The Board of Visitors approved start-up funding Friday for six initiatives, four of which have been articulated, generated by the Commission on the Future of the University. The initiatives are meant to address some of the University’s primary concerns for the future: the student experience; science, technology and research; and international programs.
A University press release stated that the Board has guaranteed $4 million for the current fiscal year and an additional $16 million for the next two years in order to fund initiatives stemming from the Commission report. This base funding ensures the initiatives will be implemented, University Provost Arthur Garson said, noting, however, that potential budget cuts could delay how quickly some of the projects “can be rolled out.” The Board’s decision to fund the initiatives comes with the provision that additional funds, totaling $130 million, will be raised by the University to further develop and expand the programs.
The first initiative to receive seed funding calls for the creation of The Jefferson Public Citizens, a group of undergraduate students assembled with research and public service issues in mind, he said. According to the release, about 250 students are expected to enroll in new courses relevant to the group the during the program’s first year, and 100 students, or 20 teams, are expected to enroll into the Jefferson Public Citizens program during the program’s second year.
Milton Adams, team leader of the project and vice provost for academic programs, said students will begin by taking service-oriented courses that span multiple disciplines, citing EDHS 289, an Education School course that collaborates with the Women’s Center to mentor middle school students, as an example. The teams of students will then submit proposals to procure funding for a service and research project in cooperation with a faculty advisor with ties to the concerned community. For example, Adams said, students could travel to a Guatemalan clinic to research health care issues.
Garson noted that he anticipates most students would participate in the Jefferson Public Citizens program during the summer between their second and third year, adding that students will most likely receive credits for their participation in the program.
The second initiative to receive funding will establish the Institute for Faculty Advancement, which aims to recruit diverse faculty as well as to support, retain and develop current faculty members through leadership programs, according to the press release. Garson specified that in the next decade, the University will recruit 200 additional faculty members in the sciences across multiple schools.
Funding has also been approved to expand the Education School’s current Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning from a program that provides pre-K through grade 12 teachers with tools to “improve learning outcomes,” to include higher education, according to the press release.
Additionally, a Center for Computation-Intense Research and Scholarship — incorporating two wings, one for humanities and social sciences and another for the natural and physical sciences — will be created, according to the press release. It will enable “a new way of thinking about how information can be visualized digitally and presented in the classroom and for research”, the press release stated.
This center will categorize and catalogue immense amounts of information, Garson said. It will also encourage collaboration among faculty as well as between staff and students who are familiar with complex computer programming.
The Commission’s report also includes initiatives to improve the University’s two other priorities for the future: science, technology and research, and international programs, although specific initiatives have yet to be fully articulated.
“They’re very broad priorities,” Garson said.
University spokesperson Carol Wood said the two initiatives will be more fully articulated in the coming months and year.
Garson said one of the plans aimed at improving the sciences at the University includes building three 100,000 square-foot research facilities. Those buildings, though “are just the start to moving down the road towards a greater science initiative,” he said.
The head of the science initiative is Thomas Skalak, vice president for research and graduate studies. According to the press release, Skalak, who was unavailable for comment, intends to build an interdisciplinary research culture at the University.
Gowher Rizvi, vice provost for international programs, meanwhile, said the initiative he heads ultimately aims to integrate international perspectives into the existing curriculum and to ensure every student has had international experience by the time he graduates.
“Today we can no longer think of things as ‘This is a foreign issue’ or ‘This is a domestic issue,’” Rizvi said. “Our students need to understand the outside world just as much as they understand their home.”
The “philosophical underpinnings” for his initiative have been established, he said, adding that within the next year, consultations with faculty and students will be held. The ideas generated from these meetings will then be translated into concrete projects.
Garson emphasized the multidisciplinary aspect of these two initiatives.
“Each will help work within schools, across schools, and create pan-University initiatives as well,” Garson said, noting that the charge of the University’s report on the future was to find ways to further distinguish the University from its peers.
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