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Good for GWU
College and university trustees are often reluctant to take an assertive role when it comes to ensuring educational excellence. The conventional wisdom in governance circles is that questions of academic quality are best left up to academics themselves. But the fact is that trustees are duty-bound to make sure that the schools entrusted to them are offering the best education they can: After all, if they don't do it, who will?
This is a point ACTA has been making for years. In Becoming an Educated Person, ACTA noted that "at many schools, the task will fall to college and university trustees--who are responsible for the academic as well as financial health of their institutions--to make sure that their students receive the kind of education they will need for thoughtful, productive, and satisfying lives." In Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action, ACTA argued that "any board that fails to guarantee the free exchange of ideas and the student's right to learn on its campus is simply not doing its job." Most recently, in The Vanishing Shakespeare, ACTA urged trustees to "insist that departments articulate with far greater clarity what students should know upon graduating and ensure that major requirements are substantive." ACTA has long argued that when it comes to monitoring educational quality, trustees have a right to call for an institutional self-study, internal accountability mechanisms, and regular curricular reviews.
To their great credit, the trustees at George Washington University understand this.
Last week, GWU's student newspaper reported that the board was inquiring into the university's freshman writing program. In place since 2004, the program requires each course to assign students 25-30 pages of writing. But in practice, individual writing classes vary widely in their requirements; the program is thus neither meeting its stated goals nor amenable to meaningful evaluation. A faculty committee is currently reviewing the syllabi of GWU's writing courses; committee members reported to the board that they were working to ensure consistency of student experience by holding teachers responsible for meeting the page requirements.
Some might say that boards have better things to do than worry about how many pages freshmen produce in their required writing courses. But these are the kinds of issues boards must concern themselves with if they care about educational excellence. The mechanism at GWU is simple and straightforward--a committee charged with maintaining a particular academic program reports on that program, and informed discussion about what should be done ensues. Subsequent board meetings will involve subsequent reports, and additional discussion about what, if anything, must be done.
That's accountability in action.
Posted by acta online on May 29, 2007 at May 29, 2007 11:15 AM
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