UC Berkeley's Model for Excellence and Diversity: Integration of Research & Education

Submitted to the National Science Foundation
Recognition Awards for Integration of Research and Education

Chang-Lin Tien,
Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley
A. Martin Berlin Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Alice M. Agogino,

Associate Dean, College of Engineering
Professor of Mechanical Engineering

1.0 INSTITUTIONAL VISION FOR THE INTEGRATION OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATION IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

For the past few decades, Berkeley has taken a leading role in this nation's rapid development of science and technology. It must do so again as we move into the 21st century. Previously, the educational paradigm was the transmission of information from teacher to student. Now, the rapid pace of technological innovations, international competition, and population changes demand that students in science and engineering be active participants in developing knowledge through research.

Berkeley has assiduously extoled the value that research brings to education, sought to increase the connections between students and faculty members doing cutting-edge research, and provided programs that involve students in the discovery of knowledge. We know that such efforts need to continue and be expanded. Too many of our top undergraduates in engineering, science, and math switch to other fields. This is especially a problem for women and underrepresented minorities and it requires innovative, aggressive actions. Faculty and curricula must be flexible. Programs must reflect both student interest and real-world demands, and pedagogy must put a premium on the interest of students and promote academic and professional success. At Berkeley, students have responded with great interest to opportunities that integrate research into their education, and faculty increasingly bring their research activities to students and infuse this research experience into the curricula. Our main goal with this grant will be to assess the benefits of these programs, expand them to maximize their effectiveness and disseminate the "best practices."

"To me, excellence and diversity are woven from the same cloth, they are inextricably linked. This is especially true as our shrinking world necessitates greater interaction among races and ethnicities."

-- Chang-Lin Tien, Chancellor, 1995.

 "My experience as a professor and as Chancellor contradicts the popular misconception that teaching and research conflict with one another. Exciting classes stimulate scholarship, and active research enriches teaching.".[14]

-- Chang-Lin Tien, Chancellor, 1993

2.0 NATURE AND SCOPE OF INTEGRATION ACTIVITIES

One of the advantages of a research university is that it places students in an environment where they can learn from world renowned faculty who also have a demonstrated commitment to teaching. Berkeley, for many years, has graduated more students who go on to earn doctorates than any university in the country, and leads in the number of graduate degrees granted to women and underrepresented minorities. In the five year period 1991/96 UC Berkeley granted 8,533 masters degrees and 4,098 doctoral degrees. Looking at Engineering, for example, 1,563 MS degrees were granted (411 to women, 46 to African Americans, 88 to Hispanics, and 6 to Native Americans) and 907 doctoral degrees (100 to women, 15 to an African Americans, 12 to Hispanics, and 1 to a Native American). National level reviews of doctoral education have consistently placed Berkeley at the pinnacle of excellence and diversity. The university faculty has 8 Nobel laureates, 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, 3 NSF Waterman awardees, and 1 NSF Vannevear Bush Awardee. In the Fall of 1995, the National Research Council study ranked 35 of 36 UC Berkeley departments in the top ten in the nation, more than any other college or university. This combination of high quality programs and outstanding students motivated to advance their knowledge has provided a distinctive environment for the integration of research and education at UC Berkeley.

As the integration of research and education pervades almost every aspect of UC Berkeley's mission, it would be impossible to provide broad coverage to all of our programs. We rely on our stature in the research community for integration of research and education in our graduate programs as evidenced by the statistics above. Rather, in this proposal, we focus on our undergraduate and outreach programs, in order to highlight Berkeley's strengths in these areas and the initiatives that Chancellor Tien has made the hallmark of his administration. We will provide both statistics and examples to make our case.

2.1 CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL/DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES

In addition to the more than 100 departmental research units, Berkeley supports 34 Organized Research Units (ORUs) to promote cross/inter- disciplinary research that transcends traditional departmental boundaries (URL: www.berkeley.edu/teaching). All of these units are integrated with the academic programs in teaching and research. Many sponsor programs that reach out to K-12 or science museums. The Division of Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies (UGIS) is a new cross-organizational structure, under Dean Carolyn Porter, which (1) offers interdisciplinary majors, e.g., Cognitive Science, American Studies, Environmental Sciences, etc., and (2) supports the academic research side of undergraduate programs.

For example, the environmental ORUs work with the interdisciplinary Environmental Science academic program to offer research opportunities that bridge the disciplines of biological, physical and social sciences, attracting more than 300 students per year. Additional options include earth science, environmental engineering, policy and management. The UC Berkeley Environmental Science academic program is one of the oldest in the country (20 years) and one of the most rigorous in terms of science requirements. It has been extremely successful in placing its graduates in academic, government, and private environmental agencies. One aspect of Berkeley's Environmental Science program is the unique requirement for a year-long program of senior research. During this year, students are exposed to hands-on training in project design, question formulation, data collection and analysis, and publication of results, all in the context of an independent research project. The program is designed so that groups of students can work collaboratively on these research projects, working together on different aspects of a high impact environmental problem. Currently under development is a junior year preparatory course in research methods, covering survey methods, statistics, experimental design, library and information resources, and geographic information systems.

