Administrators discuss state of academic programs at VSA Council meeting

A panel of administrators attended the April 5 Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council meeting to discuss the state of the College's academic programs.

The panel was comprised of Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette, Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger, Chair of the Faculty Appointments and Salary Committee (FASC) Professor of History Miriam Cohen and Chair of the Faculty Policy and Conference Committee (FPCC) Professor of Political Science Steve Rock.

After introducing themselves, the panelists answered questions from the VSA Council and other students present at the meeting. The first issue discussed was the College's advising system. Class of 2009 President Luis Hoyos introduced the topic by asking if the quality of a faculty member's advising is considered when staff cuts are made.

"Advising at Vassar is very uneven," said Hoyos. "Some kids can get really amazing advising from the get-go, and other kids have more bumpy experiences."

Chenette, who himself acted as an adviser when he taught music at Grinell College, explained that the College administration is committed to reforming the advising system.

"Vassar is a place that puts a lot of responsibility on you students to make academic choices," said Chenette. "So to me, good advising is in fact the key to getting a curriculum like Vassar's to really work. I don't think that we do enough, either, to train people to be good advisors or to show in our evaluation processes that we value [advising]."

Though Chenette cautioned that the advising system cannot be changed quickly, he explained that the financial crisis provides an opportunity to discuss the advising process.
"My hope is that out of those discussions we get a better sense of what we want advising to do," he said.

Rock agreed, and assured the Council that faculty cuts will not diminish the quality of advising that students receive. He explained that, as it stands now, some faculty members have many more advisees than others. Rock is confident that after some faculty cuts, students will be more evenly distributed to available advisers. "I think that advising could get better, and it's probably going to get better," he said.

Kitzinger explained that the administration is developing new tools to help advisors recommend classes to students. "One thing I know that we don't do adequately is find a way to really instruct faculty about other faculty's courses," she said. "We did start a couple of years ago, an exercise where faculty were instructed to list educational goals for each of the courses they were teaching, and we hope over time that we can attach those goals to the Course Catalogue."

The next topic that the panel discussed was the Course Evaluation Questionnaires (CEQ) that students fill out at the end of each course.

Class of 2011 President Joseph Redwood-Martinez expressed concern that the CEQ forms are not helpful to professors. "What is really stopping us from changing the part [of the CEQ] that professors get right now?" he asked.

Redwood-Martinez suggested that the page of comments that students write for professors contain specific questions about ways in which the course was successful and ways in which it could be improved. That part of the CEQ currently consists of a blank page for students to reflect on the course.

Most of the panelists disagreed with Redwood-Martinez's assertion that the CEQs should be more specific. "The blank-page CEQs, in my 25 years of teaching here, have been by far the most helpful feedback I've gotten in terms of faculty development," said Kitzinger. "I think the idea of the blank page is really to invite students to say whatever they want to."

There was a consensus, however, that the CEQs should be somehow reformed. Chenette explained that the CEQ forms are being reviewed by various committees, and changes may be made to them before next year.

"I think we owe it to ourselves, given how much weight the CEQs play in faculty reviews, to really do some statistical analysis of them and see how reliable they are," said Chenette.

Some Council members suggested that the course evaluations be administered online so that students can spend more time completing them. Panelists, however, feared that few students will fill out evaluations if the forms are not given out during class. As a potential solution to this problem, Andrew Bennett '10 suggested that students be unable to see their grades until they have completed course evaluations.

After CEQs were discussed, the conversation turned to final exams. Redwood-Martinez asked that students be permitted to receive their graded final exams after the end of the semester. The panelists explained that making comments on papers is difficult because of the Registrar's deadline for grades 72 hours after the final exam; professors find it difficult to make detailed comments in such a limited time frame. This deadline is stipulated in the Faculty Handbook.

Kitzinger and Cohen added that when professors do make detailed comments on students' final exams and papers, the students rarely take the time to pick up the graded exams or discuss them with professors.

Redwood-Martinez also asked if faculty members could post their office hours on an online database that all students could access, and Chenette explained that such a program is currently being developed. "We are actually rolling out gradually a new content management system for departmental databases," he said. "The new system will allow departments, on a local basis, to allow either individual faculty members or the administrative assistants to update faculty biographies with office hour information and announcements."

Another issue discussed at the Council meeting was the quality of Freshman Writing Seminars. Anne Hill '12 expressed frustration with the quality of some of the seminars.

"I don't feel that the majority of the seminars actually fulfill their goal in helping to hone students writing ability and communication abilities," Hill said. "[Students should be] given analysis not only on the professor's subject but on their writing style. I really think that the lack of fulfilling the writing seminars' goal is to the detriment of Vassar students."

Chenette explained that the seminars are currently being reviewed. "Right now our assessment committee is working very hard on writing at Vassar and how we can measure how successful we are," he said. "I think that what is needed is for those conversations that are happening in various places on campus to come before the floor of the faculty for a fuller discussion, and perhaps endorsement of guidelines that the steering committee is coming up with for Freshman Writing Seminars."

President of the Class of 2010 Scott Pascal then asked how the administration is deciding which faculty positions to reduce to faculty budgeting cuts during the economic recession. Chenette explained that the rapidly falling economy forced administrators to quickly decide which faculty members would be cut before Fall 2009.

"For next year, we have more time. We're looking at basically three things: [course] enrollment questions, the places where it was possible to make cuts because there were contracts coming up for renewal, and our sense of curricular need." Chenette explained that the number of courses required for each major was used to assess the curricular need of each course.

"That had to be done very quickly [this fall and winter] because the financial crisis came on very quickly, and we had to get the curriculum planned for next year. At this point, we have a lot more lay time," continued Chenette. He assured the Council that more time will be put into future decisions concerning staff cuts.