UCSD CAMPUS NOTICE University of California, San Diego |
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SIXTH COLLEGE PLANNING COMMITTEE June 7, 1999 ALL UCSD FACULTY As Chair of the Sixth College Planning Committee I promised to provide a brief interim report as the committee begins to approach a consensus for the academic plan for the new College. We are charged to provide an over-arching plan for the College, while a future faculty planning group will work with the founding Provost to consider the proposal and work out a more detailed plan. We have received a great deal of input from faculty, departmental chairs, alumni students, and the Provosts, and we have been meeting weekly throughout the quarter. I believe we have a consensus that we will suggest a required common core freshman-year sequence. A strong writing component and a speaking skills component would be integrated into a broad theme for this core sequence. In addition to this freshman core sequence, we would require reasonable exposure to all the disciplines but provide considerable flexibility for the students in selecting specific areas and courses of interest to them. Finally, we are discussing an upper division requirement for a practicum experience (e.g., internship, research) which will have a writing and speaking component. With regard to the intellectual theme for the three-quarter freshman core sequence, we have received and discussed many diverse suggestions. At this point, the three themes which have received the most attention by the committee are variations of the following: technology and society, arts and technology, and the environment. All three are interdisciplinary and provide a framework to introduce students to the importance of a historical and a social perspective, and creative and critical thinking. I will not report the committee's internal discussions on the pros and cons of these thematic choices and the various permutations under discussion, but I do invite your further thought and input at this stage. Since we hope to finish up very soon, your comments would be most useful within the next week by e-mail or campus mail. You may also find it more convenient to talk with one of the committee members. Thank you. DAVE MILLER (Chair), Academic Affairs (dmiller@ucsd.edu) for: Sixth College Planning Committee FRANCINE BERMAN, CSE JAMES BRANSON, Physics ANN CRAIG, Provost-Roosevelt College DAVID GUTIERREZ, History WILLIAM KRISTAN, Biology LAURA SCHREIBMAN, Psychology RAND STEIGER, Music JOSEPH WATSON, VC-Student Affairs |