Another example in the College of Engineering is the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC), an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) chartered and partially funded by NSF. Currently, BSAC is funded through the membership fees of 20 member companies (a few of which are Ford Motor Company, Honeywell, Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, Timken Company) and by grants from various agencies. Since its founding in 1986, BSAC has devoted its research efforts to the development of the science, technology, and applications for microsensors and microactuators. BSAC is considered a leading world center in Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), a new technology field that combines the manufacturing efficiencies of VLSI circuit fabrication with the applications made possible by mechanical microstructures in order to develop systems such as a microgyroscope, for vehicular guidance, on a silicon chip. The Berkeley Sensor & Actuator center crosses many departmental boundaries since BSAC brings a systems approach to its research. Composed of more than 12 affiliated faculty and 55 graduate students, as well as summer undergraduate researchers, BSAC has representatives of EECS, ME, MSME, and ChemE participating in its research programs. These faculty and students work closely in interdisciplinary research teams to tackle the research required to advance the state of the art in MEMS. Every semester, roughly 5-8 undergraduates participate in BSAC MEMS research activities. BSAC-sponsored students have been consistent winners of the Dean's special awards to stimulate undergraduate research. A number of these undergraduates have contributed to published MEMS research. The broad challenge of MEMS is to expose students to MEMS, starting in the new course for freshman for which Professor R.M. White and researcher Roger Doering have produced the new Prentice Hall textbook, Electrical Engineering Uncovered, which is geared to College Freshman. This book has a sequence on the fabrication technology for MEMS and a review of the promise of the field. Undergraduates are welcomed to weekly seminars on the MEMS field, and many of them are finding inspiration in the widening opportunities in the field.

Other examples of cross-organizational/disciplinary programs that integrate research and education are included in other sections of this proposal.

2.2 IMPACT ON FACULTY RECRUITMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Co-PI Chancellor Tien has made it a strong priority to recruit the very best faculty and administrators with excellence in teaching, research and professional service a given. Several innovative programs provide assistance to new faculty and doctoral students in developing curricula and improving their teaching effectiveness. Almost all Berkeley graduate students serve at least one year as Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs). An Office of GSI Training conducts courses in how to teach, as well as single-discipline workshops and consultations. Under a new initiative, GSIs in physics, chemistry, and mathematics will be trained to run intensive discussion and studio sections in the gateway science courses, including computer-based calculus. Faculty and GSIs are working with the College of Engineering (COE) and local industries with an R & D component to bring research and professional practice into these sections. This latter initiative has been funded by a grant from the GE Fund titled: "Integrating Calculus, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering Education through Technology Enhanced Visualization, Simulation and Design Cases and Outcomes Assessment." Co-PI Prof. Agogino took the lead in coordinating this initiative, working with Dean Buford P. Price (Physical Sciences) and Dean Paul R. Gray (College of Engineering).

New changes in UC Berkeley's promotion and reward system offer incentives to encourage our faculty to strive for excellence in both teaching and research. Examples include: Outstanding Distinguished Teaching Awards, President's Chair for Undergraduate Education and new criteria for merit increases and promotions that emphasize excellence in teaching.

Several prominent members of our faculty have taken leadership positions in efforts to change the reward structure towards a balance of research and education. For example, Calvin C. Moore, while at the UC Office of the President, initiated a review of the UC policy on faculty tenure and rewards which led to the "Report of the University-Wide Task Force on Faculty Reward", chaired by Karl Pister [9]. The report traced the evolution of changes in criteria for advancement over a forty-year period and urged a rebalancing of the system of rewards. Several specific changes in university policy and practices resulted from the Pister Report, which placed an increased value on teaching in the academic personnel review process and made significant steps toward rebalancing the reward structure. Prof. Calvin Moore, now Department Chair in Mathematics at UC Berkeley, also served as Chair of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM), the Committee on Professional Recognition and Rewards in a joint project funded by the Exxon Educational Foundation and the National Science Foundation which led to a report titled "Recognition and Rewards in the Mathematical Sciences" [2]. Prof. Alan Schoenfeld, with UC Berkeley faculty appointments in both Education and Mathematics, currently serves as Chair of the JPBM which now has the responsibility of finding ways to enhance, document, and reward University Faculty's educational contributions (broadly construed).[11]

Prof. C. Bradley Moore, former Dean of our College of Chemistry, chairs the Committee on Undergraduate Science Education (CUSE) at the National Academy of Sciences. Members are leaders in industry, government and academe. The recommendations from the committee have led to a book on teaching methods for faculty and graduate student instructors. Prof. C. Bradley Moore and Prof. Angelica Stacy served on the steering committee for National Research Council's 1996 Convocation on Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology.[5] Prof. Stacy co-chaired the session on "Literacy: Science Mathematics, Engineering and Technology for All Undergraduates" and Co-PI Prof. Agogino co-chaired the session on "Educational Technologies: The Potential for Incremental and Radical Change in Instruction." [6] Prof. Stacy also co-chaired a report sponsored by NSF of the conclusions from the Presidential Young Investigator Colloquium on U.S. Engineering, Mathematics, and Science Education for the Year 2010 and Beyond. This group of some of the best young researchers in the nation strongly advocated that in addition to research, teaching scholarship, instructional excellence, and public service should be encouraged and rewarded. [7,8]

