Academic Program Review SUMMARY*
Department under review: Sociology and Archeology: Sociology Program
Date self-study received in Dean’s office, Completed June 2010
Date of external consultant’s review: October 9, 2009
Date APR received report: February 10, 2010
APR’S summary of self-study (first two boxes must be completed)
APR’s summary of how the academic program attempts to reach its goals and objectives
and the extent to which those goals and objectives have been achieved.
The sociology/archeology department’s goals implement the mission of the university.
Graduates are prepared for the workforce and graduate school, faculty and students are
engaged in research, and the department actively pursues community development on
campus and in the surrounding communities. This interdisciplinary department shares
the common mission of providing high quality undergraduate education with an emphasis
on undergraduate research and experiential learning. The department describes its
educational philosophy as a teacher-scholar model.
The department has demonstrated success at meeting their department goals. In 2009,
there were 543 students enrolled in their majors and minors. Many students have been
accepted into prestigious graduate programs at top universities around the world.
Undergraduate research is strong in the department: 7-8 students are awarded
undergraduate research grants annually; many students publically share their research
through presentations and publications. Department faculty are productive scholars:
over 20% of the books published by university faculty in the last 5 years were written by
sociology/archeology department faculty. Department faculty are highly involved in
service, modeling their professional expertise in building community and increasing civic
involvement. In sum, the department is highly regarded and was nominated for the UWSystem Regent’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2008-2009.
APR’s comments including:
Notable Strengths
This department has many strengths. The department sets the bar for developing a
departmental mission, goals, and educational philosophy and then using these shared
beliefs to guide curricular, personnel, and budgeting decisions. The department has
strong and effective leadership that includes a department chair and program
coordinators for sociology, anthropology, and archeology). The leadership structure is
effective in uniting this interdisciplinary department and moving it forward towards their
common mission. The faculty are recognized as strong teachers and productive
scholars who are committed to providing professional and community service. The
curriculum is strong and incorporates most of the recommendations for an
undergraduate sociology degree from the American Sociology Association. The
department evaluates student learning outcomes for both the major/minor and university
core courses. Multiple changes have been made in response to assessment data.
Notable Weaknesses
Challenges for the department are resource issues outside of the department’s control.
The faculty workload is 4-4 with high service obligations (implementing their department
goal of building community). The support staff is not full time. Salary compression and
inversion is demoralizing for senior faculty. Lack of space and up to date teaching
technology affects the curriculum offerings. Supply budgets are flat making development
of faculty and programs very challenging. Finally, approximately 1/3 of the faculty is
expected to retire in the next few years. Junior faculty that would be hired to replace
these faculty will be challenged to achieve tenure with the current workloads, space, and
budgetary constraints.
APR comments on any/all of the six specific components of the self-study (if applicable)
Self Study: Purposes
The sociology/archeology department is organized around its mission and purpose: to
prepare graduates for the workplace and graduate school, to advance the knowledge of
the profession through scholarship, and to build community. These goals are clearly
articulated and transparent in the organizational structure of the program, the curriculum,
faculty assignments, assessment plan, and budgetary expenditures.
Self Study: Curriculum
The department offers two majors (sociology, archeology), three minors (sociology,
anthropology, archeology), and an interdisciplinary minor (criminal justice). The
department substantially contributes to the geoarcheology minor offered by the
geography department. Seven courses in four categories of the University Core are
taught by the department faculty. In addition, teacher education major and minors are
available in the department programs.
The sociology major is 36 credits with six required sociology core courses. Of the
remaining elective credits, up to 6 can be taken in anthropology courses. This
encourages students to see the links between sociology and other disciplines. The
sociology degree requires a semester long individual research project. Non-education
sociology majors average 9 semesters to graduation with a mean of 137 credits.
The sociology curriculum offers strong preparation in research with a required course on
statistics and an elective course on qualitative methodology (described by department as
unusual for sociology programs). There are a variety and depth of elective courses
available to students. The curriculum was revised significantly after the last APR review
(2002) incorporating the suggestions of the APR committee and the American
Sociological Association recommendations for the Sociology Major. The department
believes these revisions resulted in an increase in better student preparation for upper
division sociological theory, research methods, and writing in all courses. Students are
encouraged to participate in service learning.
One curricular area of concern identified for improvement by the department was to
increase the students understanding of how to apply research methods and theory in
understanding and explaining social phenomenon.
The external consultant noted that the curriculum was solid; the curricular changes were
in line with the ASA recommendations and strengthened the program. Suggestions for
curricular improvement including offering: (1) specializations to increase student’s
preparation for future careers, (2) out-of classroom experiences (study abroad, spring
break service trips, etc.), and (3) a new sociology of sexuality course.
Self Study: Assessment of Student Learning & Degree of Program Success
The sociology program assesses students learning outcomes for the major and the
University Core courses.
Sociology program assessments are both direct (a senior exam and a rubric based
analysis of senior project papers) and indirect (senior exit survey). Each year one of
these three assessment measures is collected (assessment measure rotates each year in
a 3 year cycle). Results of the past five years of data indicated concerns with students’
use of research and theory. Improvement was noted in meeting student learning
objectives on the senior test (69% correct) essentially meeting the department benchmark
for adequate performance (70% correct). Students rated their satisfaction with the
sociology program was 4.48/5 (higher than their ranking of satisfaction with their overall
academic experience at UW-L). The majority of students believed they would use
sociology a great deal in their personal life (86%), work (70%), and civic life and
involvement (58%). Twenty-one percent were pursuing advanced education in social
work, criminal justice or law. Students suggested that the sociology program should focus
more on career advising, applied experiences, and encouraging interaction with faculty
outside of classes.
