that they must struggle to get their programs noted or described. There is no central clearinghouse for information about upcoming events. Students often feel uninformed and unwelcome at campus programs.
2. Lack of time for co-curricular activities that do not seem to contribute directly to grades, rewards, or pleasure. Faculty, students and staff complain of too many obligations that prevent them from attending public events. Time is allotted to classroom work and to social life, but the intellectual sphere that connects intellectual life in the classroom to social life and other activities does not make the list of priorities.
3. Lack of encouragement for students, faculty or staff to participate in co-curricular activities. Students see no payoff in attending performances, speakers' series, or concerts; faculty see no incentives for participating in student/faculty activities that do not gain them recognition or appear in personnel evaluations. True, many faculty and students do join such activities for their own intrinsic rewards, but there are few methods to encourage participation.
4. Lack of appropriate advising opportunities for students to discuss their overall personal and academic goals with a faculty adviser.: Although the current undergraduate advising system focuses effectively on meeting course requirements, it does not provide enough time for discussions of serious intellectual concerns or personal aspirations.
5. Lack of space for special activities, performances or meetings. Centers that currently sponsor special events (e.g., the Black Cultural Center, the Honors Program, theater groups) are all in need of more space for their work. There are also too few lounges, cafes, and comfortable eating places that can provide space for informal conversation. People need space outside of formal classroom settings or offices in which to meet, debate, or perform.
6. Lack of connections between in-class and out-of-class activities: This contributes to an attitude of indifference among students and faculty. Student and faculty lives are divided between what they do in the classroom and what they do in other areas of their work and leisure. Few faculty draw attention to what happens outside the classroom or stress its possible links to issues they discuss in their courses. Students are thus confirmed in their own attitudes 3/4 which stress the great distance between course work and what they do for pleasure.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following proposals are designed to encourage expansion of the intellectual culture at UNC-CH, though we recognize that many of the factors which limit intellectual exchanges are beyond the reach of our recommendations. We have no solution for the fact that most students, faculty and staff have little or no time to participate in more activities. It is not easy to foster student-faculty interactions, for example, because students must juggle the demands of their course work, their jobs, their social lives and their families, and faculty must juggle the demands of their teaching, research, committees, professional service and family obligations. We cannot add hours to the day. We nevertheless believe the University can encourage more participation in the kinds of exchanges, debates, and events that characterize a vital intellectual community.
1. Provide better information about events.
Major Recommendations:
1A. Create a Central Clearinghouse for Intellectual Events that will receive information about all events at the University and distribute this information efficiently to students, faculty and staff. The office should be located in the new Center for Undergraduate Excellence because the Center will become an important meeting place for people from all over the University. Placing the Clearinghouse in this location will enhance its visibility, link it to intellectual activities, and make it accessible to undergraduates. The new Clearinghouse will consolidate information and announcements that are currently scattered in student publications, the University Gazette, Student Union and museum brochures, and the newsletters of various departments and academic centers. It will facilitate the work of the University News Service and help coordinate activities among groups that are currently unaware of their shared interests and programs. It will also serve the student-centered objectives of the University by promoting more social and intellectual connections between students and faculty.
1B. Create a new administrative position (University Director for Intellectual Life) to manage the new Central Clearinghouse for information on University events. This person will link groups and activities around the University, publicize events by every possible means, and play a creative role in fostering cultural exchanges among diverse groups. This person will work closely with an Advisory Committee for University Intellectual Life (see recommendation 3A in this section). The University Director for Intellectual Life should have an assistant or secretary and should also work to bridge the gap between curricular life and student affairs. This position should be located in the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, which will become a new center for the intellectual life of all undergraduates. The University Director for Intellectual Life would report to the Provost.
Additional Recommendations:
1C. Establish video kiosks in the Student Union, Student Stores, Student Dining Centers, and in the Pit, all of which would list forthcoming speakers, performances, exhibitions, concerts, and public meetings. This information would also be accessible by computer through the campus network. Listings and maps should be posted through the Central Clearinghouse computer system (see 1A in this section).
1D. Create a central office to distribute information about all intellectual awards and scholarships that are available to students; this office would encourage student applications for such awards and provide systematic support for applicants. It should be located in the Center for Undergraduate Excellence and it requires at least a 3/4-time staff position to operate.
1E. Create departmental and special-interest e-mail groups and listserv networks that would send information about relevant events to all persons 3/4 faculty, graduate students and undergraduates 3/4 who share common intellectual and cultural interests.
1F. Include more information about the theme or purpose of events that are listed on calendars in campus publications.
1G. Create better communication among organizers of student and departmental activities (through e-mail networks and other contacts), so that the leaders of various organizations know what others are planning and when the events of other groups will take place.
2. Encourage participation in co-curricular activities and conversation.
Major Recommendations:
2A. Create a permanent, standing Committee for Intellectual Life that would include students, faculty and staff (approximately 12 members). This committee would be appointed by the Chancellor (its chair should be member of the faculty) and would work closely with the new University Director for Intellectual Events (see 1B in this section) to encourage intellectual activities of all kinds. Members of this committee will serve three-year terms (with some flexibility for student appointments), and the committee will report to Faculty Council. This group will serve as an advisory group for the Clearinghouse at the Center for Undergraduate Excellence and its Director. It will have two subcommittees, one for Events and the other for Common Spaces (see Section VI.1C). The subcommittee on Events will oversee two related funds to foster student-faculty exchanges:
I. A Fund for Special Activities Outside the Classroom. Faculty would use this fund to pay for events, such as plays, concerts or films, that they would like to attend with their students. Faculty could also apply for money from this fund to organize special faculty/student events.
ii. A Fund for Faculty-Student Lunches. Faculty would use this fund to meet groups of students for meals at a campus dining facility. Faculty would request vouchers that could only be used for meals with students. Each faculty member would be allowed to draw on the fund up to a fixed amount per year (e.g., $50 or $100). We note that many colleges currently have such a system in place. Similarly, a percentage of student activities fees might be set aside for students who invite professors for a meal in a campus facility.
