Second Commission on Undergraduate Education (CUE2)

The mission of the Johns Hopkins University is to educate its students and cultivate their capacity for lifelong learning, to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.

The Second Commission on Undergraduate Education (CUE2) establishes the guiding principles and goals for a re-envisioned Johns Hopkins undergraduate education, one true to the university’s mission, faithful to its enduring character, and responsive to changing social, political, and economic forces.

Students drawn to Johns Hopkins value intense intellectual experiences among a small community of scholars; they have the confidence to pursue their ideas creatively, and value the freedom necessary for that pursuit; they have high expectations for themselves and a strong desire to succeed; and they value learning which benefits the society around them. In this regard, they are much like the faculty that teaches them.

The recommendations outlined below capitalize upon the most important feature of education at Hopkins: the earnest intellectual passion of our extraordinarily talented faculty and students. The commission’s respect for that passion motivated the two outstanding features of this report: its commitment to greater curricular flexibility; and its determination not to issue credentials, but to cultivate the capabilities needed to be successful citizens of the world.

We believe that the key to education for undergraduates in this century is, first, to give them, as far as possible, the experiences of inquiry, research, and creative activity hitherto primarily associated with graduate students; and, second, to train them in applying that learning. In short, we aim to deepen the strengths that distinguish us—to make Hopkins more fully Hopkins.

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CUE2 REPORT

Curriculum

1. Redesign the undergraduate curriculum to provide foundational abilities for life-long flourishing and learning.

1a. Require participation in a first-year seminar.

1b. Establish the “Hopkins Semester” of intensive study.

1c. Meaningfully integrate curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular learning.

1d. Ensure instruction in 6 foundational abilities:

• Students should recognize the importance of language and have a command of it as readers, writers and speakers.
• Students should develop facility with scientific, numerical and algorithmic reasoning and be able to use computational and analytical methods.
• Students should recognize the importance of complex creative expressions and cultivate their intellectual and emotional responses to aesthetic and cultural experiences.
• Students should engage effectively as citizens of a diverse world informed by an understanding of historical inequities, bigotry, prejudice and racism in our society.
• Students should be reflective, effective ethical agents.
• Students should be able to independently conceptualize and complete large-scale, consequential projects.

2. Increase the flexibility of the major requirements where needed to enable intellectual exploration.

3. Enable professional school faculty to teach undergraduates more easily and often and facilitate the enrollment of undergraduates in our professional schools.

Teaching and Learning

4. Provide students with an integrated partnership of faculty mentors, staff advisors, and life design counselors.

5. Improve course-based learning assessment methods and encourage grading policies that assess student performance relative to well-articulated academic standards.

6. Establish a new system for the assessment of teaching and student mentoring by faculty.