The Board of Visitors Academic and Student Life Committee met Friday to outline short-term academic goals for the University.
Topics included a planned curriculum overhaul, new guidelines on student athlete time demands, the creation of two new professorships and the promotion of the University’s African and African-American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality programs to departmental status.
Ian Baucom, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, presented on undergraduate curriculum changes approved by a vote of faculty in May.
The planned changes, primarily to the College’s general education requirements, will begin with a pilot group of first-year students in fall 2017. Progress will be assessed periodically by the board prior to a full implementation in 2020.
The changes are meant to bring students to a deeper appreciation of their vocation, which he distinguished from the idea of a profession, Baucom said.
“Medicine is a vocation, and within medicine there are many professions, many careers — from the neurosurgeon to the EMT technician,” Baucom said. “We know our students will have many jobs, but we want them to think about what orders of meaning they can attach to those because of these four years of intense study.”
Specific plans for the new curriculum include a renewed focus on writing skills and half-semester “engagement” courses offered to first-year students, intended to expose students to a variety of perspectives on learning and the world.
Baucom also addressed the coming transition of both the Women, Gender & Sexuality program and the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African & African-American Studies to departmental status. Baucom said key advantages of the move will include placing the University on par with other leading institutions, many of which have full-fledged departments in equivalent areas.
The change will also simplify the process of hiring faculty, as appointments to any of the University’s programs or institutes must draw from faculty associated with an established department.
Craig Littlepage, the University's athletics director, gave a report on efforts the athletics department plans to undertake to ensure a manageable schedule for student athletes. New consideration of the issue comes ahead of the NCAA’s January 2017 convention, when legislation on time demands for student athletes will be up for a vote.
Proposed rules include new minimums on student time free from athletic responsibilities. Under the new rules, students would be guaranteed one free day per week during the season for their respective sports and at least two days per week during the rest of the year. Coaches would also have to provide for at least eight hours of free time for their athletes between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Student Board member Phoebe Willis, a Darden and Law student, voiced concerns about the process for setting practice and event schedules.
“One concern to mention is when you have student athletes making a plan for their time with coaches, there’s a power dynamic there,” Willis said. “And I would just give a quick bit of feedback that it might be wise to meet with student athletes without the coaches and talk about the timing for these events.”
Willis said some athletes currently have an unpredictable schedule.
“A lot of feedback I’ve had from student athletes is, it’s not just the free time, it’s that schedules come out every week or every two weeks,” she said. “So to be part of events around Grounds, it’s hard to be part of an organization when you don’t know what day you’ll be free. It’s subject to change.”
The committee voted unanimously to establish the Julian Bond Professorship of Civil Rights and Social Justice in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Bond, a civil rights activist and academic, taught at the University from 1990 to 2012 and died in August 2015.
The Paul G. Mahoney Research Professorship in Law, also approved unanimously, will honor Mahoney’s eight-year tenure as Dean of Law School, which ended in June.
Additionally, the committee voted to reaffirm the University’s policy on student intellectual property. The policy stipulates that students retain all rights to their own work conducted at the University, except for certain research projects that make extensive use of University resources.
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