Reviews and Reports
Assessment
Interdisciplinary, collaboratively taught courses represent a new approach to general education at UCLA, one which demands new pedagogical methods and the reallocation of personnel and financial resources. For these reasons, an ongoing five-year assessment plan, lasting from fall 1998 - spring 2003, has been made an integral part of the general education cluster initiative.
The assessment plan was initiated in spring, 1998, when Vice Provost Judith Smith established a Workgroup on General Education Assessment and charged it with developing an assessment plan for the four initial clusters. The Workgroup included faculty representatives from each cluster, and from the Undergraduate Council of the Academic Senate as well as staff from the Office of Instructional Development, the College Libraries, and the Vice Provost's Office. Vice Provost Smith appointed Special Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor Maryann Gray to chair the Workgroup and serve as project director for the 1998-1999 academic year. The assessment plan focuses on two broad questions: 1) Do the benefits of the cluster courses justify the effort invested? And 2) If so, what can we learn from the assessment about how to design and implement high quality cluster courses?
Five-Year Self-Review
UCLA's Academic Senate mandates the periodic review of academic programs for the purpose of maintaining and strengthening the quality of its curricula and instruction. A review normally takes two years to complete and involves a period of self review by the program in question, as well as a site visit by a team of campus and extramural scholars. In 2002-2003, the cluster administrative team in collaboration with cluster faculty and members of the Office of Undergraduate Evaluation and Research prepared a Self-Review Report of the Freshman Cluster Program 1998-2003. (Download Complete Report below).
The report summarized data collected over a five-year period and found that a diverse group of more than 4200 UCLA freshmen have completed the cluster experience. Since the program's inception, ten clusters have been offered taught by 73 of UCLA's most distinguished faculty members and 102 of the university's most qualified GSIs, drawn from all four of the College divisions and seven of UCLA's 11 professional schools (Dentistry, Education & Information Studies, Engineering & Applied Sciences, Law, Medicine, Public Health, Public Policy & Social Research, and Theater, Film & Television). The report also noted that the available evidence indicates that the Freshman Cluster Program has become a vital part of the undergraduate experience at UCLA-valued by undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff.
» Self-Review Report of the Freshman Cluster Program 1998-2003
Senate Review
During Academic Year 2003-04, the Academic Senate conducted a site review of the Freshman Cluster Program by a team of internal and extramural scholars on March 11-12, 2004. Over the course of two days, this review team met with Judith Smith, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the cluster program administrative team, cluster faculty and graduate student instructors, instructional support representatives from Powell Library, Writing Programs, the Office of Instructional Development, and the Office of Residential Life, the Chair of the GE Governance Committee, David Rodes, and current and former cluster students. The final report of this review team was presented to and endorsed by both the undergraduate and graduate councils at their June 11, 2004 meetings.
In its final report on the Freshman Cluster Program, the Academic Senate concluded:
Our assessment is that the Cluster Program has been enormously successful. Indeed, we view it as one of the jewels of undergraduate education at UCLA, an innovative educational experience that should be celebrated and nourished in these times of budgetary difficulties.
The Senate's review of the cluster program's strengths and achievements, as well as its recommendations for the further strengthening of its curricula and instruction, can be accessed by clicking on the following links
» 2003-04 Academic Senate Review of the General Education Freshman Cluster Program
» Report from Professor Hank Dobin, External Reviewer, Princeton University
» Report from Professor Christina Maslach, External Reviewer, UC Berkeley
Four Years Later: Reflections on Freshman Cluster Experiences
During its ten-year history, over 10,000 students have participated in a total of 13 Freshman Cluster courses and experienced one of 493 capstone seminars, 40 percent of them taught by UCLA faculty and 60 percent by the program’s advance graduate student instructors. Surveys of cluster freshmen revealed that students found their cluster courses to be challenging and intellectually stimulating and that participation in them strengthened such foundational skills as writing and analytic reasoning. Furthermore, students credited their spring seminars with enabling them to further investigate course content and relate it back to what they had learned during the preceding two quarters. They also valued highly the sense of community they felt in the clusters, both with their fellow students and their instructors.
How do these students retrospectively view their cluster experience four years later, as college seniors? What impact do they feel their participation in this innovative general education program had on their transition to college? What elements of the cluster program do they feel had the most pronounced effects on their subsequent undergraduate careers? What can we learn from them to potentially enhance the cluster experiences of future freshman cohorts? This report summarizes the answers to these questions of 610 senior students who participated in the freshman cluster program during 2000-01 and 2001-02 .
» Four Years Later: Reflections on Freshman Cluster Experiences
