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The committee finds, however, that there are plenty of ways to improve teaching. Berkeley, these teachers claim, "has not yet achieved that atmosphere or ethos of devotion to teaching that it must have to maintain its scholarly excellence." Some senior professors "show an extreme aversion" to undergraduate and lower-division teaching. At the same time, "there is danger that deficient performance of teaching is not adequately recognized and outstanding performance not given due credit." The committee has no intention of de-emphasizing research to correct this, since "research is of the very character of this campus" and teaching must be "suffused with the excitement and authority of research."
Instead, the Muscatine report proposes that a "formal dossier" on teaching performance should accompany department recommendations to promote a teacher to tenure rank. This would include the department chairman's estimate of the candidate's teaching ability, any exceptional course plans the teacher has devised, his own statement of how he views teaching and-breaking with academic tradition-appraisal by colleagues based on visits to his classroom. The committee also urges that students be given a chance next year to evaluate all undergraduate courses, for the guidance of the teachers only.
Shock of Entry. The report urges that "wasteful middle-sized courses" be eliminated to free faculty for smaller sessions in which "learning is based on dialogue." To acquaint freshmen with "the style and meaning of scholarly thought" and "alleviate the shock of entry" onto a big campus, the committee proposes an experimental program of freshman seminars (now common at Harvard and Stanford) next fall. It also proposes that students be permitted to study independently as much as their teachers consider sound and that they be given credit for off-campus work related to their studies.
If the report is adopted, Berkeley will also play down grades. The committee would let students in good standing take one course each quarter (out of their normal three or four) on a pass-or-fail basis that would not affect their grade average. Even more radically, freshmen could ignore all grades in their first term on campus. The aim is to "grade less often in order to grade better."
A major thrust of the report is to build innovation into Berkeley's bureaucratic structure on the theory that "the more a given discipline flourishes, the more likely that it will contribute to the obsolescence of its academic procedures." The report urges creation of a special board and the hiring of a vice chancellor, both charged with helping the faculty try out new courses and programs even when department leaders resist change.