Dr. Gary K. Hart
Dear Dr. Hart:
Below is a short summary of the Action Plan developed by CSU Dominguez
Hills in response to the conference titled Strengthening Teacher
Education in the Undergraduate Years. This is being submitted
in response to the request for Gary Hart dated November 17, 1997.
Our campus short-term action plan consists of five (5) elements
with a small team of individuals in charge of each element. A
member of our San Diego Conference Team is also a member of each
element team. The Conference Team now acts as a Steering Committee
for coordinating the larger scope of campus activities.
1. An all-campus symposium to be held in Spring Semester, 1998.
This symposium is currently being designed and will serve a number
of purposes, not the least of which is to raise the level of consciousness
regarding teacher preparation across the campus and to act as
the first step in drawing into the process the larger campus community,
We have identified as crucial the participation of the Academic
Senate, our Liberal Studies Task Force, the All University Teacher
Education Committee, the California Academy of Mathematics and
Science (a specialized high school located on our campus), and
the individuals and offices involved with the CBEST. A planning
team is working on the details of the symposium now with the general
plan that it is to be held on campus, to be a working session,
and to develop a specific goal statement in the area of teacher
preparation. The symposium is to be jointly sponsored by the
President, the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the School
of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences.
2. To involve in a meaningful way the faculty, staff and students
of the California Academy of Mathematics and Sciences (CAMS) in
teacher preparation and education. CAMS is a high school located
on our campus which places special emphasis on math and science
education. Our goals is to expand interactions with CAMS to increase
significantly the field experiences and observation experiences
for our teacher education students and to find ways to use the
experiences in CAMS to "whet the appetites" of our CSUDH
science faculty. This element is in the early discussion stages
at this point.
3. Improvement in our students' CBEST scores. A task group
has been appointed and they have had initial meetings. They have
requested comparative data from CTC which has been delayed due
to lack of analytical staff at CTC.
4. Revision and restructuring of the Liberal Studies program.
There are a number of subsets to this area and a special task
group reporting directly to the Vice President for Academic Affairs
has been appointed and is actively meeting. Chief among the elements
being examined are the administrative location and organization
of Liberal Studies, revision of the curriculum to incorporate
early field experiences and teacher training, streamlining of
the curriculum, methods to control entry into the Liberal Studies
program, and an examination of option(s) in teaching versus options
in subject areas. The results of this task group will probably
have the most significant and far-reaching effects of the tasks
currently underway. An initial report of the task group regarding
the administrative structure and "home" for Liberal
Studies is expected shortly after the first of the year.
5. Allocation of appropriate resources and workload to run the
Liberal Studies program. Academic Affairs at CSU Dominguez Hills
has embarked on a new budgetary allocation process among its
constituent units and that process is now well underway. It is
collegial and inclusive and the budget advisory group is currently
meeting to recommend to the Vice President for Academic Affairs
a proposed budget for fiscal 1998-99. A specific part of that
budgetary proposal will be for Liberal Studies. Additionally,
the School of Education is finalizing their plan for the use of
the recent special allocation for increasing the number of credentialed
teachers, which will have a significant impact on the School of
Education Budget.
Robert G. Zahary
