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Institutional Information Portland State University (P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR 97207-0751) is a research intensive, urban, public institution in Oregon's largest city. The University has almost 24,000 enrolled students and serves a population of over 40,000 in credit or noncredit classes each year, including nearly one-third of the Oregon University System's enrolled graduate students. The urban location of the University provides the impetus for engaging with the community as a key part of the curriculum, and PSU has adopted the motto, "Let Knowledge Serve the City."
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Other Activities There are several initiatives at PSU that cross programs and schools. Part of our identify as a urban institution is based on our community connections. Community-based learning is embedded throughout our curriculum and central to our general education. In addition, the university is working to improve advising, assessment, diversity and internationalization through a series of action councils appointed by the President. We have been connecting with our regional high schools and community colleges to create a more seamless K-16 system for our students. We have a strong Writing Across the Curriculum program and several interdisciplinary programs and majors such as the Center for Science Education, Women's Studies, International Studies Certificate programs and a Systems Science Ph.D. Another initiative is the forwarding of what we are calling markers of a PSU baccalaureate graduate. These are agreed upon learning attributes of all our graduates. Information about our campus and those efforts is available on our institutional electronic portfolio at http://portfolio.pdx.edu.
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The visual above depicts a way to think about the program revision under consideration. It shows specific points in the curriculum that need consideration and strategies to address those concerns.
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Project Timeline Several groups of faculty, mentors and students worked on proposals to improve the intergrative learning in the middle portion of University Studies two years ago. The ideas that came out of those groups went to the Unst Committee, the policy and curriculum committee for the program, last year for discussion and revisions. The plans have been continually revised as the discussion has progressed. The current draft was presented and discussed at the Fall Retreat at the beginning of this academic year. Another conversation has been initiated by the current Acting Provost. The ideas he presented in a white paper on undergraduate education are in discussion now in various units across the university. The Unst Committee will consider the ideas from the past two years together with those expressed in the white paper and put a proposal together to bring to the Faculty Senate and its relevant committees. The Unst Committee will continue to meet and discuss possible program revisions to improve the intergrative learning in the middle part of the program and to address the institutional initiative to internationalize the curriculum. In February, the Faculty Senate will have an opportunity to discuss options in a committee of the whole conversation.
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Team Terry Rhodes, Vice Provost for Curriculum and Dean of Undergraduate Studies Daniel Bernstine, President Judy Patton, Director, University Studies Michael Flower, University Studies Sophomore Inquiry/Upper Division Cluster Coordinator and Associate Professor, Honors and Center for Science Education
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Resources For interdisciplinarity: Julie Thompson Klein, Crossing Boundaries: Knowledge, Disciplinarities, and Interdisciplinarities, University Press of Virginia, 1996; Barbara Leigh Smith and John McCann (editors), Reinventing Ourselves: Interdisciplinary Education, Collaborative Learning, and Experimentation in Higher Education, Anker Publishing Company, 2001; Lisa R. Lattuca, Creating Interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching Among College and University Faculty, Vanderbilt University Press, 2001; and Carolyn Haynes (editor), Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching, Oryx Press, 2002. Lisa R. Lattuca, Lois J. Voight, and Kimberly Q. Fath. 2004. Does interdisciplinarity promote learning? Theoretical support and researchable questions. The Review of Higher Education 28(1), 23-48. This is a particularly intriguing paper. Lattuca and colleagues have a keen eye for theoretically important questions and the requisite avenues of research into them. For eportfolios: www.cyborglab.pdx.edu/portfolioproject
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