[Proflist] AMS statement
Alan Robock
robock at envsci.rutgers.edu
Wed Oct 20 18:08:57 MDT 2004
Dear Donna,
The typical teaching load for full-time faculty at research universities
is one course per semester. If each professor teaches one undergrad and
one grad course per year, then 6 faculty members could offer 18 credits
of undergrad courses per year. Considering that some of the required 27
credits, which would be offered every year, would come from other
departments, then 6 would be a very small number of full-time faculty
and I can easily see that 10 would be needed to offer a comprehensive
set of courses. I agree that there are many different types of faculty
appointments and situations, but this is the typical model with which I
am familiar, and other situations can be modified to correspond to this
model. I am not suggesting running a program with only part-time
faculty.
I agree that these numbers are rather arbitrary, and there is the danger
of having administrators think that a program is too small to be viable,
but leaving it at 3 for research universities is also unreasonable.
Alan
Professor Alan Robock
Editor, JGR - Atmospheres
Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9478
Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road E-mail: robock at envsci.rutgers.edu
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 tucker at phoenix.atmo.ku.edu wrote:
> Alan,
>
> I would like to address your suggestion under #1 below.
> The AMS statement on the bachelor's degree is meant to
> address minimum standards - it says so in the introduction.
> Perhaps it should address more than minimum standards but
> that would require reworking the whole statement.
>
> It is true that the AMS statement can help programs that
> wish to hire more faculty. Administrators certainly pay
> attention to statements by professional societies. Unfortunately,
> administrators too often shoot for the minimum acceptable (like
> too many students).
>
> Your suggestion opens a number of cans of worms, however. What
> about universities where there are some faculty in the atmospheric
> sciences program with mostly teaching appointments and some with
> teaching research appointments (Yes, they do exist!)? What about
> part time faculty? I think we are correct to set a minimum number
> of full time faculty as I don't think we want an atmospheric sciences
> program staffed with only part time faculty. How do we define full
> time teaching - some universities define it differently than others.
> How much time do faculty members need to devote to graduate teaching
> and research before it is substantial. I am sure we can think of
> schools that clearly fall into the category of having all full time
> teachers. Likewise, we can recognize some schools where faculty
> devote considerable effort to graduate teaching and research. But
> there are a lot of schools that do not neatly fall into these
> categories.
>
> Donna Tucker 1475 Jayhawk Blvd.
> Associate Professor 213 Lindley Hall
> dtucker at ku.edu Department of Geography
> (785) 864-4738 University of Kansas
> (785) 864-5378 (fax) Lawrence, KS 66045-7613
>
>
> ----- Begin Included Message -----
>
> Dear Mohan,
>
> 1. As you know, I have already made the following suggestion:
>
> I think we need to specify recommended numbers of faculty and not just
> the minimum. This would be very valuable for all departments seeking to
> hire more faculty. In other disciplines, national accredidation panels
> specify the number of faculty needed, and AMS can do a similar service
> for us. In the second paragraph from the bottom on page 4, I recommend
> the following change:
>
> "At undergraduate colleges with full-time teaching faculty, there should
> be a minimum of three faculty members, but the recommended level is five
> or more. At research universities, where faculty devote a substantial
> amount of time to graduate teaching and research as well as
> undergraduate teaching, there should be a minimum of six faculty
> members, but the recommended level is ten or more to be able to cover
> all the necessary disciplinary areas. The faculty members should have
> the expertise ..."
>
> ----
>
> 2. In addition, a resolution was passed quickly at the end of the Heads
> and Chairs meeting in Boulder last week that recommended changes in the
> statement that would require 27 credits rather than 24 credits in the
> program. I have not yet received a copy of it, but would like to
> recommend against it on a basic philosophical ground.
>
> An undergraduate liberal arts education is the last chance a student
> will have to take courses in literature, fine arts, humanities, and
> social "science." Students can specialize as graduate students or go on
> learning about meteorology in their jobs, but I would not like to
> require that they take additional courses as part of their undergraduate
> major. This will allow them to take other elective courses in subjects
> that will broaden them as people and citizens, which I think is more
> valuable than one more meteorology or related course.
>
> Thanks for considering my views. I feel more strongly about the first
> one than the second one.
>
> Alan
>
> Professor Alan Robock
> Editor, JGR - Atmospheres
> Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9478
> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: robock at envsci.rutgers.edu
> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
>
>
> On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Brenda Ward wrote:
>
>>
>>>
>>> Dear Colleague,
>>>
>>> On behalf of the Board on Higher Education of the American Meteorological
>>> Society, I seek your comments on the revised draft statement on the
>>> Bachelor's Degree in Atmospheric Science. The draft statement is available
>>> at:
>>>
>>> http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/publications/Bachelors_degree_statement_2004.pdf
>>>
>>> For your background, the current AMS statement on this subject is available
>>> at:
>>>
>>> <http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/bachelor99.html>http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/bachelor99.html
>>>
>>> Also, please share this draft statement with colleagues in your department.
>>> Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. It would
>>> be most helpful if you can send me (mohan at ucar.edu) your comments by 15
>>> November.
>>>
>>> Thank you in anticipation,
>>>
>>> Mohan Ramamurthy
>>
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