Faculty Senate approves task force to promote a broad education; discusses first-year student experience and programs

Stanford News


March 10, 2017Senate approves task force to promote a broad education, discusses a study on first-year students, reviews reports on Thinking Matters and Introductory Seminars The speakers at the meeting included Professor Russell Berman, chair of the Planning and Policy Board and director of Thinking Matters and Introductory Seminars, and Professor Sarah Church, senior associate vice provost for undergraduate education and member of the Coordinated First Year Review Committee.





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By Kathleen J. Sullivan

Professor Russell Berman, chair of the Planning and Policy Board and director of Thinking Matters and Introductory Seminars, speaking to the Faculty Senate on Thursday. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

The Faculty Senate on Thursday recommended that Stanford create a task force to find new ways to promote and enhance a broad education at Stanford, using eight recommendations contained in a 2017 report by the Planning and Policy Board as a starting point.
On a voice vote, the senate approved a resolution recommending that Provost Persis Drell and Senate Chair Debra Satz appoint a task force to promote two goals in collaboration with the university’s long-range planning process:
To ensure that each student has the opportunity to explore the intellectual riches that Stanford has to offer; and
To reaffirm the faculty’s commitment to the value of a broad education that cultivates students’ capacity to think, speak and write critically, clearly and imaginatively, and that contributes to the development of human beings open to the world and to the challenges of local, national and global citizenship.
The vote followed a brief presentation by Russell Berman, a professor of comparative literature and of German studies, about the major recommendations of the Planning and Policy Board’s Report and Recommendations on Students’ Curricular Choices and the Critical Role of a Liberal Arts Education. The senate discussed the report at its Jan. 26 meeting. A link to the report ...


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