Annual Program Review Update
*Be sure to include information from all three campuses.
Program/Discipline: ENGLISH
Date: 10-19-07
Trends and Relevant Data
1. Has there been any change in the status of your program or area? (Have you shifted
departments? Have new degrees or certificates been created by your program? Have you
added or deleted courses? Have activities in other programs impacted your area or
program? For example, a new nursing program could cause greater demand for lifescience courses.) If not, skip to #2.
Note: curricular changes should be addressed under 12-14.
The English department has not undergone a program review for well over a decade, and
there have been many changes in our subject area over those years. Since the last program
review (dating back to 1996) is not available, the best we can do is to trace the major
changes that have taken place since the late 1990s.
Developmental Composition: Since the 2000-2001 catalog, a number of developmental
English courses have been eliminated, including ENGL 370R (Reading Fundamentals),
370W (Writing Fundamentals), 380R (Basic Reading Skills), and 380W (Basic Writing
Skills). Most notably, in 2004, ENGL 360 (Basic English Skills) was deleted from the
English curriculum, replaced by new General Studies courses in adult literacy (GS 360 and
361).
In addition, some English as a Second Language courses that had not been taught for some
time were also eliminated: ENGL 330 (English Language Proficiency I), ENGL 320
(English Language Proficiency II), and ENGL 310 (English Language Proficiency Lab).
As alternatives for second language learners, ENGL 353 and 153 were added in 2000,
designed as parallel courses to ENGL 350 and 150 but tailored to the needs of ESL
students.
Important changes to ENGL 350 and 150 will be addressed below in sections 12 and 13 on
Curriculum Updates.
Transfer Composition:
In the spring of 2005, the college Academic Senate approved an ENGL 1A requirement for
all associate degrees. This change—which anticipated by a few months a statewide change
to Title 5—has perhaps led to very modest increases in the demand for ENGL 1A.
Although a comparison of ENGL 1A sections offered district-wide in the fall semesters of
2002, 2005, and 2007 show 18 sections offered in all three semesters, comparative data for
the academic years 2005-6 and 2006-7 show an increase of 2 sections. However, the effects
of the new ENGL 1A requirement may continue to grow as students who entered the
college under the 2006-7 catalog approach degree completion. Even now, it is likely that a
greater number of ENGL 1A sections would fill if the department had the staffing
resources to offer them.
Transfer Literature:
In the last decade, the ENGL department has made a number of significant changes to
make its literature offerings consistent with evolving disciplinary norms—in particular,
with the most standard lower division literature courses offered at the CSUs and the UCs.
To this end, one-semester American and English Literature survey courses (ENGL 15 and
ENGL 45) have been deleted and replaced by two-semester surveys (ENGL 17, ENGL 18,
ENGL 60, ENGL 61). In addition, the following courses have been added: ENGL 20
(Introduction to Non-Western Literature) and ENGL 47 (Introduction to Shakespeare).
Courses that were atypical lower division offerings or that did not fulfill CSU GE or LDTP
or UC IGETC requirements have been inactivated: ENGL 42 (Great Writers), ENGL 28
(Women in Literature), ENGL 5 (Word Origins), ENGL 8 (Introduction to Contemporary
Literature), and ENGL 29 (Children’s Literature).
Currently, twelve of the sixteen units in Literary Studies required by HSU for a BA in
English may be taken at CR (though, unless we are able to offer these courses on a more
regular basis, we are unlikely to attract this student population).
Creative Writing: ENGL 70 (Student Magazine Production) has recently been deleted,
replaced on the Del Norte campus by Independent Study for students involved with the
production of the Kerf literary magazine.
It is notable that HSU includes a lower division Creative Writing course (our ENGL 32 or
33) in its LDTP requirements for English majors.
ENGL 41: In 1997, ENGL 41 (English Skills Tutoring) was added to the curriculum, and it
has proved an essential addition to the English curriculum on the Eureka campus.
Certified through College Reading and Learning Association, not only does the course
augment the faculty staffing in the Writing Center with tutors trained to help students in
developmental courses, but it also provides peer tutors with experience that improves their
own academic writing and provides them with valuable job skills.
