In anticipation of the upcoming event called “The Public Sphere” I have decided to finally write down the issues I have with UCR. I am not usually the person to speak up in public debates, as I realize my ideas are biased and my information limited. I will take back my words if it is proven to me that my reasoning is wrong or misinformed. Until then, I hope that this essay will be used as feedback towards UCR, or at the least, spark a discussion.
Not too long ago our Dean, Bert van den Brink, announced his upcoming event called the “Public Sphere”, inspired by the classical examples of the forum romanum and the Athenian democracy. To kick-start this event, he published seven questions that he would like to discuss prior to, and during the event. I was surprised by these questions, as they seem to concern UCR’s general strategy rather than tackling specific problems.
However, it is clear why our Dean wants to address these problems. UCR’s public image is no longer top-notch, the amount of applications is dropping and it is clear that Bert van den Brink is here to turn these trends around. I am very happy that he decides to involve the community in this, which is why I will try to answer some of his questions to the best of my capabilities.
The questions the Dean has posed are:
- What is UCR’s approach to Liberal Arts and Sciences?
- What does small scale and intensive academic education mean?
- Is the community sufficiently inclusive and diverse?
- Are our facilities good enough?
- What kinds of research should we pursue?
- Is our public imago what we want it to be?
- How should we allocate our limited finances?
I will focus on three specific questions, 1, 2 and 6. I believe these are the primary questions, concerning the main identity of UCR, and the answers of the other questions are built upon this foundation. For every question, I will first asses what UCR is currently doing and where it is failing, and then suggest how it can improve.
- What is UCR’s approach to Liberal Arts and Sciences?
The idea behind UCR, as specified on their website is to allow students with a broad interest to study multiple disciplines. UCR allows students to do this by requiring them to reach a certain depth of understanding in their ‘major’ tracks, and then allow them some freedom in choosing how they wish to fill up the rest of their timetable. A student that is unsure what he wants to study is encouraged to find out in the first year. But in the first semester already a student only has two elective courses, because there are forced to fulfil their requirements. So, a student has limited space to find out what he or she likes, and then has to start choosing a major in their second year, to be able to complete their tracks on time. Then the only freedom they get for their schedules is when a certain course is not being given or when it is full, in which case they have to choose between the leftover courses that may or may not interest them.
Then, UCR tries to regulate this whole system by assigning a tutor to every student. The tutor is supposed to help the student with picking subjects. But, as any student can tell you, most tutors only sign you up for your next courses and don’t help planning in the long-term or finding out what interests you most.
The result is that students are often not entirely happy with their schedule, as every semester there is a course (required or because another course was full) that they aren’t entirely happy with. They also have little time to figure out where their interests lie, and once they have found those, only limited possibilities in pursuing them.
Another approach UCR could take is to have short, intensive blocks at the start of each semester with a very thorough look at one required subject (as done by AUC). A possible implementation could be to teach solely the theory Academic Writing and Presenting and Statistics in the first 4 weeks. After this the teachers of these courses should be available to help students prepare papers and presentations for other subjects, for example trough open classroom sessions throughout the week. This could allow first-year students to try more subjects, and removes the need for doing a project or presentation for the sake of practice.
If you want to read more reactions from the community to this question, read more right here.
- What does small scale and intensive education mean?
At UCR, it means nothing. I will first asses the idea of ‘small scale’ education.
UCR boasts on their website with interactive learning, showing videos of professor Karas who quizzes his students in class. However, this is something professor Karas himself came up with. As far as I have been able to find out, new teachers don’t get instructions on how to take advantage of the small class size. They are also not being monitored, so, many teachers simply give the lecture the same way they would in a room with 200 students, which is a waste of money, and a real penalty for students that already understand the material but are forced to attend class.
The quality of the education depends entirely on the teachers. Teachers get a lot of freedom, so some take advantage of that, some don’t. Therefore, course quality is incredibly inconsistent. Almost everybody has at least one teacher they complain about, but this isn’t raised as an issue because every student believes they in particular are the unlucky ones. Next to that the grading criteria differ enormously as well. Some teachers use percentages to grade, in which case 80% is an A. Others use letters, in which case an A is near-perfect, and closer to 95%. This means that for the same amount of work you get wildly different results with different teachers.
Then as for the adjective ‘intensive’. Whether UCR is intensive is debatable. I consider it to be chaotic. UCR does not check the teacher’s which means that each and every one of them has their own approach to homework. Some assign very big projects, some assign a lot of small assignments, and all are graded. So while UCR allows a student the responsibility to choose their own subjects and plan their own schedule, the student is not allowed to choose whether he or she believes the homework is beneficial to their particular style of studying.
