University of California San Francisco
UCSF School of Medicine UCSF Medical Center

Executive Committee Charge

Updated 9/2020

Introduction
The Bridges Curriculum is designed to produce physicians for the 21st Century who improve health and reduce suffering. To govern this new complex curriculum, the Medical Education Leadership and the Committee on Curriculum and Educational Policy have developed a governance structure that streamlines communication across committees, improve curricular integration, and incorporate the responsibilities and management of all new and existing components of the curriculum. The structure aims to be inclusive of students, clinical and basic science faculty, as well as staff and administrative leadership.

Executive Committee Charge
This charge document describes the role and responsibilities of the Bridges Executive Committee. Beginning August 1, 2017, the Executive Committee will be responsible for managing the work of the curriculum governance structure. This group will issue charges to and act on recommendations from its subcommittees. All proposed program, policy, and course changes are to be vetted by the Executive Committee with consideration of the appropriateness of the proposed action in the context of the overall curriculum, service to students, and School of Medicine and University missions.

The Executive Committee is a subcommittee of the Committee on Curriculum and Educational Policy (CCEP) and is charged by the CCEP to oversee the work of the curriculum governance operations committees and make recommendations for consideration and final action by the CCEP. In order to facilitate more nimble operation and responsiveness of the implementation and quality improvement of this new curriculum, the CCEP grants authority to the Executive Committee to implement curricular decisions urgently as needed, as the Executive Committee’s monthly meeting cycle will allow for rapid decision making as compared to the quarterly meeting cycle of the CCEP. While all decisions made by the Executive Committee may be operationalized immediately based on the authority granted by the CCEP, such decisions must be presented to CCEP at the subsequent quarterly meeting. In the event that a decision, change or new process is implemented, the final authority remains with the CCEP, who will ultimately approve or disallow continuance of the Executive Committee’s decisions.

The following Curriculum Subcommittees that report to the Executive Committee are:
Foundations 1 Operations, Foundations 2 Operations, Career Launch Operations, Mapping and Integration and the Student Committee (refer to the diagram below).

relationships in the academic senate

The management of Program Evaluation resides with the Director of Program Evaluation and the evaluations team. Relevant program evaluation data/reports will be shared across the appropriate governance committees as part of the CQI process.

The specific responsibilities of the Executive Committee, as charged by the CCEP are to:

  1. Help to ensure that the School of Medicine is compliant with all LCME educational standards;
  2. Review and revise educational policies to provide recommendations to the CCEP;
  3. Oversee the curriculum content quality, consistency, and distribution across all curricular courses, clerkships, and programs;
  4. Deliberate and approve/reject curriculum changes proposed by subcommittees;
  5. Promote and vet curricular innovations and change, ensuring that they are consistent with the vision and goals of the Bridges Curriculum and mission of the School of Medicine;
  6. Review the remaining curricular elements that have yet to be finalized to ensure they are integrated with the already developed and operational Bridges Curriculum;
  7. Promote horizontal and vertical integration amongst all curricular components;
  8. Ensure that educational experiences in all courses meet the goals of our curriculum, with a focus on continuous quality improvement of the curriculum;
  9. Encourage faculty development efforts to promote excellence across the curriculum;
  10. Ensure the effective and successful integration of the UCSF Unique Programs (e.g. MSTP), into the new Bridges Curriculum;
  11. Facilitate effective communication across governance subcommittees and broader stakeholders to ensure transparency and broader awareness of curriculum-related decisions and changes.

The specific LCME standards that the Executive Committee is responsible for are:

Standard 6.1: Program and Learning Objectives
Standard 8.2: Use of Program Objectives
Standard 8.3 a,b: Curricular Design, Review, Revision, Content Monitoring
Standard 8.7: Comparability of Education/Student Assessment
Standard 8.8: Monitoring Student Workload
Standard 9.4: Student Assessment
Standard 9.7: Formative Feedback
Standard 9.8: Fair and Timely Summative Assessment

Membership:
The Executive Committee is comprised of the leaders of all subcommittees, including the student committee chairs, the curriculum element directors (CMC and Inquiry), the Director of Faculty Development, Director of Evaluation, the Vice Dean for Medical Education, the Associate Deans (Medical Education, Assessment, and Students), the Director of PRIME US, general faculty members at-large, the Staff Director of Assessment, Curriculum and Evaluation, and the staff steward. In 2020, the Faculty Director of Assessment and Director of Learning and Teaching in Procedural Specialties was added to the membership. The Executive Committee is chaired by the Associate Dean for Curriculum. 

Meetings:
The Executive Committee will meet monthly and the Associate Dean for Curriculum will provide quarterly reports to the CCEP.