2.3 LEARNING EXPERIENCES OF STUDENTS AT DIFFERENT EDUCATIONAL LEVELS

In 1992, Co-PI Chancellor Tien challenged the faculty to develop Freshman Seminars to bring Berkeley's prestigious scholars and freshmen together in small groups of 15-25 students. The program has been highly successful with both students and faculty with more than 100 courses offered per year. In the Freshman Seminar Program's first four years, 350 different professors from 79 different campus units, including graduate-level professional schools which have not traditionally contributed to undergraduate education, have taught 538 seminars to 8,773 lower-division students. The strength of this program lies in the fact that although the program impact is very large, each participating student experiences it in small groups. To share an intellectual quest with a "MacArthur genius" or the world's expert on a given topic, along with a dozen or so fellow students, is an experience never to be forgotten. UC Berkeley has always been noted for its research and graduate education; this program ensures that even our newest students will benefit directly from the integration of research and education. The evaluations from both students and faculty who have participated in the program are uniformly enthusiastic. Students praise the seminars for helping to reduce the scale of the university to human dimensions, for introducing them to the cutting edge of research in disciplines that can best be studied at a research university, and for enabling -- even requiring -- them to participate actively in the pursuit and construction of knowledge as opposed to passively soaking up received wisdom in large lecture halls. Faculty members praise the seminars, too, for bringing them in contact with our newest students, students who have a passion for learning and who often provide a fresh perspective and challenging questions.

Portrait of a McNair Scholar and Faculty Mentor

Christopher Reyes, Ph.D. Program in Biophysics

Faculty Mentor: Nobel Laureate Donald A. Glaser

"When I applied to be a McNair Scholar, I knew that I wanted to earn a Ph.D. but I did not have adequate academic preparation to obtain my goal," writes Chris Reyes. Raised in San Jose, he asked to be admitted to accelerated classes in sixth grade math but was laughed at by his teachers, although he later was one of three Latino students in an honors class of thirty-five at a predominately minority high school. Chris knew he wanted to attend college and was disturbed at the prevailing assumptions that he would not succeed. He saw his classmates internalizing these attitudes, some to the point of dropping out of school. Today, Chris's goal is to become a professor in biophysics so that he can do research, teach, and contribute to his community. In the McNair Scholars Program, Chris increased his knowledge of what graduate school entailed through direct research experience. He learned how to interact with professors on an academic level and increased his confidence in his ability to succeed in a doctoral program. His summer research program on human motion detection thresholds was mentored by Nobel Laureate, Professor Donald Glaser and Dr. T. Kumar. Chris Reyes and Professor Glaser accompanied Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien to Sacramento to talk to the legislators about the importance of such programs for underrepresented, low-income, and first-generation college students.

In parallel, UC Berkeley moved to provide integrated research opportunities for most of our upper division undergraduate students. About 12,000 students enroll for research units and 5,000 enroll in individual research studies per year. UC Berkeley supports more than 20 dedicated undergraduate research programs that provide a mix of instruction, mentoring, and experimental and theoretical research. For example, the Biology Fellows program has supported 160 students in the last four years to work in research labs on campus and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Astronomy undergraduate scholars design and build their own radio telescopes. Over 200 physics, chemistry and engineering majors work in research groups with faculty, and at the LBNL, Space Sciences Lab, Center for Particle Astrophysics and in local industrial labs. Students in the College of Engineering have the opportunity to work on research with faculty on projects in collaboration with local industrial research labs.

In another example, the McNair Scholars program is aimed at increasing the number of low-income, first-generation college and underrepresented minority students who are prepared for and apply to Ph.D. programs. This two-year undergraduate research program, with a ten-week summer research component, prepares 30 students to successfully enroll in graduate programs leading to a doctoral degree over the project period. The program addresses students' needs for research experience, faculty mentoring, information on graduate education and the application process and improved academic skills. Intensive involvement of the Faculty Trustee Board is critical to the success of the program, as is the devoted participation of more than 80 faculty mentors, all of whom are tenured professors. The Program opens the door for Berkeley's students to make important contributions as scholars and teachers within our global community. In the current year, the McNair Scholars Program is working with the UC Berkeley Coalition for Excellence and Diversity in Science, Mathematics and Engineering to recruit and select on-third of new McNair Scholars from the fields of mathematics, science or engineering. After four years of operation on the Berkeley campus, the McNair Scholars Program has served 107 students, 38 are still enrolled as undergraduates. Of the graduated students, 21 are presently enrolled in doctoral programs and 20 are enrolled in Master's or Professional School Programs.

UC Berkeley also serves as host in providing integrated undergraduate research experiences to undergraduate students nationwide. For example, 25 female students per year from across the country take courses in mathematics and statistics at Berkeley and perform research with a mentor on campus or at LBNL. The School of Education and LBNL run summer research programs geared for historically underrepresented minorities and first generation college students. The Summer Undergraduate Program of Engineering Research at Berkeley (SUPERB) in the College of Engineering has been in operation for seven years and has served 100 underrepresented students nationwide who come to UC Berkeley to participate in research projects with faculty and teams of graduate student mentors.

