Committees focus on educational trends, evaluate degrees to offer optimal programs

Three new committees designed to evaluate the academic functionality and efficiency of IU’s curriculum will spend this semester examining what IU has to offer and how it can be improved.

Announced last week by President Michael McRobbie, these academic committees — the New Academic Directions Committee, the University Steering Committee and the Old Crescent Academic Working Group — will each take a different approach at analyzing the academic structures offered by them university.

John Graham, dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, will serve on the Academic Directions Committee to help evaluate the quality and efficiency of IU academics. The focus is to see how IU compares with current educational trends and what is expected or needed for future development.

“Our challenge on new ventures is to build on IU’s underappreciated strengths in fields such as international affairs, humanities and philanthropic studies,” Graham said.

Senior and IU Student Association President Michael Coleman, who will represent student concerns with his participation in the committees, said he sees various possibilities for how IU can make improvements to existing academic departments or even create new ones.

“If someone wants to create their own major, we need to analyze that to see if we should offer this area as a degree rather than just as an independent program,” Coleman said.

Coleman said the addition of an engineering program would help the University to better compete with Purdue University, and that there is a possibility of consolidating programs for efficiency.

“There will be discussions of all schools and different majors,” Coleman said.
“We’re thinking in perspectives that haven’t been thought about in a while to see where the academic affairs and our University should be going in the next few years to really make sure we’re offering the best for students.”

Chair for the Steering Committee John Applegate, vice president for University Regional Affairs, Planning and Policy, said he did not think the elimination of existing programs or departments should be a large concern.

“This isn’t really a program review process,” Applegate said. “This is forward looking to where we should be putting our focus, not doing detailed evaluations of
particular programs.”

Applegate said the committees will be focusing on how to organize academic programs to make them as effective and meaningful as possible.

“I imagine if we taught horse and buggy repair we might say it’s time to move on to internal combustion action or electric cars,” he said.