Creating Life-Enhancing Student Learning Experiences
Recommendation 8:
Every student should receive effective academic advising and have access to a mentor.
All students should be assigned an academic advisor. Academic advisors are critical to student success, especially in a university as large as UT, because they provide human contact and personalized advice in a setting that can otherwise seem daunting and impersonal. At UT, professional advisors help students set goals and monitor progress toward completion of degree requirements. In many cases, however, a student may interact with a different advisor at every advising session, which inhibits building a strong student-advisor relationship with continuity.
Effective academic advising is crucial to the goal of increasing the four-year graduation rate. Informed advising can help students avoid enrolling in courses that do not fulfill degree requirements and can also enrich learning by tailoring The University experience to the needs and interests of individual students.
Mentors, on the other hand, can offer students general advice on academic development and life decisions. They help students see the larger picture and take advantage of the richness of the campus environment and opportunities beyond graduation. Every student should have access to a mentor who may be selected from faculty, staff, administration, alumni, graduate students, and/or older students. Mentors can provide guidance to students in setting goals, solving problems, and making career decisions.
Recommendation 9:
Increase the campus residence-hall capacity to 9,000 beds.
Students who live on campus tend to perform better academically and adjust more successfully to college life. And their very presence, day and night, improves the sense of community that encourages strong bonding with the institution. These observations led to a recommendation in the Campus Master Plan that residence-hall capacity be expanded. The first step was the construction of San Jacinto Hall, which opened in 2000 with 850 beds and increased total campus residence-hall capacity to 6,700 beds.
All freshmen should be able to live on campus. (In fall 2004, of the 5,630 freshmen who applied for campus housing, only 3,660 received housing assignments.) By expanding capacity to 9,000 beds, The University can provide housing to all freshmen who want to live on campus, while maintaining an appropriate mix of freshmen and non-freshmen in its dormitories. Residence-hall capacity will need to be reviewed periodically to consider changes in housing patterns and enrollment.
Recommendation 10:
Construct student activity space on the east side or on the perimeter of the campus.
The Texas Union, built in the 1930s for a much smaller institution, cannot meet today’s needs of an active community of more than 50,000 students. Its location on the western edge of the campus leaves much of the student population ill-served, especially those in the sciences, engineering, fine arts, and law.
Space is needed for study groups, group projects, and meetings of student organizations, as well as for rest and recreation. With so many students now commuting from other parts of the city, The University needs more space for students when they are not in class. The creation of a new activity center to serve the east side of campus will be a major step toward building a stronger campus community and improving the student experience.
Recommendation 11:
The Honor Code should be assimilated into the culture of the campus and made relevant to the lives of all members of The University of Texas community.
No faculty, however distinguished, can alone ensure the reputation of a university. Nor can a reputation be ordained by administrators or mandated by committee. It must be earned over time—and largely through a commitment to shared values by all members of the UT community.
It is vital that students help set and maintain standards of excellence at their own university. The Commission commends the student body for proposing an honor code in 2004. The administration and student body should promptly integrate the Honor Code into the life of The University. Every student, faculty member, and staff member should assume individual responsibility for upholding the reputation, values, and academic integrity of The University of Texas.
Recommendation 12:
The University should recruit the very best graduate students from Texas, the nation, and the world. It should seek to create for all its graduate students an academic environment that is second to none in intellectual richness and diversity. Stipends for UT graduate students should be at least as high as those at the nation’s other premier graduate schools.
The graduate and professional programs of The University of Texas make crucial contributions to the economic, intellectual, and cultural strength of Texas, the nation, and the world. In addition, UT’s national and international reputation relies on the quality of its graduate and professional programs. The quality of graduate programs and graduate students can prove decisive in attracting high-quality faculty. Academic leaders and undergraduate students are keenly aware of the quality of graduate and professional programs at universities. In these interdependent ways, the quality of graduate and professional education has a profound effect on UT’s national and international reputation. Moreover, graduate students play an enormous role in a university’s teaching and research.
UT already is a distinguished institution. But if it is to realize its vision of excellence, it must have stellar graduate and professional programs.
Support for graduate students should be a high priority. If increased stipends cannot be provided for all programs, they should at least be offered for programs receiving special emphasis. It is important that UT’s graduate programs include students from racial and ethnic minorities. While graduate students play an important role in undergraduate education, The University should reduce its dependence on graduate students to serve as teachers at the undergraduate level. Moreover, undergraduate teaching requirements should not drive graduate school admission policy or diminish the intellectual experience for graduate students.
Faculty members should integrate graduate students into the intellectual life of their departments so that the students’ intellectual and social experiences are more akin to those of academic peers. In addition, more must be done to foster a campus-wide social and intellectual community for graduate students.
Recommendation 13:
Emphasize the study of leadership and ethics.
The University has a long tradition of developing leaders at all levels. In a society frequently confronted by ethical problems, it is appropriate that The University help advance the study of leadership and ethics. The Commission recommends inclusion of ethics and leadership in the core curriculum. In addition, the Commission recommends that The University seek to provide all students with leadership opportunities. Student participation in campus and community organizations and public service has always had a major influence on the development of leadership skills on the campus. The University should take steps to foster even greater student participation and supplement these experiences with opportunities to learn leadership skills.