PSU Magazine Spring 1996

PHOTO BY BRENT SCHAUER The partnerships program not only sends students out into the world of business, private organizations, and public agencies as an essential part of coursework, it encourages faculty to develop long-term relationships with these groups, according to Amy Driscoll, director of the program. Students go out of the classroom and work in refugee centers, tutoring new immigrants. They design logos for nonprofit organizations and training programs for small businesses. They do viewer surveys for public cable televi– sion stations. In April, they helped with a huge produc– tion of "West Side Story" put on by the severely handicapped. In one course last winter, students studied recycling and then went into high school classrooms to teach what they had learned. The high school students, in turn, made videos about recycling and showed the videos to grade school classes. For their part, professors in fields ranging from market– ing and social work to environmental sciences and English, develop common goals and ongoing activities with public and private agencies, according to Driscoll. This is as real-world as it gets, and students and facu lty alike report that the experience is tremendously stimulat– ing and rewarding. But how do you judge the success of such disparate enterprises? While you may feel sure that the University's impact on the community must be beneficial for everyone involved, how do you really know? The same questions must be asked about improving techniques for teaching. How do you try out all these innovations in the classroom and know that they're work– ing? More generally, how do you apply rigorous standards of research and scholarship to all these various reforms? These are the problems tackled by the third thrust of the center, called University Assessment Resources. As it does with its other initiatives, the Center takes its cue for developing methods of eva.luation from the faculty. "We don't assess people or departments, we help them assess themselves," says Tracy Dillon, who coordinates a team of faculty working on the assessment program. It's a challenging and exciting task, according to Dillon, especially when dealing with something as new as the partnerships program. "A classroom used to mean four walls and a closed door," he says. "PSU is exploring what we really mean by the classroom, because learning takes place in many other places. Outside the classroom, the dynamics of learning are complete ly different, and we have to rethink the ways we traditionally judge success." I n one indication of the value the University places on the center's work, Sherwin Davidson, its director, was given the title of vice provost. Davidson also serves as dean of Extended Studies. Another sign of the center's importance is its close relationship with the new University Studies Program– PSU's experiment in curriculum reform, which turns the traditional undergraduate experience upside down. Learning in the community and innovative yearlong courses-which are multidisciplinary and team-taught, with students studying together in the same group for an entire year-are key components of the new curriculum. The center helps coordinate or evaluate these initiatives. In all three areas of the center's work, as well as in its work with University Studies, PSU is clearly breaking new ground, accord ing to Davidson. While reforms of undergraduate education are happening elsewhere in the country, the comprehensive nature of the effort at PSU seems to be unique, she says. How does so much radical change happen in an unlikely place like Portland Srate University? Because of inspired leadership-and vital financial support in a time of budget cuts-from President Ramaley and Provost Michael Reardon, according to Davidson. But also because of the faculty's widespread openness, commitment to change, and willingness to collaborate and do the hard work, she says. It may be an exaggeration to call the reforms at PSU a revolution-but then again, it may not be. Call it a revolution in sheepskin clothing. D (Jack Yost MA '71, a Portland writer and filmmaker, wrote the article "Rating the Rankings," which appeared in the Winter 1996 PSU Magazine.) SPRING 1996 PSU MAGAZINE 13