In addition to the examples cited above, UC Berkeley supports more than 20 other programs for undergraduate research. Others include: the Biology Scholars Program (see insert on Prof. Tyrone Hayes), Minority Summer Research Exchange Program, Physics Summer Research program for California Community College Transfer Students, Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP), and the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP) -- URAP alone involving more than 100 faculty and thousands of students. Students in all of these programs are encouraged to publish papers on their research at professional society meetings.

Interview with Asst. Prof. Tyrone Hayes, Integrative Biology

Currently I have 8 undergraduates working in my laboratory -- 3 have given talks at professional meetings and 5 have co-authored papers with me on their research. I make every effort to provide research opportunities to students from traditionally underrepresented groups. Several students working in my laboratory are part of the Biology Scholars Program which is designed to increase the involvement of minorities in science. I serve as a mentor and lecturer in Berkeley's Summer Bridge Program which serves to prepare minorities for entry into Berkeley. I also serve as a faculty mentor in Berkeley's Summer Research Opportunity Program for minorities and participate in recruiting trips to several colleges and symposia including the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) symposium and Minority Biomedical Research Symposium (MBRS). I am also active with a graduate students organization (Scientists of Color) committed to increasing the involvement of minorities in science and have given presentations in their Biological Research Symposium, designed to inspire minority undergraduates to pursue careers in research and teaching. Although much of my effort in this area targets students from traditionally underrepresented ethnic groups and women, I also realize that true diversity must involve everyone. With this in mind, I am careful that my efforts to involve minorities in science do not result in the exclusion of other qualified students.

Many undergraduate classes at UC Berkeley include a substantial research component. Among these, the senior thesis classes required in some departments and the honors classes in others stand out. One such course in Geology requires that the students defend a geophysical model of processes that are not yet fully understood, or about which there is substantial dispute in the research community. Students are encouraged to publish papers on their research efforts in all of these areas at professional society meetings. A less specialized forum for substantial research papers (mainly senior and honors theses) is the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal, now in its 8th year of publication. The California Engineering Magazine is the corresponding undergraduate research publication in Engineering. The inaugural issue of the Berkeley Scientific was published in Spring 1996 and is a biannual journal of undergraduate research in science. The students have elected to include in this first issue interviews with Profs. Glenn Seaborg and Tyrone Hayes, a fitting tribute to UCB faculty members who personify the theme of this proposal: Excellence and Diversity. Quoting from the lead editorial: Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Berkeley Scientific, The Journal of the Society of Young Scientist! The theme of this issue is the difference hard work, persistence, inspiration and hope can make in the production of successful science. We learn from Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg that his rise from a poor family in a mining town to one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century was fueled by hard work, perseverance and the inspiration of one high school chemistry teacher. We learn from Dr. Tyrone Hayes, a twenty-eight year old Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, that the motivation for his success and hard work came from his father, a carpenter who never finished high school. -- Shervin Kordary Pishevar, Editor-in-Chief, Berkeley Scientific, The Journal of the Society of Young Scientist!, Vol 1., Issue 1, 1996, p. 3.

2.4 INNOVATIVE USE OF NEW EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES

The departments of education, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and engineering at Berkeley have been at the forefront of using information technologies to improve undergraduate instruction and research. Two notable NSF-funded national curricular reform efforts have headquarters at UC Berkeley and include learning sciences and information technologies as areas of focus: the Synthesis Undergraduate Engineering Education Coalition (http://www.synthesis.org/) and the Modular Chemistry Consortium (www.cchem.berkeley.edu:8080/). Synthesis has produced multimedia courseware that integrates the diverse analytic, design, experimental and intuitive skills that are required by a practicing engineer. This material can be readily transferred and adapted to different student and campus needs utilizing NEEDS (National Engineering Education Delivery System - www.needs.org/). This is an entirely new courseware development and distribution system that provides widespread Internet access to a growing multimedia courseware database. Co-PI Alice Agogino is Director of Synthesis and Co-Chair of the Chancellor's Task Force on Instructional Technology.

This multimedia case study of the disk drive developed by the Synthesis Coalition highlights engineering design, manufacturing processes, competitive practices in industry and research challenges. This case and others in the series are used in lower division classes to integrate engineering principles and research challenges with fundamentals of calculus, physics and chemistry. Subject areas include: head positioning, control, speed, electricity and magnetism, voice-coil actuation, and inductance. Relatively simple mathematical models can be developed in closed form using calculus. More complex models to improve system performance, such as with the addition of mechanical compliance and thus resonance in disk head positioners, can be modeled in Matlab(TM).

The mission of the ModularChem Consortium (www.cchem.berkeley.edu:8080) is to develop new curricula, multimedia materials and methods which will enhance the appreciation and learning of chemistry. To accomplish this mission, a modular approach to teaching chemistry in the first two years of the undergraduate curriculum is being developed and evaluated. The modules, typically 2-4 weeks of classroom or laboratory materials, present fundamental chemistry to students in the context of a real-world problem or application and emphasize the links between chemistry and other disciplines.

