The executive team has been making plenty of progress of late.  The summer core curriculum courses are running, and folks are working to make sure the assessment reviews will be ready to finalize at summer’s end.  The team is finalizing a true project management calendar to take the project into June 2007 when the first draft is due to the commission liaison.  Faculty credentialing is moving ahead, with meetings being held to discuss the kinds of additional documentation that may be necessary in some faculty assignments.  And, perhaps most interesting of all to some of us, the scanning and database applications are starting to come online in a big way.

The day the overhauled web site went live, we received an email from someone at another SACS school and found that team had been monitoring our progress — much as we’d been monitoring other schools’ sites and progress.  That email confirmed the notion that colleges and universities going through the SACS reaffirmation process really do form some kind of bond  — people do want to share ideas and receive input, positive or negative.

Another hopeful sign, at least for me, is that people around campus are starting to think about how best to leverage the site and the potential sources of information the site may house.  For example, as we’re working to collect job descriptions, it suddenly seemed appropriate to post some sample job descriptions and templates to help people revise their own job descriptions as needed.  Those examples will be posted shortly.  The syllabus templates are already housed in the site, and some folks are using them to their advantage.  Other templates will be added across the new few weeks.

The technology behind this project is still growing, and every time the executive team meets, it seems another idea develops for how we might improve our processes with a technological solution.  For example, we discussed how to share some transcripts with members of the credentialing team.  We wanted to keep the information restricted, but we also wanted the people who needed access to have appropriate access.  What started out as a relatively simple security design evolved into something much more complicated — but it addressed the need exactly.  While the design is still in alpha/beta testing, it’s moving toward completion quickly. 

Overall, each of us involved in this process faces a demon or two on a daily basis; we all have to wonder why we agreed to work on this project.  And then there are the other times when we make progress, when things seem to fall into place, and we take some pride in knowing that it’ll all work out in the end.  Maybe that small feeling of accomplishment is the best part of any progress report — it helps each of us to move into the next task with confidence.

The SACS and QEP web sites have been re-tooled and now provide a single interface for users.  The navigation system is fairly intuitive, although you may want to take a look at Resources, Tools, and Data when you have the time so you get a feel for what goes where.  For example, the Tools section will house several applications of use to the members of the Project teams.  Resources entries will be different from Tools in that they won’t be applications; rather they’ll be papers, guidelines, and documents to assist users in their analysis of data.  The Data section will be more of the aggregated and public data used to draft reports and summaries; raw data files will be made available on an as-needed basis.

Your suggestions are always welcomed:  SACS-Team@utdallas.edu

The question has now been posed:  Is there a core curriculum for graduate students?  The answer appears to be “Maybe.”  Defining that core curriculum, however, leads to another question:  To what extent can one define the common underpinnings of a graduate education?

If there are common elements among graduate programs, would they not focus on a graduate student’s basic understanding of the foundation literature of the discipline?  Would they not also focus on an opportunity to strengthen the student’s skills as a researcher, whether that research is lab-based or literature-based?  Would such foundation skills be evidenced within the majority of the course work within the student’s degree program?  Perhaps more important, however, is a related question:  If these elements occur across the breadth of the curriculum, does this constitute a core curriculum for graduate students or something else, perhaps a learning objectives set that permeates the entire program and, thus, is something more than a core curriculum?

Regardless of that last question, it seems appropriate to tie such skills or objectives to a number of programs or program elements that encompass the entire curriculum.  To that extent, we should determine what that set of elements truly includes and then tie those elements to the various graduate programs at UTD.  In so doing, we take yet another step toward demonstrating our having carefully and seriously considered not only the value of a graduate education at UTD but also our willingness to structure the learning experience to suit the needs of our students and the community-at-large.