Del Norte and Mendocino Coast Campuses:
At Del Norte, the Nursing program has been expanded, so in addition to offering LVN
certification, Del Norte has enrolled approximately 20 new students in an RN bridge
program. Many of these students need to complete English 150 and English 1A, and the
English faculty at Del Norte has been working closely with Nursing faculty to meet the
needs of these students (see section #12 below).
Prior to Spring 2004, Accuplacer was used very inconsistently on the Mendocino Coast
Campus in placing students in English courses. Students were not always required to
complete Accuplacer assessments, and when they did complete the placement exams, scores
were used largely for self-advisory purposes. Consequently, the extremely wide ranges of
abilities in all English courses made teaching and learning difficult. Since Spring 2004,
however, all students complete Accuplacer assessments and their scores are used
appropriately by counseling and advising staff when placing and enrolling students in
English courses, and the range of ability of students in each course has significantly
narrowed
2. Have there been any significant changes in enrollment, retention, success rates, or student
demographics that impact your discipline? If so, please include data sheets (Excel or Word
format) showing these changes.
District-wide, enrollment in English composition courses has held quite steady over the
past five years, despite decreasing enrollments in the college as a whole. The very small
drop in enrollment between Fall 2005 and Fall 2006 (from 2843 to 2803) may be due to the
decrease by 5 in total sections offered, perhaps reflecting administrative directives to pare
the schedule down to the minimum. English composition courses (at all campuses except
Mendocino) almost always fill (with Wait Lists), and often the department is pressured by
Academic Affairs and Student Services to add additional sections at the Eureka campus
after registration is underway and classes have quickly filled.
Although data is not yet available, in the Fall 2007 semester, English faculty at the Eureka
campus is experiencing increased numbers of high school students enrolled in their courses,
particularly in ENGL 150. The majority of these students are concurrently enrolled in the
Academy of the Redwoods. Unfortunately, however, regular communication and
articulation between the CR and the AR English departments are not taking place as the
number of AR students enrolled in both developmental and transfer English courses grows.
The Del Norte campus also has been actively recruiting high school students through a
special marketing initiative, and English faculty there have planned the Spring 2008
schedule to accommodate this population.
Only on the Mendocino Coast Campus has enrollment in composition courses been
declining. Reflecting a larger trend affecting the entire CRMC campus, the CRMC
English program has experienced dramatic and consistent declines in enrollment in all
composition (and literature) courses during at least the last five years. While CRMC has
offered 7 sections of English courses on campus each semester during the previous 4
semesters (for a total of 28 sections), only 2 of those sections have filled to capacity during
that period. Enrollments typically range from 9 to 20 students per section.
While enrollment in composition courses has remained steady overall, the same cannot be
said about the enrollment in literature courses. Because available course data dates back
to 2002 only, the evidence for this decline must remain anecdotal at the present time.
Nonetheless, most veteran English faculty agree that a decline in literature enrollment
began approximately 8 years ago. Before this time, the English department often offered
and filled 2 sections of literature each semester at the Eureka campus, and sometimes as
many as 3 in those terms when an Honors literature course was also offered. At the
Mendocino and Del Norte campuses, literature courses were offered regularly. In the past
several years, however, the Eureka campus has been able to fill no more than one literature
course per semester, including Honors sections. This enrollment drop will be discussed at
more length in Section #5 below (Student Services Support). At Del Norte, literature and
creative writing have not been offered for several years—clearly because of the chronic
faculty staffing problems at that campus (see Section #7 below).
3. Occupational programs must review the update of their labor-market data, some of it
provided by Institutional Research, to illustrate that their program:
a. Meets a documented labor market demand,
b. Does not represent duplication of other training programs (in the region), and
c. Is of demonstrated effectiveness as measured by the employment and
completion success of its students.
Other Resources
4. Do you have needs (professional development, library resources, and so forth) not
previously required by the discipline or not previously addressed in budget or equipment
considerations? Please describe.
