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UCSF students will see improvements to classrooms at the Parnassus campus as the University begins to implement the strategic plan. |
By Camille Mojica Rey
Twenty-two years ago, Sharon Youmans was a student in the UCSF School of Pharmacy listening to lectures and taking exams in rooms she remembers as being old, cramped and musty.
"Not a whole lot has changed over the years," said Youmans, who is now a professor of clinical pharmacy and vice chair for educational affairs in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy.
Students at the Parnassus Heights campus are crowded into rooms with old-fashioned built-in desks surrounded by aging infrastructure, she said. "The students are uncomfortable and distracted by the learning environment."
The good news for both students and faculty alike is that, thanks to the historic two-year strategic planning process, UCSF is expanding and modernizing its classrooms to bring educational facilities on campus into the 21st century.
In a joint initiative between Capital Programs and Facilities Management (CPFM) and Student Academic Affairs that has been funded by Chancellor Mike Bishop, UCSF has already begin to realize the UCSF Strategic Plan's strategy to "develop educational facilities and infrastructure commensurate with UCSF's stature in health sciences education," says Joseph Castro, associate vice chancellor of Student Academic Affairs.
Castro and Steve Wiesenthal, associate vice chancellor of CPFM, spearheaded the 2007-2008 classroom improvement initiative in April. UCSF recently completed the first phase of upgrades to incorporate new technology in 28 classrooms in the Medical Sciences Building, UC Hall, School of Nursing building and the Mission Bay campus, says Castro. All of the Medical Sciences Building seminar rooms now have new control systems that are designed to make it easier for instructors to use audio-visual equipment.
Work will continue throughout 2007-2008 to upgrade audio-visual equipment and improve the environment, such as painting and adding new furniture, lighting and carpeting, in 40 classrooms at the Parnassus campus.
Enhancing Education
The time is right to expand and upgrade the educational facilities on campus, said David Irby, vice dean for medical education and professor of medicine in the UCSF School of Medicine. "At Mission Bay, we now have world-class research facilities and will soon have a world-class hospital," Irby said of the proposed new medical center. "If we want to recruit and retain the best students and teachers, we need the equivalent in education facilities."
Irby predicted that having more and better classrooms will help unify the campus community, even as students and faculty move between the different campuses around San Francisco that are part of UCSF. "I think that one of the things that makes a great university is a sense of community," he explained. "Giving people the resources they need will allow them to come together and do exceptional work."
New, modern infrastructure is necessary if faculty are to implement modern classroom teaching methods, much less develop new ones, said Molly Cooke, professor of medicine and director of the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators, an honor society and service organization for medical school faculty. Cooke was part of the team that put together the recommendations adopted by the strategic planning board.
"We are clearly in the vanguard nationally of having innovative curriculum in all four schools," Cooke said. "However, we lack adequate infrastructure for implementing these novel educational changes"
Recommendations adopted by the strategic planning board include more classrooms of all sizes, with larger ones having stadium-style seating so as to include all students in discussions. Cooke said these modern classrooms should include the kind of technology that has become standard issue on other campuses: audience response systems, universal wireless access and flexible floor plans. "You can turn a boring 60-minute lecture into a highly interactive discussion if you have the right tools," Cooke said.
The right tools also will make teaching more efficient, Youmans said. A computer lab with 60 terminals would allow pharmacy school faculty to give computerized exams, she said. It would also allow teleconferencing between the six campuses where pharmacy students are located and allow instructors to experiment with making parts of the curricula into self-study courses. "It will be exciting to try these new ways of classroom teaching," Youmans said.
Adding Clinical Skills Facilities
The plan to improve educational facilities also includes more space dedicated to teaching clinical skills. The Clinical Skills Center at Mount Zion is good for small-group, station-style learning, but was not designed to accommodate other important exercises, such as a multi-victim trauma simulation, Cooke explained. Simulation-based training is becoming a bigger part of student training, she said.
"Although there is nothing like talking to a real patient and doing a real procedure, we are increasingly expected to demonstrate -- under safe and controlled circumstances -- that our learners are ready to move into the clinical environment," Cooke said.
New clinical skills facilities would also allow community physicians to meet new licensing requirements, Cooke said. "Practicing physicians are going to be required to come back and demonstrate that they are competent as they take on new procedures and that they are still competent in procedures they were trained to do 10 to 15 years ago," she said.
These days, clinical education increasingly includes students from various health professions coming together in both classroom settings and simulation environments.
Youmans has been working to include classroom hours dedicated to interprofessional education in the curricula of the four schools. Creating more opportunities for interprofessional education is also a recommendation in the UCSF Strategic Plan. A summary of the UCSF Strategic Plan is
posted here.
Youmans and her colleagues are developing case studies designed for viewing and discussion by small interprofessional groups of first-year students. The four schools, however, all follow different academic calendars and there simply aren't enough classrooms to hold small-group sessions for the nearly 350 first-year students. "We've still got some logistics to work out," Youmans said.
Creating a New Learning Center
The most ambitious recommendation is the creation of a new learning center that would either require renovating the library or building a new education building at Mission Bay.
"My vision of the learning center would be a major building that would accommodate teaching for all," Irby said. Such a center would include informal gathering places, modern large- and small-group learning spaces, and modern lecture halls and conference rooms. This is the kind of infrastructure that would allow UCSF to carry out its commitment to advance health world-wide, Irby said.
"Creating vibrant learning communities is not just about improving the learning experience of our students," he explained. "It's about changing the future of medicine and health care around the world."
Photo by Christine Jegan
Related Links:
UCSF Begins to Implement Campuswide Strategic PlanUCSF Today, October 19, 2007