Environmental Chemistry Laboratory

Dr. Susan Kegley and Prof. Angelica Stacy in the chemistry department and leaders in the ModularChem Consortium have developed an innovative approach to teaching first year chemistry laboratory in which students are exposed to a variety of chemical principles in the context of an environmental issue. The program is module-based, where each module focuses on a question that students must answer by doing "research" on a specific issue. What distinguishes this laboratory experience from most is that the students do not simply follow a cookbook procedure to obtain an answer already known to the instructor. Rather, the students research an issue as a team, and are involved in collecting their own samples and planning and carrying out various analyses using modern instrumentation. The students in this class have determined the drinking water quality of local lakes, the quantity of lead in soils in urban parks and gardens, the quantity of pesticides in fruits an vegetables, and assessed risk in hair-dye use. The students' comments suggest that the course is successful in teaching them what scientists can and cannot do, and how the scientific method works.

Libraries and museums have been Berkeley's foundation for integrating research and education. We have more than 14 million items (books, journals, pamphlets, microfilm, maps, government documents, sound recordings, and video) in our libraries and have some 80 museum collections. We are aggressively moving these resources to the Internet through an integrated system of multimedia databases and digital libraries (e.g., the Museum Informatics Project and the Electronic Environmental Library Project). Berkeley supports the NEEDS (National Engineering Education Delivery System - http://www.needs.org/) developed by the Synthesis Coalition to provide a nationwide digital library of instructional software.

Researchers in the Berkeley Multimedia Research Center (BMRC) provide R&D support for these large, digital media collections. BMRC also is leading the development of an integrated digital services network that will allow students in their homes and study spaces to attend remote lectures, review previous lectures, execute interactive courseware, access the digital libraries, or talk to faculty, staff or other students using a video conferencing system.

During the Spring 1997 semester, UC Berkeley will be experimenting with a new concept in integrating research and education -- theme semesters. The inaugural theme semester is called "CyberSemester '97: Computers and Technology". Lower division students will have a wide range of new courses and small seminars to choose from. A few examples are: "Archaeology Goes Multimedia", "Chemical Processing in the Microelectronics Industry", "Take-Off, Cruise and Landing: Introduction to Air Transportation", "How the Internet Works: From Dirt to Ether", "The Computer Revolution", "Infrastructures and Mobile Computing: From Smoke Signals to the Internet, From the Abacus to the Handheld Computer", "The Interactive University: The Theory and Practice of Using the Internet for University Public Service," "The Disk Drive: Microcosm of Engineering", "Automobile Accidents: What Makes a Difference?". Co-PI Prof. Agogino will be running two of these courses, both of which engage students with state-of-the art research in multimedia and engineering, and highlight role models from industry -- "Cyber Cafe: Lunch with Women Engineers in Cyberspace" and "Multimedia Case Studies in Engineering Design on the World Wide Web."

2.5 PARTNERSHIPS

Berkeley has leveraged local facilities to develop partnerships that not only enhance our students' ability to integrate research and education, but also provide opportunities for nationwide student participation. UC Berkeley's School of Education runs nine programs aimed at research in the learning sciences and K-12 instructor and curriculum development. Several focus on math and science education. SESAME (Search for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education) is a unique interdisciplinary program which has produced more than 55 Ph.D.s, who have taken leading roles in solving science-education problems. EMST (Education in Math, Science and Technology) provides MA, Ph.D., and credential programs that focus on research in education and cognitive science. The College of Chemistry is developing an integrated science program for grades 6-10 with NSF sponsorship. Berkeley is home to six members of the National Academy of Education (Profs. Ann Brown, Pat Cross, Andy diSessa, John Ogbu, Marty Trow, and Alan Schoenfeld), which is about 8% of the active membership of the Academy.

The School of Education also supports the Berkeley Evaluation and

Assessment Research (BEAR) Center which integrates student assessment with investigation of the success of educational interventions, and the newly formed Center for Integrated Studies of Learning and Teaching (CISLT) whose charge is to research teacher effectiveness and exemplary pedagogical practice.

The Professional Development Program (PDP), which was one of the first honors program for the bootstrapping of minority students into mathematics careers, was started at UC Berkeley. Via its intensive honors workshop sections, UC Berkeley reversed the serious failure rate for minorities in mathematics. Dr. Uri Treisman in his doctoral dissertation in the SESAME program, explored and enhanced the effectiveness of the PDP program. Efforts of this type -- integrating research and education, with a positive impact on excellence

and diversity -- have been part of our scholarly tradition for many years at Berkeley. SESAME and EMST students have been involved with many campus-wide projects through the years, from the reconstruction of laboratory exercises in the physics department back in the 1970s to the current "Integrating Calculus, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering Education through Technology Enhanced Visualization, Simulation and Design Cases and Outcomes Assessment" project developed by Co-PI Prof. Agogino. [10, 11]

