On April 12, Provost Charles Zukoski released the second draft of his 'Realizing UB 2020' plan.
In theory, this draft, when finalized, will bring monumental changes to how this institution operates, grants degrees and prepares students for life outside the campus; it aims to bring "excellence" to all faculty, staff and students over the next five to 10 years.
But, in its current form, the draft still reads as a plan for the plan, with little concrete or tangible evidence of how exactly the university plans to meet its ambitious goals of revitalizing UB and the surrounding Buffalo community.
The newest draft includes four institutional goals, which basically stress that UB wants to be bigger and better and wants to be bigger and better than universities all over the world. But how will UB accomplish that? How long will it take?
In short, the university wants to overhaul the way students learn - stressing the importance of a liberal arts-style education. Five themes - health, innovation, justice, humanity and the environment - will be implemented into all disciplines to ensure all students are better prepared to be citizens of the world.
These five themes will help lead to eight 'core learning outcomes' for every student, which basically means every UB graduate should be able to think critically, collaborate with people throughout different fields and cultures, communicate well and stand up through struggles and adversity - all while having pride in this institution.
These are lofty goals and I hope that when I graduate in two weeks, I can say I already fit this 'UB student prototype.' I hope my degree will open up doors, and I really hope my education prepared me well for the "real world."
It just seems this document isn't sure how to achieve these goals just yet. It has ideas, but it doesn't seem to know how to put them into practice. The university has three ideas - to go with the five themes and eight learning outcomes - for program requirements that each student will have to complete in order to graduate.
As if roughly 50 credit hours of general education classes aren't already enough, each student will have to complete an "experiential learning" program, be involved in some sort of international experience and complete a "capstone course offering."
When reading through this document, because it didn't have any specific details on what each student will need for these three requirements, I put it in terms of the major I chose: English.
First, a student needs experiential learning. The draft defined this as "activities that apply their degree program's content in a real context outside of the classroom." I'm assuming this sort of thing will be given as class credit, which led me to think of The Spectrum.
I'll bet most of you didn't know The Spectrum offers a three-credit English class - ENG 394 - in which we, the editors, and our adviser teach basics of journalism and writing. Our students, the staff writers, are essentially taking a job at the paper for credit. Same goes with our editors. Instead of monetary compensation, you can collect up to 18 credits of English electives, which come in handy when you're trying to meet the 120 credit hours needed to graduate.
Students also need international experience. The document is pretty hazy on how this one is accomplished, because unless UB plans to pay for almost 20,000 undergrads to study abroad, not everyone is going to be able to go study in Singapore or Australia or England.
If we're talking about just studying more international cultures, again, look at my English degree requirements; in order to graduate, I need four semesters of a foreign language. I think this could be reasonable for all disciplines.
For a capstone course, I thought about all my honors-student friends working on their theses. As it stands, not all UB students need to complete a thesis to graduate, but I can see the good in some sort of thesis-type project or class to culminate four years of study.
While the university improves curriculum (even if we're not sure how that will be done yet), it plans to hire 250 new faculty members while replacing 250 who will leave - 500 spots total. UB is expanding downtown into the medical corridor, reviving the South and North Campuses and improving all kinds of infrastructure.
I'm not sure if this will all change by 2020, but I hope it does. I hope UB accomplishes these goals and more because I do want to see my soon-to-be alma mater succeed and I want my degree to look more attractive to future employers.
But first, give me examples on how UB will do this. Twenty pages of flowery language and abstract ideas just isn't cutting it. May 15, the day the final Realizing 2020 draft is set to come out, is rapidly approaching.
Email: rebecca.bratek@ubspectrum.com
