Introduction

Describing the history of UC Davis (UCD) in Assembling California (his 1993 ode to California geology), the celebrated Pulitzer Prize winning author John McPhee uses a sparse eloquence to succinctly summarize 88 years of campus history:

In 1905, the College of Agriculture in the University of California, in Berkeley, set up an experimental farm in Davis, in Yolo County, in the valley's center. In 1925, the farm itself became an agricultural college. In 1959 it became a general campus in the state's university system. The livestock-judging pavilion is now a Shakespearian theatre. Under sky-scraping water towers, the ground hugging university is of such breadth and grandeur that it has its own beltway. It may have more bicycles than Shanghai. But Davis is still the main agricultural research center in California, and just outside the glassy postmodern geology building are sties containing massive monolithic pigs. ¹

McPhee is describing Davis in order to set a scene within the story of his exploration of California's natural history with Eldridge Moores, a member of our Geology faculty. This brief passage evokes all of the familiar images we associate with the history of the campus and its transition from a preeminent Agricultural College to a more academically and culturally broad university campus. It also sets the scene for the story of how UC Davis has endeavored to enhance its profile so that it can best serve the region, the state and the nation.

Since UC Davis submitted its Institutional Proposal for the reaffirmation of its accreditation in June 2000, our campus, our state and our nation have undergone many significant changes. Elizabeth Faber, our undergraduate representative on the WASC Steering Committee, a sophomore in 1999, has graduated. Robert D. Grey, the Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor who was the co-chair of the WASC Steering Committee at the beginning of this process has retired, and the campus has welcomed Virginia S. Hinshaw as our new senior academic officer and co-chair of the WASC steering committee. We have also appointed new deans in Engineering, Biological Sciences, Graduate Studies, Education, a new Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, and a new Associate Executive Vice Chancellor for Campus Community Relations. More significantly, we have larger student, staff, and faculty populations. Although this growth was predicted, California's unexpected financial downturn has undermined some of our efforts to prepare for it. The once staggering state surpluses of the late 90s have been replaced by a spiraling state deficit. California's financial woes are not isolated and are not the only source of economic challenge for us. Many of our students' families and our alumni have experienced financial setbacks in the past two years. Non-profit foundations have seen their returns on endowments diminish. Multiple revenue streams have diminished substantially.

But financial problems are not the only challenge to our capacity we need to acknowledge as we set the context for our preparatory review. As part of our commitment to maintaining undergraduate excellence, we planned a Chancellor's Fall Conference on Undergraduate Education for the third weekend of September 2001. We planned to hone our educational objectives, revisit our GE curriculum, digest several recently produced documents on our composition requirement, and consider ways of shoring up our students' first-year experiences. Those of us most heavily involved in the preparation of our Institutional Proposal for WASC knew that many members of our campus community were unaware of recent assessment trends in higher education. And we knew that even those familiar with these developments included many quite skeptical that learning outcomes could be measured in any truly meaningful manner. Within the confines of a two-day retreat, the 150 plus administrators, alumni, faculty, staff and students had to cover a great deal of terrain.

Since our peer institutions measure themselves and each other by their implementation of The Boyer Commission Report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities, we invited the Boyer Commission's chair, Shirley Strum Kenny, to be our keynote speaker. Then came September 11. The ensuing travel problems prevented many of our planned participants from attending, and within two days of the conference Kenny herself, President of State University of New York, Stony Brook, near the devastated World Trade Center, was compelled to cancel. Our attention was divided. The President was on television making plans for armed conflict, and we were in the Sierra Nevada scheduled to discuss how we could inspire more faculty to teach freshmen seminars. We pondered whether or not we could assess GE effectiveness at shaping good citizens at a moment when national conversations on citizenship, patriotism and national security dominated the media. To be sure, most of us recognized that our curriculum, and our own research agendas would be influenced by the international crisis. Of course, these disparate events and developments remind us that the strongest universities are those able to grapple with even profound changes in their internal and external circumstances. While the current fiscal uncertainties and the nation's involvement in international conflicts have prompted us to scale back some of our plans, we still believe that the visiting team will find that UC Davis is fundamentally a very robust university poised to tackle the challenges ahead.

Following the Fall Conference we embarked on a new academic year. In our Institutional Proposal we state, "We are particularly interested in developing educational objectives for the integration of teaching, learning and research". Conference attendees worked on a draft set of Educational Objectives. This process is detailed in our discussion of Standard 1. We are particularly pleased by the continued partnership between the Academic Senate and the administration on at least two important areas. Conference attendees were uniform in their praise for the Freshmen Seminar program and eager to expand the number of these classes we can offer. During the 2001-2002 academic year, the Senate approved the use of variable units so that now we can offer one- as well as two-unit courses. The administration approved a hefty fiscal infusion to support the expanded program. Even more significantly, the Senate pursued a reorganization of its committee structure, substituting an Undergraduate Council for the Committee on Educational Policy.

As fall 2002 approaches, UC Davis is readying itself for a new academic year. There are somewhat troubling national and international tensions, but on campus, we look forward to welcoming the Class of 2006 cohort of Tidal Wave II students. In spite of the fact that the State Budget was not signed until after Labor Day, students on financial aid will receive their checks on time. The deans' offices report that the registration process has progressed smoothly, and students will be successfully enrolled in classes. We are putting the finishing touches on the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and anticipate a spectacular inaugural season. We trust that the WASC teams who visit us this year will find an exciting and engaged campus community.

¹ John McPhee, Assembling California. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 1993 p.178-179