Report to the Faculty Senate
September 9, 2008

 

 

ECU Faculty Response to Phase I of the UNC Tomorrow Report

 

In accordance to Faculty Senate resolution 8-17, the Chair of the Faculty has been charged to provide a Faculty Senate response to Phase I of the UNC Tomorrow report.

 

Mark Taggart, Chair of the Faculty, convened a meeting on May 8, 2008, in order to solicit information for this response.

 

About 25 faculty members, including various administrators and members of the ECU Response Team, who were available to answer questions in the report, attended the meeting.

 

Some faculty expressed concerns over what was omitted.  It was noted that the section “Coastal hazards and Economic Development, had no mention of two institutions already in place and working on the issue which are:  the Center for Natural Hazards Research and C-SIM, ECU’s RENCI Engagement Center.  Also, a mention of the proposed PhD in Economics is relevant in this section.

 

There was disappointment expressed over the small amount of information about science, mathematics and engineering in the document.  It was mentioned that ECU has strong departments of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geological Sciences as well as Mathematics and Engineering, with faculty who teach and do cutting edge research in their fields.  It was stressed that scientific research generates jobs and attracts educated, financially well-off people to the region.

 

Concerns were also expressed over various “unfunded mandates” that occur throughout the document.  There were concerns expressed over how we will be able to increase the number of medical students per class to 120.

 

There was also discussion over the definitions of “global awareness” and “global readiness.”  Do they mean the same thing?  Does this mean that the study of foreign languages will take a role in teacher preparation?   Should more attention to the study of foreign languages be in our curriculum?

 

Questions were raised regarding “accountability” to the responses in this report.  Will we know what this accountability will look like?  Also, how will these responses “overlap” with ECU’s application for “Engaged University” status?

 

The discussion then pertained to the qualities that provide a liberal arts background, which provides the transferable skills that are mentioned in the report.  This included a discussion of foundations requirements as well as a desire to have the College of Education collaborate with other colleges to help with teacher preparation.