Session Focused On Improving Undergrad Education At Tech

As drop/add will open Monday upon the return from Thanksgiving break, Virginia Tech students will scramble to advisors in search of guidance in planning their college careers. Whether they get an appointment with their advisors, and then whether they actually get into the classes recommended by them, are only a few problems currently affecting students in undergraduate education.

Vice President and Dean for Undergraduate Education Dr. Daniel Wubah this week gave the last of the “Afternoon Chat” series in Hillcrest Dining Room in which he discussed these issues along with his vision for improving undergraduate education at Virginia Tech.

This vision included issues such as increasing student involvement, advising and enrollment management.

Director of University Studies Kimberly Brown introduced Wubah with background information, stating that he “began his tenure on Feb. 1, 2009.”

Wubah has been at Virginia Tech for nine months.

Wubah opened his chat by stating that the “most important goal [in his vision for undergraduate education] is to increase student involvement in discovery and engagement by creating more opportunities.”

He said he wants students to have a common experience through core liberal education programs and wants to ensure students are engaged and get this experience very early.

Wubah spoke of the importance of giving students a level of support so they don’t go through three or four colleges before they decide which they want to be in.

Another program discussed by Wubah was “VT Eye.” According to Wubah, a recent issue at Virginia Tech is the “efficiency in use of space.” With VT Eye, faculty will be able to control over 146 classrooms. Until recently there was no way to do so.

An alumnus who works at the university developed such software to monitor the use of space on campus. With VT Eye there is a website in which professors may log on and a display of every classroom and what is going on at that time will be shown. There, professors can find out which classroom is being used at what time so when a student says they cannot get into a class because it is full, they can see the amount of space actually available.

“I think providing such information is useful because it allows students to schedule courses on time,” said Wubah.

Wubah then moved on to the topic of enrollment management. He stressed the importance of recruiting the proper mix of students to support the university mission and its goals.

SCHEV requirements state that the university should have 1,200 transfers. Last year, there were fewer than 1,000. A possible solution brought up for this issue was to increase advising for transfer students.

Currently Virginia Tech does not have a specific advising department for transfer students.

“Advising is something we need to pay attention to,” said Wubah. “We need to provide students with the information they need.”

Finally, Wubah discussed the quality enhancement plan.

“If you build a skyscraper on a weak foundation it will fall,” said Wubah.

Wubah explained the importance of providing students with strong first- and second-year experiences as part of this quality enhancement plan.

Another component of this plan is the usage of e-portfolio.

“In about 5-10 years from now, when graduates apply for jobs, companies will not ask for transcripts…they will ask for e-portfolios. We want to start building this from day one. Companies will send an email and say ‘give us access to your e-portfolio.’ Then the company will go in and pull information [from it]. We need to think about how we can make this available to students,” said Wubah.

The chat concluded with questions by faculty members. Wubah spent a majority of this section speaking about enrollment caps, which appears to be a prominent issue among all academic departments.

“From where I sit, whenever you have a cap in a program you worry about where students will end up. If you put a cap, where will students go? The best way to prevent a cap is to manage admissions. If you can control the amount of students coming in, you don’t have to worry about that problem,” said Wubah.

In relation to the communication department, Dr. Rachel Holloway gave her input as well. “For communication, enrollment management is a big one. We have large freshmen classes and little room to move students internally. We would like to admit any student in good standing,” said Holloway.