In the past four years, the English department has made great advances in functioning as a
district-wide department: at least twice a year in the weeks immediately preceding the Fall
and Spring semesters, we have extended meetings which all full-time (and many part-time)
faculty attend; we hold district-wide department meetings each month via telephone
conferencing as well as face-to-face; and periodically we attempt to have faculty from all
campuses participate in ENGL 350 and 150 competency exam norming and grading
sessions to insure district-wide standards. Sadly, institutional support for these efforts has
been haphazard. Sometimes functioning phone conferencing equipment is available, but
sometimes it is not, limiting the participation of faculty at Mendocino and Del Norte in
departmental decision-making. Each time we have a pre-semester departmental “retreat”
or a district-wide competency exam session, we must ask Academic Affairs for
reimbursement of travel expenses and then wait for a decision. In the Fall 2007 semester,
in particular, as support and staffing for the CTE has been reduced, our scheduled districtwide meetings have been frustrated repeatedly by poorly functioning equipment or the
unavailability of meeting facilities with the necessary phone hook-ups. To support a
district-wide English department and to preserve consistent standards throughout the
English program, the Del Norte and Mendocino Coast Campus English faculty (full and
part time) must receive consistent support for regular travel to the Eureka campus, and at
the Eureka campus, functioning telephone conferencing equipment and a suitable location
(with phone jacks, etc.) must be made available for English department meetings.
Library resources for English courses should be augmented and updated. Though our
library has the Gale Literary Database as a subscription database for literary research,
the ENGL 1B and literature instructors find this resource to be limited and insufficient for
in-depth college-level research. Some ENGL 1A instructors have similar complaints about
the limitations of Proquest and EBSCO. The cost of a better database is significant;
however, it is necessary if we are to ask students to successfully master research based
writing using electronic sources. The most useful and comprehensive database for both
the transfer-level English courses and all academic disciplines would be The Scholarly
Journal Archive (JSTOR).
Although students have access to some scholarly periodicals and electronic books through
database subscriptions, the collection of books to support English courses at the Eureka
campus is very poor and very outdated. For example, in Fall 2007 students enrolled in
ENGL 61/61H (Introduction to British Literature II) have been unable to find any books
published after 1969 relevant to their assigned papers in the Eureka CR Library. Their
professor’s only recourse has been to urge trips to the HSU library and to place her own
books on reserve for the students’ use. At Del Norte, library access is limited due to the
hours granted to the staff. As a result students often are in need not only of library
resources but of a “clean, well-lighted place” for study and research. During the Fall 2007
semester, administration at Del Norte has been experimenting by leaving the Writing
Center open throughout the day, giving all students access to word processing, Internet,
and library on-line resources when the lab is not occupied by 350L or 150L students.
Finally, the Writing Center at the Eureka campus would benefit from a more transparent
budget, which would allow Leslie Leach (who manages the facility) to plan more effectively
for costs such as printing and other necessities. Neither she nor the English Area
Coordinator is given any budgetary information. Though information may not be
considered a “resource” per se, it would certainly help us to manage the Center’s and the
division’s modest resources.
5. Does your discipline need additional support from Student Services beyond that previously
provided?
The English department is in grave need of additional support from Student Services,
particularly on the Eureka campus. Although faculty on the Del Norte and Mendocino
Coast campuses communicate effectively with Student Services staff there and report a
high degree of satisfaction, on the Eureka campus, we generally need a closer, more
effective working relationship with Student Services, perhaps through an assigned
departmental liaison.
Addressing both ESL and Basic Skills in reading and writing, the Basic Skills Initiative
(BSI) commits our college to a district-wide dialogue of assessment of current practices and
the development of an action plan for addressing all underprepared students by May 1,
2008. The English program, therefore, anticipates that both the BSI’s assessment and plan
will draw heavily on English faculty, who, in concert with counseling/advising staff,
administration, and colleagues in all disciplines, must develop long-term goals (5 years) for
ESL/Basic Skills success. With the state’s appropriation of initial funding for this
initiative, the governor’s recent signing of augmentation of funding, and our own district’s
signed commitment through acceptance of $100,000 just this year, the English program
additionally anticipates that the Spring 2008 semester will require focused, intense English
faculty participation in “program and curriculum planning and development, student
assessment, advisement. . .articulation. . .[and other activities] related to the enhancement
of ESL/Basic Skills instruction and related student services support.”
