UW faculty are justifiably concerned about the declining level of public support for higher education, as reflected in the budgets for the past few biennia and the projections for the next biennium. If this trend is allowed to continue, declining funding and staffing levels will inevitably lead to larger classes, less individual contact with students, further erosion of the infrastructure that supports teaching, declining faculty and student morale, and the loss of many of the University's most valued teaching faculty.
The Committee considered what we, as faculty members, can do to promote public support for higher education in this state. The two major ideas that emerged from that discussion are:
Recommendation 19: Faculty should be encouraged to instill in larger numbers of undergraduate students an appreciation of the mission of the University of Washington, as one of the nation's premier research universities.
A highly effective way for faculty to demonnstrate to students the strong connection between the discovery and transmission of new knowledge is to mentor them in individualized and small-group research projects. Another way for them to get involved in this effort is to organize or participate in one of the "capstone courses" (design projects, performances, critical studies) which serve to tie together and impart a sense of purpose to the varied strands of knowledge that students acquire in disciplinary degree programs. Many of these capstones link university education with real-world problems in the community. These are but two of the possibilities for offering experiential learning in a university whose faculty are immersed in the scientific, technical, legal, societal, management and ethical issues of the day.
Through their many contacts in the community and through the many forms of outreach that they are already engaged in, faculty can also make a larger contribution to the University's efforts to help the general public to better understand and appreciate its role in the context of higher education in this state.
Recommendation 20: The University should develop a coordinated strategy for involving faculty, students, and staff in its effort to increase the public awareness of the role of higher education in today's society and the unique mission of the research universities among institutions of higher learning.
