NEWS
4 April 30, 2013
UTSA: New degrees, classes to improve academic quality From Page 1
ed to the university. Of the UT System schools, UTSA ranks fifth in lowest acceptance rate with a rate of 73 percent, following UT-Pan American with 62 percent, UT-Arlington with 59 percent, UT-Dallas with 52 percent and UT-Austin with 47 percent, according to College Board. UTSA’s acceptance rate is currently 73 percent, down from almost 100 percent in 1990s and early 2000s, and has since dropped from 78.84 percent in 2010, according to THECB Access and Equity report. Frederick’s reasoning is that as UTSA begins to accept more and more top 25 percent students and move away from the bottom quartiles, only those top students will begin applying, thus changing the diversity of the pool of applicants. “I have to say that’s something really difficult to predict,” Frederick said of the 40.2 percent acceptance rate. “As we raise admission standards, we’ll attract a different sort of student applicant and that will affect that acceptance rate in ways that we can’t necessarily project.” “If we assume the mixture (of applicants) is the same as it is right now, then, yes, that acceptance rate would go down,” said Frederick. UTSA’s enrollment rate of top 10 percent students has roughly ranged from 30-35 percent, according to the same report. And according to GRIP predictions, it will stay the same in the future, with a prediction of 29.9
percent in 2021. Apart from the acceptance rate and increasing admission standards, the Coordinated Admission Program (CAP), which allows students to attend UTSA before meeting requirements to transfer to UT-Austin, must be considered. Once deemed to phase-out in the following years, CAP students’ ties with UTSA will end sooner than expected. “It’s actually a little more abrupt than a phase-out,” Frederick stated. “I think we’re going to discontinue it after this coming year.” According to Frederick, UTArlington’s decision to end its participation in the program and UT-Austin’s interest to disband it moved UTSA toward this resolution. “My guess is that after there are very few schools left that are participating in the CAP program, UT-Austin will be able to unplug it completely,” said Frederick. The termination of the program overall requires UT System regent approval, while regent approval is unnecessary for UTSA to end its participation. Education Apart from admission standards, students and faculty should expect academic change as well. UTSA is condensing some degrees and constructing others to better serve the university. Because of low participation, UTSA will offer more general degrees with room for specialization, something that Frederick believes will make it easier
to maintain for the university, while still having some majors accessible to students as specializations. “Every college is constantly looking for new programs that are going to meet the needs of their students,” said Frederick. A degree in modern languages is now offered in place of specified foreign languages, such as German or French. Students can still pursue a specific language, but now under the more umbrella-styled degree program. Some music specializations will move to the umbrellastyled degree also. The classics degree, with little enrollment, was recently combined with humanities, as well. Recently added degrees include a new bachelors degree in public administration and a bachelors in public health. A joint program was moved from the Health Science Center, so UTSA now offers a bachelors in nutrition and masters in dietetic studies. Another degree “that’s very exciting is a Global Affairs degree that our political science and geography department is putting together,” said Frederick. A new department of entrepreneurship and technology management in business was created, which Frederick suspects will lead to new degree plans in the future, while possible certificate programs may emerge in the engineering field. “It’s part of the obligation of the university to stay current and continue to offer things that students need,” said Frederick.
Quality In addition to offering new degrees, UTSA will be implementing new courses in the core curriculum aimed at helping freshmen prepare for the college experience. Working under the direction of Frederick, a Freshman Experience Task Force was charged with simplifying the freshmen transition to college. The task force ultimately decided to reshape the Core Curriculum, determining that only a math and composition course were “absolutely fundamental to success in a student’s curriculum, regardless of their major,” according to the university’s website. Many students have already been required to take Q courses, which are part of a larger Quality Enhancement Plan to make existing courses have a stronger emphasis on communication and quantitative reasoning skills. Q courses “seek to develop quantitative reasoning skills of its undergraduates by increasing contextual learning and advance student knowledge of data analysis,” according to UTSA’s website. “All students must meet a Q requirement and take a Q course in order to graduate,” said Assistant Vice Provost Nancy Martin, who oversees the Core Curriculum at UTSA. “So we’re trying to grow the number of courses that have that Q designation.” UTSA will offer 24 Q Courses next year, compared to the 18 of the 2012-2013 school year. UTSA will also be introducing an Academic Inquiry Course to help students adjust
to the structure and expectations of a college lifestyle. According to Martin, the course would help demonstrate how college is different than high school, notably that where a high school would simply teach knowledge, research universities “create knowledge.” “The general purpose of that course is to introduce students to the university,” Martin stated. “The Academic Inquiry and Scholarship Course is intended to introduce students to how it is that various disciplines conduct research: how do they approach it how do they think about it?” According to the Graduation Rate Improvement Plan, only 41.6 percent of students at UTSA were estimated to make it to their fourth year at the university. Since the GRIP was implemented that number is expected to rise to over 66 percent of students by 2021. By easing freshmen into the expectations of a university while simultaneously challenging them to think critically, UTSA hopes to ensure more students walk across the stage at graduation without compromising a Tier One level education. Funding Despite the growth in funding on the Tier One path, UTSA may encounter another predicament involving funding dispersal. According to the San Antonio Express-News, “A bill approved last session required the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to begin incorporating student success measures into
funding recommendations.” HB 25, authored by Dan Branch (R-Dallas) and Ralph Sheffield (R-Temple), if passed, will call for at least 25 percent of base funding to be disbursed based on student success in public colleges and at 15 percent disbursed in other academic institutions. “Twenty-five percent is higher than what lawmakers had been talking about before the session. Of course, the coordinating board had recommended ten percent as the amount,” stated Frederick. This performance-based funding is a way to incentivize institutions to bring about greater student success, said Frederick. Under the bill, funding guidelines would move away from enrollment numbers and toward state academic comparisons. He continued, “It’s a noble gesture, and it may have the desired effect, but it also may bring with it some subsidiary reactions. For example, one might question: Well, will universities be willing to take a chance on students that would ordinarily be labeled as highrisk?” High-risk students being generally classified as low in socioeconomic status or first generation college students. Frederick urged that he does not think UTSA would respond to the bill in that way if it is passed, and stated, “I think we’re very earnest in our desire to improve student success rates here (at UTSA), and do it the right way by helping at-risk students achieve success.” HB 25 is currently out of See TIER ONE, Page 6