Another example of a partnership with national impact comes from our Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics (CEA), a research unit that operates a NASA satellite, the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE), used to conduct astrophysics research in a previously unexplored energy regime. The science instruments aboard the EUVE satellite, a highly successful NASA mission, were designed and calibrated at UCB's Space Sciences Laboratory, and will operate through 1999. Over the past fifteen years CEA has involved more than 400 undergraduate students in research pertaining to the hardware, software, mission operations, and astrophysics investigation phases of the EUVE satellite mission. The CEA has also established a science education and outreach effort involving educational research and innovation implementation programs for science and technology that benefit the K-12 community. CEA has brought together a strong national partnership of science museums and research centers with wide-ranging expertise for the purpose of investigating and implementing strategies for the long-term interface between the scientific and K-12 communities. One project, Science On-Line (SOL) provides unique earth and space science classroom resources developed by teachers in collaboration with UC Berkeley scientists and science museum educators (www.cea.berkeley.edu/Education/SII). The undergraduate students working in our satellite mission are key members of our education and outreach group, providing the link between their research experiences and the K-12 communities from the surrounding school districts which comprise the future pool of UC Berkeley freshman. Several Latino undergraduates in collaboration with Dr. Isabel Hawkins, led the effort to establish and obtain outside funding for the bilingual Family Astronomy/Astronomia Para La Familia Program. [3]

Berkeley has initiated many other outreach programs which have become models in teacher training and science literacy nationwide. The Lawrence Hall of Science (www.lhs.berkeley.edu) pioneered K-12 teacher training in math, science and technology through a hands-on science museum. The MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement) Program created in our College of Engineering 25 years ago, has expanded to many other states. University Research Expeditions brings together Berkeley faculty with high school teachers to bring the benefits of research experiences to high school students. The Interactive University project, Chaired by The Vice Chancellor and Provost Carol Christ, is an umbrella for 15 campus groups that use information technologies to improve K-12 education and community service. One of these projects is the Hands-on Universe where high school classes around the world get software and training to control a network of automated telescopes. The Interactive University project is working with the San Francisco and Oakland Unified School Districts, San Francisco and Oakland and local government, community based organizations and industry, to develop a model of how to use information infrastructure to best support K-12 students, their families and teachers in disadvantaged urban communities. A set of Internet based outreach methods are being used to enable us to help underserved students succeed in school and be prepared for college, careers, citizenship and lifelong learning.

Recently, Co-PI Chancellor [13] Tien has taken a committed stance in support of affirmative action to increase the eligibility of underrepresented students at Berkeley. Through his leadership the Berkeley Pledge will support successful K-12 outreach programs and develop new ones. All of the programs under the Berkeley Pledge build on the research talent and infrastructure of the Berkeley campus. Chancellor Tien took great pride in hosting the National Conference on Educational Collaboration and Excellence, focused on "Identifying Cornerstones of Collaboration" in educating today's children for the 21st century. The Honorable Richard Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education, joined more than 250 of the nation's leaders in education, private industry and community in Berkeley on Oct. 4-5, 1996 to chart new collaborative models for enriching K-12 education.

"What I like most about the Berkeley Pledge program is that it's not just centered around secondary education. It reaches out to mold children at the primary levels so that by the time they get to secondary school, they can take advantage to what the campus has to offer."

-- Kaye Burnside, Washington Elementary School in Point Richmond

3.0 PAST COMMITMENTS AND INVESTMENTS

Berkeley has launched a strategic planning process to optimize our resources and re-evaluate our priorities. We are pleased that our instructional departments have been able to sustain their commitment to undergraduate instruction in the face of five consecutive years of budget cuts, which have reduced campus general fund expenditures from $402 million in 1990-91 to $328 million in 1994-95, for an overall cut of 18.4 %. [4] Yet the innovations described here have been funded in the tens of millions of dollars and show that our priorities are moving to a balance between, and an integration of, research and education. All levels of campus administration are firmly in support of these goals and have led reform efforts at national forums, such as the National Academies and professional societies, to promote them nationwide (as described in Section 2.2). Chancellor Tien has invested $1 million of campus discretionary funds and $10,000 of his personal funds to seed the Berkeley Pledge. Through the Interactive University Project, the Vice Chancellor and Provost Carol Christ has garnered approximately $5 million to extend the UC Berkeley resources to the general public through Internet outreach activities. She also matches much of the department funding on the undergraduate research projects. All of these programs have been targeted in Berkeley's New Century fundraising campaign.

"The Undergraduate Instrumentation and Image Processing Laboratory in the Department of Astronomy was the recipient of the 1995 Educational Initiatives Award, which recognizes a department or a unit that has created an outstanding program or initiative that could serve as a model for other departments or units on campus. The instructional strategy used in this laboratory course has been to set an experimental goal (for example, measuring the distance to a cluster of stars) and provide the students with the equipment and computational analysis tools to carry out the task. In the course, students are organized into groups similar to typical research groups and work out their research strategy with the instructor as a consultant. They construct two radio observatories on the roof of Campbell Hall and perform four experiments to become familiar with the basic electronic components. Then they actually assemble the observatories themselves, experimentally determine the characteristics of the systems, and use them to make astronomical observations.