For the English transfer mission, Student Services’ shortfalls fall into two areas:
inadequate advising and the long-term lack of an Articulation Officer (a position which has
been vacant for well over 5 years). Over the past 10 years, the professional counseling staff
at the Eureka campus has been gutted and replaced with paraprofessional advisors who
provide transfer students with a one-size-fits-all GE template that completely overlooks
major preparation--to the students' detriment and expense. This approach is gradually
rendering the college unable to transfer students as English majors who have completed
lower division requirements: the students do not know about the LDTP requirements, and
the required courses (most of them in literature) die from low enrollment because the
students do not realize they need them. Some of our advisors are only dimly aware of the
CSU LDTP as it pertains to majors and do not know that the LDTP major requirements
are readily available from the CSU Chancellor’s office website. Even our students
transferring to HSU—where English falls within the top 5 majors—do not seem to be
informed of that institution’s LDTP requirements or that they may fulfill up to fifteen units
of major requirements at CR. Over and over again, we hear from disgruntled students on
the point of transfer that their CR advising focused on GE requirements only, and so they
are facing another semester or two of lower division coursework at the university—courses
that are part of the CR English curriculum.
The English department has tried to help with the problem of overextended, underinformed advisors by requesting that all students who express interest in an English or
English education major be sent to the Area Coordinator for supplementary advising.
Although this request was first made in Spring of 2006 and has been repeated since then,
the Counseling Office has never referred a single student. Of course, discovering which
students might benefit from discipline-specific advising has become problematic in the past
couple of years since the college has stopped asking students to identify any major area of
study.
The institution’s neglect of its transfer mission extends as well to the lack of a dedicated
Articulation Officer, a deficiency that extends back for many years. As a result, transfer
students in English (and other majors) are not only limited by sketchy advising, but they
cannot find reliable transfer information for themselves on ASSIST since so few courses
have been articulated. As an example, the English Area Coordinator has requested on
three occasions over the past two years that some standard lower division major
requirements be articulated with Sonoma State and Chico State; the college’s titular
Articulation Officer has never responded to any of these requests.
Although we have no data supporting a causal relationship, the fact remains that the
enrollment slump in literature courses began around the same time that CR abandoned
articulation and started to severely cut back on trained counseling staff at the Eureka
campus.
In addition to improved Student Services support for transfer students, the English
department should be working with Student Services to actively promote the two ESL
courses we offer, both through outreach within our growing Latino community and
through more directive advising for ESL students, many of whom enroll in ENGL 350 and
150 instead of 353 and 153 where they would receive more specialized instruction to help
them succeed. There appears to be a disconnect between the changing demographic of the
CR District areas and the very small enrollment in our ESL courses, which at this time are
offered only on the Eureka campus.
Human Resource Needs
6. Complete the Faculty Employment Grids below (please list full- and part-time faculty
numbers in separate rows):
Faculty Load Distribution in the Program
Discipline
Name
(e.g., Math,
English,
Accounting)
Total
Teaching
Load for fall
2006 term
% of Total
Teaching
Load by FullTime Faculty
% of Total
Teaching Load
Taught by PartTime Faculty
Changes from
fall 2005
Explanations and
Additional
Information (e.g.,
retirement,
reassignment, etc.)
English
401 TLUs
51.6%
48.4%
-10.05 TLUs 9.0 TLUs
-2% FT
Reassignment
+2% PT
(for SLO
Training
Project)
Faculty Load Distribution in the Program
Discipline
Name
(e.g., Math,
English,
Accounting)
Total
Teaching
Load for
spring 2007
term
% of Total
Teaching
Load by FullTime Faculty
% of Total
Teaching Load
Taught by PartTime Faculty
Changes from
spring 2006
Explanations and
Additional
Information (e.g.,
retirement,
reassignment, etc.)
English
386.62
TLUs
56.9%
43.1%
+10.12
TLUs
-9% FT
+9% PT
ENGL faculty
teaching in other
departments: +9
TLUs compared
to SP 2005
7. Do you need more full-time faculty? Associate faculty? If yes, explain why and be sure
to include data sheets justifying the need.
