Student Assembly passed a resolution to launch the Undergraduate Teaching Initiative in a nearly unanimous vote during a weekly meeting last night in 101 Collis.
The Initiative, which was sponsored by Vice President of Academic Affairs Aly Rahim '02, is dedicated to improving and supporting undergraduate teaching at the College through a series of four primary components.
Included among these are annual assessments of departmental commitment to undergraduate teaching, quarterly faculty awards, teaching grants to be funded by the Assembly and a future report supporting the creation of an undergraduate teaching center at the College.
The passage of the Initiative was intended primarily as an endorsement of the overall plan by the Assembly, according to Rahim, who emphasized that concrete action on the components would come later.
"[The Initiative] gives us a snapshot of what we are intending to do," Rahim said. "The details warrant independent debate since these are big enough issues to be discussed in a larger forum."
In response to concerns that the resolution might be perceived as toothless in lacking directives for immediate action, Rahim said that he felt such a proposal was necessary to affirm the Assembly's commitment to the principles of the Initiative and to inform the student body and administration of this commitment.
"I think this really has been a public resolution for quite a while," Rahim said. "If it was hollow and ineffective, it would not have generated the attention it has so far."
Among Assembly members, support for the resolution was strong, with 33 votes cast in favor of the Initiative, two abstentions, and a lone vote in opposition. The vote was taken after a period for questions and debate.
Student Body President Molly Stutzman '02 shared the sentiments of many at the meeting in her comments.
"The passage of the resolution says that the Student Assembly is committed in principle to a focus on undergraduate teaching," she said, stressing the importance -- as Rahim also did -- of setting an example for both students and the administration.
Rahim said his committee would continue to work on implementing the components of the initiative, which he thought addressed an issue -- undergraduate education -- of importance to all students.
"The Academic Affairs Committee is dedicated to seeing [the UTI] to fruition ... this is a 'big ideas' year, and this is a big idea."
According to Stutzman, the UTI, which Rahim drafted this summer, grew out of an earlier report -- the Academic Direction of the College Report -- produced by Jorge Miranda '01 and Mike Perry '03, last year's President and Vice President of Academic Affairs for the Assembly.
Also speaking at the meeting was Residential Life Assistant Dean Cassie Barnhardt, who gave a brief talk on the ongoing implementation of last year's report of the Greek Life Steering Committee.
Barnhardt said that the Committee had agreed unanimously to a set of six guiding principles among them brotherhood and sisterhood, scholarship and service to which all Greek organizations will be required to adhere.
"We're in a transition move away from Minimum Standards and towards guiding principles," she said, mentioning that such a transition would be implemented slowly, over a three-year period.
She said that the change will be judged at each stage according to how well it meets its goals.
Barnhardt also talked of the possibility of reviewing and refining the College's new walk-through policy, and she discussed the role of the Greek Leaders Council, which superseded the recently dissolved Coed, Fraternity and Sorority Council.
