Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative Overview

The Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative (USLI) is a campuswide initiative to support departments in establishing educational goals and evaluation procedures for all undergraduate programs. As a result of the initiative, faculty and students will have a shared understanding of the purpose of the major and what graduating seniors are expected to know or to be able to do at the end of their course of study. The initiative is in keeping with the fundamental principle at Berkeley that the evaluation of student achievement should be locally defined, discipline specific, and faculty driven. Oversight is provided by a joint Academic Senate-administration faculty advisory board, co-chaired by Academic Senate Committee on Educational Policy Chair and Professor of Economics Clair Brown and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor of Psychology Christina Maslach.

For additional information and resources refer to the following:

Frequently Asked Questions
Description of Program Documentation
Workshop Guide

Early Adopter Models

Several academic programs have agreed to share their work-in-progress to disseminate various approaches and to foster dialogue across the campus community. Drafts from the following programs are available on the USLI bSpace site, accessible to USLI faculty representatives.

Architecture
Classics
Economics
English
Environmental Science
Mass Communications
Math

Mellon-USLI Curricular Innovation Grants

In conjunction with the USLI and with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education has awarded grants of $25,000 each to support changes in the curriculum that will help undergraduates achieve departmental or program-level learning goals in the area of discipline-specific library research competencies.

The following programs have received awards:

Mass Communications
The Mass Communications project focuses on the creation of a set of tutorials related to the development of undergraduate research skills. Students will use the tutorials as they complete assignments in the research methods course. The tutorials will be further enhanced for two subsequent courses in the major.

Legal Studies
The Legal Studies Program is creating a new course that will introduce students to various methods of empirical research, to the use of campus libraries in the development of empirical questions, and to hands-on experience with faculty engaged in research.

Mathematics
Mathematics will develop a new course focused on research skills, but with a twist. Students will work in teams to tackle research topics or problems that have already been solved. Students will be guided through the process of discovery gaining undergraduate research experience in a field where the bar for original research is exceptionally high.

For further background see the Mellon-USLI Curricular Innovation Grants Memo and Request for Proposals.

Contact Information

For departmental program consultations, please contact Robert Schlick.

For other questions, please contact Cynthia Schrager in the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.