Katherine S. Newman
Provost and Executive Vice President
UCOP Academic Affairs
Dear Provost Newman,
We are a group of Berkeley faculty representing diverse viewpoints and disciplines who share a common commitment to free inquiry, academic freedom, shared governance, and the integrity of scholarly judgment. We write regarding the Congress on Math Preparation and STEM Pathways and recent Institutional Research and Academic Planning (IRAP) reports concerning pedagogy, as animated through the goals articulated in the State’s multi-year funding Compact with the University of California.
We welcome the cross-campus learning opportunities facilitated by the Congress. We agree that structural factors (admissions drift, K-12 preparation, grade inflation, pandemic, AI/LLM use) have contributed to current challenges.
Yet we are concerned that some aspects of the current framing risk diluting faculty governance of academic standards and attributing to instructors outcomes that are shaped by factors largely outside their control. When faculty work is reduced to a single measure, the DFW rate (Ds, Fs, and Withdraws), two dangers follow: an implicit pressure to inflate grades, and an implicit assignment of responsibility to faculty for disparate student outcomes.
Background
We recognize the goals embodied in the Compact. Expanding access, improving student success, and increasing affordability are important, mission-aligned goals. We share the aspiration that more students shine in competitive academic environments and earn meaningful degrees.
The Compact’s context must be carefully unpacked. Article IX of the California Constitution vests the Regents with authority over the University’s internal academic affairs. Through long-standing Standing Orders and shared governance structures, the Regents have delegated core academic functions to the faculty. As such, the Compact appropriately establishes system-level outcome targets. It does not and should not prescribe how faculty achieve outcomes.
As the University “seeks to foster in its students a mature independence of mind,” faculty must remain free to teach demanding material and to assess whether students have genuinely mastered it. Outcome goals and academic autonomy are compatible, if their boundaries remain clear.
Academic Standards
The Compact’s performance metrics tied to graduation rates can inform investments in advising, preparation, and student support. We support expanded efforts to help students succeed: bridge programs, tutoring, early academic guidance, and thoughtful advising are all constructive tools. These investments are entirely compatible with academic freedom and with rigorous standards.
At the same time, it is important to preserve a distinction between providing support and setting standards. We believe it is essential to emphasize a foundational principle: disparities in student outcomes do not, by themselves, establish disparities in instructional quality or faculty effort. Without this clarification, there is a risk that faculty could be pushed to reduce rigor, in effect, optimizing the DFW metric at the expense of the underlying goal it is meant to serve.
We note that IRAP’s report concludes that “equity in access must be matched by equity in outcomes.” We understand this formulation to express a commitment to reducing avoidable disparities. We believe it would be helpful to clarify that “equity in outcomes” does not imply convergence of academic results independent of demonstrated mastery.
Clear articulation of this distinction would help avoid unintended interpretations, particularly tensions with academic freedom are largely absent in the report. Academic freedom is mentioned only once, in a “lessons” section suggesting that scholarly professional judgment needs to be balanced “with collective goals.”
Gateway Courses and Academic Rigor
A research university’s educational experience necessarily includes sustained engagement with complex and demanding material. Foundational courses are rigorous because later coursework depends on foundational knowledge. Students can rise to this challenge if they are afforded scaffolding resources.
We recognize that pedagogical innovation can improve outcomes without diluting rigor, and we support continued investment in evidence-based teaching practices. At the same time, recent IRAP analyses emphasize structural and pedagogical reform as the primary levers for closing outcome gaps. The risk in this framing is that it may give inadequate weight to other causal factors.
Causal Factors Beyond Pedagogy
Consider, for instance, the relative resources afforded to teaching. At Berkeley, the student-to-faculty ratio rose to a record 29-to-1, while the student-to-staff ratio has remained roughly constant at about 4-to-1. Other important factors include admissions strategies, the role of standardized testing, variation in student preparation, and student agency.
IRAP’s analysis could be informed by findings from Berkeley’s Faculty Bearometer, an independent poll of senate faculty:
[REDACTED]
An account of outcome disparities should consider the full range of contributing factors.
Responsibility and Professional Fairness
There are fairness considerations in reducing questions of equity to DFW rates. Faculty are teachers who care deeply about student outcomes and who strive to innovate to find effective teaching strategies. An imputation that a course is not inclusive or not equitable risks misallocating responsibility for outcomes that are shaped by factors largely outside faculty control. Such labels carry reputational consequences for instructors.
If responsibility for outcome disparities is attributed primarily to course design, faculty may feel pressure to adjust standards rather than to advocate for stronger preparation and support. Pre-tenure and contingent faculty are particularly vulnerable to these pressures.
We recognize that some educational literature analyzes alternative grading models and low-stakes, iterative assessment. Under resource constraint, increased assessment frequency demands formats that are efficient to grade but may not measure higher-order reasoning with the same depth as extended analytical responses. In a research university environment, faculty often understand mastery to entail advanced analytic performance. Over time, however, this may shift evaluation toward threshold-based attainment.
The Mission of Advanced Instruction
The Master Plan contemplates that the University of California will provide advanced instruction at the highest level, a responsibility that requires sustained engagement with complex material. When there is variance in preparation among students, faculty must navigate tradeoffs among breadth, depth, and pacing. In some cases, accommodating wide variation may constrain the ability to introduce the most advanced material. These pedagogical tensions underscore the importance of strengthening preparation and support upstream, rather than addressing outcome disparities through expectations that courses adjust their intellectual demands.
Faculty should feel confident that teaching challenging material and maintaining rigorous standards remain fully consistent with institutional priorities. The dashboards and accountability structures developed in response to the Compact should reinforce that confidence. The current approach risks reducing a complex problem and misattributing its cause to individual teachers.
Conclusion
We support the University’s efforts to improve student success, and we believe those goals are best achieved through strengthened preparation, transparent expectations, and robust support systems. We must avoid implicit pressure on faculty to adjust academic standards.
At a time when the public is questioning the worth of academic degrees, the integrity of academic certification matters more than ever. If outcome improvements are achieved by adjusting standards rather than strengthening preparation, we sever a different kind of compact with the state.
Respectfully submitted,
Berkeley Initiative for Free Inquiry, Executive Committee
CC: Systemwide UCAF
IRAP
Mark Stacey