Additional Recommendations:
2B. Urge each department to set aside funds to sponsor undergraduate/graduate student associations that will organize events outside the classroom; help students develop a community within departments; and involve students in discussion of curriculum. Information about student associations should be available from the Central Clearinghouse for Intellectual Events (see 1A in this section).
2C. Develop new forms of recognition and reward for faculty who serve as advisors to student organizations. Publicize faculty advisors in University publications. Count involvement with student groups, colloquia, and activities as a form of service to the University, profession, and state (see Section VII, 1A).
3. Reform the Advising System.
Major Recommendation:
3A. Enable the central Advising Office to set up a computerized "major audit" system that students will use to see which courses they need to complete requirements for their major and for graduation. Using technology to check on course requirements will free up time for students to talk about more substantive issues (e.g., personal goals, intellectual interests) with advisors in the Advising Office and with their departmental advisors. In this way, the routine accounting aspect of student advising will be separated from the counseling aspect. As part of the advising process, we further suggest that students maintain a "learning portfolio," which would constitute an ongoing record of students' educational objectives and evaluations of their experience at UNC. This would provide the advisor with starting material for an advising session.
3B. We strongly recommend that the College of Arts and Sciences adopt one of the following strategies to strengthen the advising service for undergraduate students:
I. Increase the stipend for faculty members who serve as College advisors (there has been little increase in this stipend for over two decades), and provide better training for these advisors.
OR
ii. Hire a new staff of professional advisors who would have full-time responsibility for advising undergraduates (a method of advising adopted at other universities, including North Carolina State University).
Additional Recommendations:
3C. Reform departmental advising in the following ways, thereby altering the motivations of students and faculty alike (see Section VII, 1A and 1B):
I. Allow undergraduates to affiliate with a department as early as their first year in order to develop closer connections to a faculty advisor from the beginning of their career at UNC. This should be part of wider revision of the first-year experience.
ii. Urge and enable faculty advisers to meet with their advisees as a group at least once a semester 3/4 perhaps for lunch or in a coffee lounge (see proposal 2Aii in this section).
iii. Recognize advisers in new ways (awards, prizes) that publicize and reward advising as a crucial part of what faculty do. Advising should be recognized as a form of teaching outside the classroom; all faculty should be encouraged to perform their fair share of advising.
4. Provide more and better space for intellectual exchange.
Major Recommendation:
4A. Create new coffee lounges, small cafes and eating places around the campus (see also Section VI, 4A). The Daily Grind is our model for the kind of meeting places that should be available. We strongly recommend expansion of the Daily Grind so that more tables will be available in the UNC Student Store; we also propose that this facility be open more hours per week. The coffeehouses on Franklin Street cannot provide the same convenience and accessibility for students and faculty, who need a place to meet on campus. We also urge the creation of smaller, quieter eating areas at Lenoir Hall and the development of small coffee lounges in other buildings, where people could congregate after classes or performances for conversation. Renovation of the Undergraduate Library should include plans for a coffee lounge, and a public coffee lounge should eventually be created in Davis Library. All food service planning should include strategies to foster intellectual community and exchanges.
Additional Recommendations:
4B. Create new spaces or adapt current spaces for student performances, concerts, or programs. These spaces should be flexible-use areas which might serve as lounges or meeting places as well as centers for performances. We look forward to the creation of such spaces in the new Black Cultural Center, the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities. We also strongly urge the renovation of Memorial Hall and the creation of new spaces for the exhibition of art.
4C. Find or create new office spaces for student organizations and interest groups that sponsor intellectual and artistic events on campus.
5. Create more connections between in-class and out-of-class activities.
Major Recommendation:
5A. Set aside some funds to develop courses that include attendance at co-curricular, outside-the-classroom events. Such funds would provide for tickets, field trips or special activities beyond the typical classroom setting. (These funds would be separate from the Fund for Special Activities Outside the Classroom described in 2Ai in this section.)
Additional Recommendations:
5B. Strongly urge faculty to announce relevant events in their classes and to give extra credit for attending talks, performances or artistic events that could be relevant to the themes of the course. Some events might even become part of a course (equivalent to an assigned reading or other course activity).
5C. Create departmental and special interest e-mail networks that would maintain daily on-line discussion of various issues in each discipline or academic field.
5D. Encourage and facilitate more out-of-class service learning, field trips, and student/faculty travel. The University Department of Transportation and Parking should provide information on buses and vans for student/faculty trips, and insurance coverage for groups that need to travel on a University field trip (the model here would be drawn from the trips that athletic teams now routinely make). Off-campus experiences strongly enhance intellectual exchanges outside classrooms.
5E. Find ways to place more graduate students and mentors (including foreign students) in residence halls or Greek houses, thus bringing undergraduates into contact with people who have strong intellectual commitments and interests (see Section IV, 3B). We also urge the University Housing Office to place foreign students in various undergraduate residence halls in order to foster more cross-cultural interaction among all students.
CONCLUSIONS
We believe these proposals respond to many of the obstacles to intellectual life outside the classrooms at UNC. Although money will be required to improve communications, establish and staff a new Clearinghouse in the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, transform some public spaces, and expand faculty/student participation in campus events, we strongly believe that such expenditures are justified as part of the core educational mission of the University.
CHAPTER II | TABLE OF CONTENTS | CHAPTER IV