On the Del Norte campus, the English department is currently in the midst of a faculty
staffing crisis, and successive retirements soon will be creating a staffing emergency on the
Eureka campus if more full-time faculty are not hired. Central to both situations is the
dwindling availability of qualified associate faculty.
Eureka Campus:
English professor Bill Hoopes will be retiring at the end of the Fall 2007 semester, and
professor Larry Frazier will be retiring at the end of Spring 2008. Among the remaining
ten full-time English faculty, at least three more are long-term CR veterans with plans to
retire within two to five years. Although John Johnston’s transfer from the Mendocino
campus in Fall 2008 will serve to replace Bill Hoopes in Eureka, the department districtwide will still enter the Fall 2008 term with a reduction of two full-time faculty positions,
and subsequent retirements will hit the Eureka campus even harder.
Also impacting the English faculty shortage on the Eureka campus is the fact that some of
our full-time faculty have been serving the institution by teaching courses in other
disciplines, shifting a portion of their loads away from English courses. In Spring 2007 and
Fall 2007, full-time English faculty taught 22.5 TLUs in GS and ENVSC courses: the
equivalent of one full-time faculty load.
At the same time that retirements are anticipated, our pool of qualified associate faculty is
increasingly limited. Although at Eureka we have a few stable, experienced associates with
roots in Humboldt County, many of our associate faculty come to us as inexperienced
teachers, fresh from the HSU MATW program (MA in the Teaching of Writing).
Typically, they teach at CR for a few years to gain experience and then move on. Some
continue to work for us sporadically but only when they lack more lucrative options—and
if HSU or another employment opportunity presents itself, they will drop their CR teaching
assignments, sometimes with little advance notice. So the English department must rely on
a steady supply of new teachers from the MATW program to make up for the inevitable
attrition. But enrollment in HSU’s MATW program has been diminishing. According to
data from the HSU Analytic Studies website, enrollment in the MATW program has
sharply declined in recent years: its numbers ranging from 33-41 in the years 1999-2003 to
15-17 in 2005-07. And of those students, only a fraction pursue the graduate intern
prerequisite for a TA teaching assignment at HSU—which is the minimum experience the
CR English department requires for new associate faculty hires. As Class Load reports
from HSU Analytic Studies show, in 2006 only 6 MATW graduate students enrolled in
Internship in the Teaching of Writing, beginning the teacher training that could ultimately
prepare them to teach at CR (if subsequent TA opportunities at HSU were available and if
they proved themselves to be relatively competent apprentice teachers).
Each semester, therefore, the English department at the Eureka campus runs a serious risk
of lacking enough qualified adjunct faculty to cover the English composition courses that
are such reliable generators of FTES for the college. Over the past year, the English
department has redoubled efforts to work closely with our colleagues at HSU to recruit
MATW candidates as associate faculty interns, but these efforts have been severely
curtailed by the associate faculty provisions in the new 2007 faculty contract. We are
entering a period of recurring retirements, then, with little likelihood that the department
will be able to maintain the same number of English sections—or, indeed, to increase the
well-enrolled composition offerings for the benefit of the college. The pressures of this
staffing shortfall will become even worse now that we are being asked to schedule a year in
advance, and the department is facing the painful choice for the 2008-9 year of either
scheduling fewer sections or running the risk of cancelling fully enrolled sections next fall
and spring if instructors cannot be found. In general, the faculty staffing problem stands
in the way of strategic planning, quality education, and enrollment development.
If the Eureka campus is teetering on the edge of an English faculty staffing emergency, the
Del Norte campus has been in the midst of such a crisis for well over a year. Del Norte’s
typical schedule has at least 22.5 TLU’s assigned to “Staff,” but due to the campus’s remote
location, it is very difficult to find adjunct candidates in the area who meet minimum
qualifications. This situation has become even more dire since the 2006 state update of
Faculty Qualifications standards—standards which, however appropriate, have
nonetheless resulted in the loss of one established Del Norte English associate faculty and
the elimination of some local applicants to the bone-dry adjunct pool. As a result of this
scarcity, at Del Norte full-time faculty have reluctantly felt compelled to teach overloads—
overloads which English faculty generally avoid because of the overwhelming grading work
load generated by composition courses. Unlike his other colleagues throughout the district,
Ken Letko has taught overloads ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 TLUs in response to Del Norte’s
staffing shortage since Fall 2005. The additional work caused by Del Norte’s staffing
shortage goes beyond excess teaching duties: Del Norte English faculty typically spend 30
to 40 hours each year recruiting and interviewing potential adjunct faculty, but despite
these efforts, finding and retaining adjuncts remains challenging.
