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.