SUBJECT:

Sixth College Planning Committee

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