4.0 DESIRED OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS

All of the projects highlighted in this proposal are "islands of excellence" in that they are many excellent individual programs, but they are not coordinated, centrally evaluated nor are "lessons learned" broadly disseminated. This NSF award will allow us to critically and systematically evaluate, reward, expand, and disseminate the best of these efforts. Desirable outcomes to be measured are:

In addition we will conduct longitudinal studies of the students graduating from programs with the highest success rates and collect both qualitative and quantitative data.

5.0 DOCUMENTATION EFFORTS

The Division of Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies, under Dean Carolyn Porter, will be in charge of documenting and assessing most of the undergraduate research activities. She is currently forming a governing board with representation from all of the campus units with undergraduate programs. She has begun the process of identifying the current programs, and collecting assessment information from each. Co-PIs Chancellor Tien and Dean Agogino will Co-Chair the task force associated with this grant.

6.0 EVIDENCE OF ACHIEVEMENTS

Throughout the text of this proposal we have provided data that are a result of our data collection efforts relative to many of the metrics in Section 4.0. Much of this data can be found in the annual reports for each of the programs described and are summarized in our annual reports to the Legislature. [4, 15] For example, nearly 90% of the SUPERB undergraduate research students in the College of Engineering go on to get graduate degrees, even though most of them are considered "at risk" students. The McNair Scholars Program serves students who have traditionally been significantly underrepresented in graduate degree programs (low-income, first-generation college students and students from ethnic groups that are underrepresented in graduate programs). Strikingly, the McNair program is not only successful in helping these students obtain admission to graduate programs, it is even more successful than the university at large. A recent survey by the Office of Student Research at Berkeley found that 18% of the respondents (recent Berkeley graduates) enrolled in a Ph.D. program immediately after graduating from Berkeley, while 11% enrolled in a Master's program at that time. The McNair program has 25% more of its graduates enrolling in Ph.D. programs than the university in general and 24% more of its students enrolling in Master's degree programs. Given the success of the Berkeley campus in general, the success of the McNair program is quite substantial.

We also have some striking statistics in terms of our degree of integrating research and education for all students. As summarized in Section 2.3, over 50% of our undergraduate students receive substantial research experiences. This in the context of the mission of UC Berkeley as a public institution. Our students are diverse in ethnic, economic and academic backgrounds. Twenty-five percent of our freshman and fifty percent of our Junior transfer students are first generation college students -- students in which neither parent completed college.

To our frustration, however, the data are fragmented and incommensurate, making comparisons and campus-wide evaluations difficult. The RAIRE grant funds will provide us the opportunity to take a systems view of these programs, evaluate and compare them against commensurate metrics and identify best practices which can be shared across the campus and nationwide.

7.0 PLANS FOR USE OF AWARD FUNDS

As one of the world's premier public research universities, Berkeley is uniquely situated to provide its undergraduates with unparalleled learning opportunities. The cutting-edge research performed by our faculty informs, enriches, and enlivens the lectures and seminars that our students attend. However, for all the wisdom soaked up by attentive students in our campus' lecture halls, we understand that the most effective learning does not take place until our bright and talented undergraduates can actively participate in the creation of knowledge.

Through mutually beneficial research apprenticeships with faculty members and graduate student mentors, students find that learning means discovery, and each new discovery generates a new series of productive questions. Engaging in research trains students to be disciplined critical thinkers, to be grounded, patient, and creative. Serious research ignites an exhilaration for learning, and brings the satisfaction of knowing one has made a real contribution.

Only in the last decade has the Berkeley campus taken programmatic steps to extend the benefits of direct participation in research to undergraduates regardless of their major. Student interest in these new research opportunities far outstrips our current resources. For instance, the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program received over 800 student applications this fall for only 200 research positions. Our goal is to involve significantly increasing numbers of undergraduate students in the original research taking place every day in every building on campus. The lessons they learn--not only about the content of their disciplines but also about the process of discovery--will provide life-long satisfaction and rewards.

The faculty members who have welcomed undergraduate participation in their research have been motivated by their commitment to undergraduate education and their conviction that no amount of classroom instruction can take the place of hands-on research. Most find that the hours they invest in training the students in research methodology are more than repaid in the research assistance the undergraduate apprentices provide on faculty projects. From the point of view of the undergraduates, these apprenticeships provide not only a superb foundation in skills and techniques, but also, and more importantly, an insider's view of the particular challenges and rewards of making knowledge in a given discipline. Undergraduate research benefits everyone involved. Our challenge is to extend these benefits to as many of our 1,400 faculty and 21,000 undergraduates as possible.

During the past few months, our faculty staff and students have met regularly to compare data on our undergraduate research programs and to identify the best use of award funds. We all agree that the primary focus should be on evaluating, expanding and disseminating the best of our large array of undergraduate research programs. The funds will be used to:

  1. Assess and Centrally Coordinate. Create an umbrella organization called the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) in the Division of Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies, under Dean Carolyn Porter. The funds will be used to hire a 50% assessment coordinator for the math, science and engineering undergraduate research programs. The Assessment Coordinator will have a strong background in program assessment and both qualitative and quantitatively evaluation methods. UC Berkeley will provide matching funds to support the assessment activities of undergraduate research programs in other areas. UC Berkeley will also match with appropriate administrative support as well. The Office of Undergraduate Research will be housed in one of the newly renovated wings of our undergraduate library, Moffit Library. As the goals of this program are considered "vital" to the university, Chancellor Tien is requesting a complete waiver of overhead from the UC Office of the President.