That courses are not adjusted to each other also causes the study to be sporadically stressful rather than constantly intensive. UCR prides itself on having a high workload, explaining that there is 16 hours of class, and up to 10 hours per course per week. Due to the poor balancing of coursework, it is indeed possible that one week a student will spend 56 hours on schoolwork. This is 8 hours per day, including the weekend! And that while scientific research is pointing out that a normal workweek (40 hours per week) may already be too long and reduces happiness and creativity. UCR students have extremely long vacations. It should be possible to extend the semesters and lighten the workload, which would decrease stress and increase understanding of the material.
- Is our public image what we want it to be?
Undeniably, it is not. The Studiekeuzegids has recently assessed UCR as the worst University College in the Netherlands. The day after the UCSRN published a reaction, criticizing the methods used by the Keuzegids, which immediately admitted to mistakes. However, this will cause lasting damage to UCR’s public image. Let’s asses the difference between our desired image and real life by looking at the UCR brochure.
“Classes at UCR are intensive, interactive, and interdisciplinary, and have an average of 23 students. Intensive and personal tutoring system.” This quote, apart from being outdated, is at the least very deceiving. It is not a single quote, but it is reflected on other parts of the website and in the brochure. It boasts intensive, interactive and interdisciplinary classes, but there is no body or rules in UCR enforcing this. The only systematic monitoring of teachers, as far as I am aware, is trough student evaluations and the AAC, both of which rely on student feedback. But students can only suggest so much. Innovations in teaching and structure, and overarching organization can and will only come from teachers and staff, as they have an overview of the current organization and regulations.
“Our educational system is aimed at giving students the attention they need by providing each of them with a personal tutor. The tutor is a senior member of faculty who advises them on their choice of studies and courses, helps them with any questions or problems they might encounter, and essentially serves as their personal coach throughout their time at UCR.” The tutoring system is a great concept and is essential to be able to allow students to design their own curriculum. But as with the teachers, tutors are neither instructed nor monitored for these tasks and their individual attention and their effort may vary. Many tutors meet with their tutees once a semester, only to fill in the course choices. This is a missed opportunity, as tutors are the most direct link between the school and the students. Tutors have an overview of students’ wants and needs. For example, when a student wants to a request a course to be moved because it clashes with another course, they have to organize this themselves by asking around on Facebook who else wants to follow that course, which first of all raises the effort threshold for a student to get into a course, and is terribly ineffective.
I know that is common practice for universities to exaggerate their qualities on paper, but it leaves students disappointed and unmotivated once they enter the program. A more honest presentation may not sound appealing, but it could create a fresh variety in the brochures that every prospective student has to read trough. And there’s plenty of aspects that can be praised: the beautiful campus, the thriving community, the extra-curricular possibilities, and above all: Elliott. Elliott is, in my opinion, what truly sets UCR apart from other University Colleges. A hub where students can come together to study, have class, lunch, work and party. Built by students, and made for students.
But if we wish to be both honest and appealing in our public presentation, there should be a big change in the school’s organization. Even though UCR is relatively young, the gears of innovation are already grinding to a halt. Being a small and small-scale university, this should be the easiest place to experiment with teaching styles and program structure. But already UCR feels like an ancient and conservative school, with little room for improvement.
The change in organization is twofold: first, UCR should have a body of staff, preferably tutors, that can represent the students’ issues and ideas to the school and suggest and implement solutions as fast as possible. Any tutor that doesn’t show up for this meeting should be punished, just like students that don’t show up for class. A tutor that is not willing to discuss these issues should not be a tutor in the first place. Secondly, the school’s management (The Board of Examiners, the Board of Studies, the Dean and the Heads of Department) needs a major change in mindset: we are not a grand and excellent university that cherishes traditions; as of now, we are a small university whose sole strategy is constant improvement. Longer semesters can make space for educational experimentation, of which the results can be analysed in collaboration with students. Just because we are used to a certain way of doing things, or certain requirements, shouldn’t make them sacred. This, and only this can truly make UCR both excel and differentiate, and we’d be able to honestly brag about it in the brochures.
Hereby I hope to have given you an understanding of what, from my viewpoint, the biggest issues are at UCR. Once again I would like to emphasize that this is the incomplete perspective of a student, but a useful perspective nonetheless. I hope to see you all at the Public Sphere.
Geert Buis, Class of 2018, is a computer science, mathematics and economics major from Oud-Beijerland, the Netherlands.
