With thousands of additional students expected to wash in on Tidal Wave II, and 70 percent of them headed for science-based careers, UC Davis must plan now to support its gateway programs in the mathematical and physical sciences with increases in faculty, staff and space, says dean Peter Rock. The new academic plan for Mathematical and Physical Sciences reflects the powerful forces at work campuswide: those anticipated enrollment increases, ongoing rebuilding from hard times in the 1990s, and 10 nascent cross-disciplinary initiatives. "The campus is facing tremendous challenges and opportunities simultaneously," Rock said in an interview. "And if one wants to do it in a way that really makes a difference -- because we're setting the future of the university for the next 50 years -- the strategy cannot simply be more of the same." In his division specifically, the academic planners took many cues from those new initiatives. The mathematical and physical sciences units, which include mathematics, statistics, chemistry, geology and physics, will have substantial roles in four initiative areas: Nanophases in the Environment, Agriculture and Technology; the Environment Initiative; the Computational Sciences and Engineering Initiative; and biologically related initiatives, such as the Genomics Initiative. "The initiatives were designed to build on existing strengths, enhance multidisciplinary work and to break out in new directions," Rock said. They helped the division set priorities, he said, so that faculty members could move to enhance their excellence in a realistic number of specialties. Some of the specific goals identified in the mathematical and physical sciences academic plan include: o Faculty: To merely maintain the existing faculty-student ratio of 26.5 to 1, the division would need to add 17.5 faculty positions by 2006. But that ratio is too high; it should be reduced to 22 to 1, Rock wrote, which would require 34.7 new positions -- a 27 percent increase. Those additional faculty members should be recruited in proportions roughly 60 percent senior faculty members, 40 percent junior faculty members. "We should target truly outstanding senior faculty members who can play a leadership role in the implementation of many of these initiatives and substantially enhance our ability to attract outstanding junior faculty members," Rock said. o Staff: "There is a major need to restore staff positions in the departments, particularly in the business offices," the plan says. This is due in large part to the implementation of online systems such as DaFIS and the payroll/personnel system, increases in extramural grant funds to the division, and the rapidly escalating needs for more computer-support personnel for administrative, research and teaching. Rock requests a permanent budget increase for staff of at least $300,000. o Space: "The greatest challenge facing MPS in the context of growth is the critical shortage of ... space," the plan says. The most pressing needs are in mathematics, chemistry and physics. Based on standards set by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, those units currently have only 78 percent, 75 percent and 57 percent respectively of their justifiable space. Rock notes that there are very early plans for construction of a new physical/materials science building, possibly on the present site of Everson Hall. To improve the situation for chemistry, he proposes that space on the first and fourth floors of the Chemistry Annex now in use by other departments be reassigned to the division, and that the unfinished fifth floor be completed. He also proposes that the fifth floor of the Physics/Geology Building be expanded. The original construction was done with this option. In Kerr Hall, Rock requests that space now in use by other programs eventually be allocated to mathematics and statistics, which have very large undergraduate enrollments. o Undergraduate teaching program: Several areas are discussed: o Establishment of a general-education science foundation course, emphasizing how science and mathematics are used to solve problems and giving a detailed assessment of the strengths and limitations of science. o Continued support for undergraduate research opportunities, which are "what makes UC Davis special for undergraduates... [We] should continue to vigorously foster such involvement." o Curricular revision, such as the innovative Physics 7 series developed by physics professors Larry Coleman and Wendell Potter, which emphasizes small group learning in close interaction with faculty-led discussion sessions, and the new approaches to teaching calculus developed by Professors Abigail Thompson and Joel Hass. o The expanded use of computers to improve instruction, student recruitment and career preparation.