The department teaches seven University Core Courses and has developed assessment
tools for one student learning outcome in each of courses beginning in 2007-2008. This
process was not in place long enough to collect data and make revisions at the time this
self-study was written.
Self Study: Previous Academic Program Review and New Program Initiatives
The last APR was in 2002. Based on those recommendations and assessment data, the
sociology program restructured core courses in the major and added a social statistics
course. Although the majority of the student learning objectives were met, the faculty
agreed to enhance attention in each of the courses to understanding basic theory and
research and demonstrating basic research skills. These particular learning objectives
were the most problematic and were not met by two-thirds of the students. The student
feedback on career advice led to advising nights both semesters, increased interaction
with faculty outside of classes, revival of the sociology club with focus on career advising,
and co-sponsoring graduate school information night in the fall, and career night in the
spring. Discussions about incorporating research and theory into senior projects are
underway.
The self-study details each of the recommendations of the 2002 APR report and the
external reviewer and details the department response to each of these
recommendations. The department has implemented each of the recommendations
except those for adding new programs or courses, opting to hold until funding was
available. All of the curricular recommendations were addressed. Of particular note was
departments’ conscientious response to the recommendation to establish 3-5 year goals
and strategies for implementation. The goals were set in 2007 and many have been
implemented by the writing of this report. Progress on some goals was hampered due to
limited resources.
Self Study: Personnel
The sociology/archeology department has 17 faculty members: 10 sociologists, 3
anthropologists, and 4 archeologists. The teacher-scholar model adopted by the
department is evident in the teaching, research, and service provided by these faculty.
The faculty are very strong teachers with a median SEI score of 4.5 /5 and have earned
numerous teaching awards and recognitions. The disciplines of this department highly
value social responsibility & civic engagement. The faculty model these values to the
students through their involvement in many social service and community organizations
as well as service on numerous university committees.
Self Study: Support for Achieving Academic Program Goals (Resources)
Space and equipment needs identified in the self-study were primarily in the Archeology
program and will be addressed in that separate APR document. Resource issues
significantly impacting this department (as well as all others at the university) are high
teaching load with no time for research, limited travel funds, salary compression and
inversion, lack of sabbatical funding, and lack of spousal hiring opportunities. This
department has faculty with longevity and loyalty to UW-L making salary inversion a
significant issue. While the department has plans for growth (Masters in Archeology,
potential Bachelors in Anthropology), additional resources are essential for these to occur.
External Reviewer Recommendations
APR’s Comments on External Reviewer (if applicable)
The external review of the sociology program was conducted by Dr. Betsy Lucal and
focused on the following questions:
 Are there any external trends that challenge the sociology program’s ability to
achieve its mission and goals?
 Is the curriculum effective in preparing the students to meet the emerging needs of
the field?
 Is the assessment evidence provided sufficient to judge student learning? Are the
quantity and quality of the assessment procedures sufficient?
 Was the response to the last program review adequate?
 Is the departmental infrastructure adequate to meet the mission and goals?
The external review was very positive. There were some recommendations that are
addressed in the next section and ended with these remarks. “In a context of shrinking
resources and rising expectations, the Department of Sociology and Archeology is to be
commended for doing so much so well. They have created a place where collegiality is
the norm, where caring about students and high-quality teaching, as well as scholarly
productivity and commitment to service, is expected. Under capable leadership, they
continue to build on their strengths and plan for a bright future.”
Department’s response to the Reviewer Recommendations
APR’s Comments on the Department’s Response (if applicable)
The sociology program adopted 5 recommendations from the external review as their
focus. These include :
 continue to seek additional support staff to meet the needs of the expanding faculty
and programs,
 continue to maintain SCH and workloads while maintaining flexibility to support
junior faculty tenure and senior faculty scholarship
 revise staffing plan in anticipation of retirements
 continue to develop and improve University Core curriculum assessment
 review possibility of offering specialization areas in the major
Dean’s Letter
APR’s Comments on Dean’s Letter (if applicable)
The dean’s letter validated the resources concerns identified in the self study and
described the college’s response to these concerns. In specific, the concern with high
workloads was compared to the benchmark Carnegie Data for sociology programs. In
order to reach 75% of the benchmark data, 1.5 FTE would have to be added to the
department. The dean stated that CLS would give serious consideration to additional
GQA positions for the department in future rounds. The dean also supported the request
to increase staff time, the need for additional space, confirmed salary compression and
inversion and the lack of support for faculty research as significant concerns. The letter
detailed the response the college has made to each of these issues. In sum, the dean
noted that CLS views the sociology/archeology department as a model of academic
excellence in the college.
APR’s Recommendations (must be completed)
Recommendations:
1. The committee commends the department for its success and encourages you to
continue your excellent work.
2. The department is noted for your substantial efforts to address the suggestions
addressed in the last APR report and recommendations from the external reviewers. All
major areas were successfully addressed.
3. The department assessment plan, activities, and reports are solid. While it would be
useful to collect outcome data on each measure annually, the staffing support to do so is
not available.
4. The APR committee suggests that the department submit separate self-study
documents for the Sociology/Anthropology and Archeology programs for the next review.
X No serious areas to address – review in 7 years
□ Some areas to address – review in 7 years
□ Some areas to address – department should submit short report on progress to Faculty
Senate/Provost’s Office in 3 years