  2. Once commensurate metrics are agreed upon, data collected and evaluated, the steering committee for the Office of Undergraduate Research will work collectively to highlight and understand what practices are successful and can be transferred to other units on campus and to other universities.

  3. Expand and Increase the Impact of Successful Programs. The NSF award will also be used to disseminate our programs internally and encourage more faculty to become involved. It will also be used to expand our GSR/GSI and new faculty training in new research on pedagogy associated with math, science and engineering education and the role that research integration can play. Much of the cost of this will come from a recent grant from the GE Fund. The NSF award will allow us to expand this GSR/GSI training to include the undergraduate research component.

  4. Expand Student Publications. Moved by the Editorial by the student-run Berkeley Scientific (see insert below), we wish to use the NSF award to further stimulate more undergraduate students to publish and present their research.

    The mission of the Society of Young Scientists is to motivate students from all backgrounds to enter the sciences. We aim to provide young scientists with the opportunity to receive recognition for their scientific endeavors in a faculty reviewed, student published journal. But we can do more to help undergraduates become better researchers and help inspire them to never relinquish their dreams. Along with the establishment of this journal, we hope to help create an arena where lectures, laboratory classes, research, seminars, symposiums, and training sessions unify their efforts more effectively. We propose the formation of a campus-wide undergraduate research council comprised of faculty and students to help promote undergraduate research; and the formation of a class dedicated to getting undergraduates trained in the scientific method through reading scientific literature, forming their own hypotheses based on their readings, and then testing their ideas in a laboratory section.

    -- Shervin Kordary Pishevar,

    Editor-in-Chief, Berkeley Scientific, The Journal of the Society of Young Scientist!, Vol 1., Issue 1, 1996, p. 3.

  5. Disseminate Externally. We expect dissemination to take on many forms. We will develop World Wide Web documents for all of our programs, documenting best practices where appropriate. The WWW pages will be constructed in such a way that they can be downloaded in print form for paper or for CD ROM dissemination. All of this material will also be readily available for use in journal or professional society presentations as well. The NEEDS (National Engineering Education Delivery System) will be used to document research projects that can transmitted in digital form for others to download and use.

  6. Develop, Refine and Disseminate Exemplars. Truly outstanding research programs or freshman seminars would be given additional funds to further develop and refine for interactive digital dissemination to science museums, K-12 outreach programs, and possibly television. The NSF award would be used to seed and motivate this effort.

8.0 REFERENCES

  1. Agogino, A. M. and W. H. Wood, "The Synthesis Coalition: Information Technologies Enabling a Paradigm Shift in Engineering Education," Keynote talk, Proceedings of Hyper-Media in Vaasa'94, pp. 3-10. The Synthesis URL is: http://www.synthesis.org/.

  2. AMS, "Recognition and Rewards in the Mathematical Sciences," Report of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Committee on Professional Recognition and Rewards, Chair, Calvin C. Moore, American Mathematical Society, 1994.

  3. Battle, R. and I. Hawkins, "A Study of Emerging Teacher Practices in Internet-Based Lesson Plan Development," (to appear in the Journal for Science Education and Technology.)

  4. Carnegie, D., Office of Student Research, Undergraduate Affairs, UC Berkeley, in press, "Highlights of a Survey of Students Awarded Bachelor's Degrees from Berkeley."

  5. NRC, Science Teaching Reconsidered--A Handbook, Committee on Undergraduate Science Education (CUSE), 1997.

  6. NRC, From Analysis to Action: Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology, Report of a Convocation, Center for Science Mathematics, and Engineering Education, National Academy Press, Washington D.C., 1996.

  7. NSF "America's Academic Future," Report on the Conclusions from the Presidential Young Investigator Colloquium on U.S. Engineering, Mathematics, and Science Education for the Year 2010.

  8. NSF, "Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology. Report on its Review of Undergraduate Education to the Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources from the Advisory Committee to the NSF Directorate, April 30, 1996.

  9. Pister, K. (Chair), Report of the University-Wide Task Force on Faculty Rewards, June 26, 1991.

  10. Price, P. B. , "Improving the Gateway Courses in Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics," NSF Grant, 1996.

  11. Schoenfeld, A., "Assessment and Accountability: Where are we? What is our Baseline?," in Making it Happen: First in the World in Mathematics and Science Education, Executive Office of the President, Washington D.C., 1995.

  12. Tien, Chang-Lin, interview, "Berkeley's Chancellor Tien on Education and Life," Civil Rights Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 1995.

  13. Tien, Chang-Lin, Editorial, The New York Times, Sunday, March 31, 1996.

  14. Tollefson, S.K and B.G. Davis, What Good Teachers Say about Teaching: Essays from Berkeley. UC Regents, 1994.

  15. University of California's, Undergraduate Instruction and Faculty Teaching Activities: Fourth Annual Report to the Legislature, March, 1996.
Last modified: Nov. 16, 1996