Quality Enhancement Plan
Appendix C: Letter to the Faculty on
Community-Based Research Opportunities
July 15, 2005
Dear Faculty Colleagues:
As part of Rice's re-accreditation by the Southern Association
of Colleges and Schools (SACS), we are asked to develop a Quality
Enhancement Plan (QEP) that demonstrates a university-wide
commitment to a multi-year focused course of action designed to
enhance student learning. Although accreditation requirements are
not often viewed as opportunities, we believe that the QEP provides
Rice with a real chance to enhance student learning in a meaningful
way.
The QEP is entitled "Engaging Urban Houston: Undergraduate
Education in the City" and will focus on cultivating and expanding
community-based research opportunities for our undergraduates. The
logic is simple: Rice has already achieved distinction in its
dedication to undergraduate research. The QEP now offers us the
opportunity to build on that success, to forge collaborations with
community partners, and to leverage the application of faculty and
student intellectual capital for the benefit of our students, our
city, our economy, and our quality of life. We believe that
community-based research experiences will help students to think
like practitioners in their fields and recognize that the methods
of inquiry learned on campus have practical applications beyond the
hedges. Equally important, community-based projects will force
students to examine the social contexts within which work and
choices occur and to wrestle with the additional complexity of
interfacing with real people and real problems. Successful
engagement of even a minority of undergraduates in community-based
research will alter and enrich the very nature and content of
conversation on campus, both in the classroom and across the dinner
table. Similarly, increased faculty interest and participation in
such projects will inevitably spill over into classrooms and
laboratories, sparking the development of new courses and, we hope,
additional interest among colleagues and students in civic
engagement and the very real problems of urban Houston.
Student interest in community-based research and civic
engagement and, thus, the success of the QEP will depend, above
all, on faculty input, support, and participation. We can begin
this process by learning from programs already in place. For
example, many of you are already providing undergraduates with
opportunities for experiential learning. Many more have forged ties
with community partners in government, education, business,
medicine, and the arts, and have focused at least a portion of your
research endeavors on the problems of Houston. In the fall, the QEP
committee, appointed by Provost Gene Levy, will organize
opportunities for faculty to share their reflections on these
projects, as well as discuss the benefits of undergraduate
participation in them. At the same time, however, we ask that all
members of the faculty not only share their thoughts on this
effort, but also think boldly and anew about the character and
place of undergraduate research in Rice's distinctive academic
mission and fortuitous geographic location.
David and I hope that you will participate in this important
initiative. Although the Office of the Dean of Undergraduates will
be following up with faculty in a variety of forums this summer and
fall, you may contact Matt Taylor at either ptt@rice.edu or x4997
directly with any questions or ideas regarding the Quality
Enhancement Plan.
Respectfully,
Robin Forman
Dean of Undergraduates
David Leebron
President