Supporting Intentional and Purposeful Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels

Create working groups to address specific curricular needs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Working groups that are planned include:

Online learning and education (with UIT).
Digital humanities in the pre-modern world.
Film and media studies.

Continue to develop and execute the cluster hires to support interdisciplinary programs.

For the environmental studies cluster, the economics and anthropology departments have made hires who will begin in fall 2012 and fall 2013, respectively; earth and ocean sciences (formerly geology) has just completed its search.
For the race and ethnicity cluster, the English and sociology departments have been authorized to search in 2012-2013 and history in 2013-2014.
Deans have selected, with input from chairs and directors, food science and policy and digital humanities as the next cluster hire topics.

Synthesize and begin to implement recommendations from the interdisciplinary (ID) review and faculty retreat.

Memoranda of understanding are being written for international relations (IR) and women's studies as well as environmental studies and race and ethnicity clusters. The tenure and promotion committee has developed guidelines for interdisciplinary processes for tenure and promotion. Deans are working with the Center for Interdisciplinary studies to begin tracking student minors so that we can more accurately identify the populations that ID programs are serving.

Continue the learning assessment strategy and implementation in departments.

Sarah Herchel, the special assistant for curriculum and program analysis for A&S, will be a point person for ongoing assessment efforts. A presentation on assessment to chairs and faculty is planned for spring 2013. We will consider graduate students and faculty member partnerships, when possible, to carry out assessment plans for departments and programs.

Develop a better structure for integrating student life and curricular issues and determine mechanisms for a comprehensive review of undergraduate curriculum.

In spring 2012, we formed a working group on curriculum, instruction, and assessment, which includes student life staff, faculty members, and administrators. Dean Bauer now chairs the committee which is meeting in January 2013. Also, the education policy committee is discussing curriculum reviews.

Implement and evaluate the Bridge to Liberal Arts Success at Tufts (BLAST) program.

The first BLAST cohort completed the program in August 2012. The early evaluation of the program highlights strong student satisfaction and strong academic performance in the fall semester.

Explore new academic initiatives.

Create a small internal subcommittee to develop a pilot for a four-year program that would involve a three-year undergraduate sequence and a one-year master program leading to a baccalaureate and a master-level degree. (Consider economics as a pilot.)

Audit current degree programs and assess where there may be gaps between strengths at the graduate/professional level that do not have undergraduate feeders programs.

Feeder programs to the Friedman School of Nutritional Science and Policy and the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine have been identified as having areas of potential interest to pursue.

Develop a plan to better integrate graduate student needs into the student divisions structure and align GSAS with university-wide efforts.