Without qualified faculty, English composition classes must be cancelled at Del Norte
(sections of both 350 and 150 in the Fall 2007), despite the students’ need for these
requirements and the potential for added FTES. It has been at least three years since the
English department was able to offer any literature or creative writing courses, fulfilling
both GE and LDTP requirements, even though there is a demand for them among the Del
Norte student population. At this time, there are no associate faculty at Del Norte to cover
22.5 TLU’s of English composition for Spring 2008. Hiring another full-time English
faculty seems the only alternative to cancelled classes and diminishing enrollments.
Only at the Mendocino Coast Campus is the associate faculty staffing stable and sufficient,
although enrollment is steadily declining. The upcoming transfer of full-time professor
John Johnston to the Eureka campus where he is much needed to teach full classes will be a
prudent reallocation of staffing resources.
8. Complete the Staff Employment Grid below (please list full- and part-time staff
numbers in separate rows:
Staff Employed in the Program
Assignment
Full-time
(e.g., Math,
(classified) staff
English)
(give number)
English
1 FT staff—10
month position
Part-time staff
(give number)
Gains over
Prior Year
2 Work Study
(11 hrs.
wk. total)
None
Losses over
Prior Year (give
reason:
Fewer eligible
Work Study
Students
available with
tutor training
(ENGL 41)
Do you need more full-time staff? Part-time staff? If yes, explain why and be sure to
include data sheets justifying the need.
If necessary, to clarify your needs, please comment on current available staff and distribution
of FTE's for contract and part-time faculty. Describe strengths and weaknesses of
faculty/staff as appropriate to program's current status or future development.
In the Fall 2007, the following staff work in the English department district-wide: 12 fulltime faculty; 1 Associate Faculty with a temporary full-time load (22.5 TLUS—approved
by administration to cover accreditation-centered reassigned time); 16 part-time faculty
with loads ranging from 4.5 to 13.5 TLUs; 1 full-time, 10-month classified staff
(Instructional Support Specialist III) managing the Writing Center on the Eureka
campus; and 2 Work-Study student tutors (total of 11 hours per week). Our current
classified staff position is adequate. For analysis of faculty staffing , please see section 6.
The hiring of Work-Study students to tutor and help in the Writing Center could be better
planned if the department were given a clear budget for these hires—a budget which
allowed for district-funded Work-Study students. Since Writing Center student tutors
must be selected from among the most successful graduates of ENGL 41 (English Skills
Tutoring), we cannot limit our hires to students eligible for Federal Work Study. As it
now stands, Leslie Leach must recruit and hire student tutors with little—if any-preliminary information about available funding.
Facilities
9. Comment on facilities the program uses, their current adequacy, and any immediate needs.
Have your discipline’s facilities needs changed? If so, how? Please provide a data-based
justification for any request that requires new or additional facilities construction, renovation,
remodeling or repairs.
English classrooms suffer from problems similar to all campus facilities—worn out
carpeting, old paint and dim or otherwise poor artificial lighting. As for technology within
the classrooms, with the exception of Forum 208, the English classrooms now have updated
computer projection Ethernet connection. This technology allows instructors to project
digital video, videotape, data and web-based course components, and run PowerPoint
demonstrations or lectures, as well as show Blackboard class work. All classrooms should,
at the very least, have such multimedia projection equipment. But in order for the college
and the department to move forward and stay abreast of technological advances, at least
one Computerized Writing Classroom should be created. The Local Area Network
technology that has existed for more than a decade could enhance instruction and improve
retention and student learning. In the fall term 2007, the department has 32 total sections
of composition courses on the Eureka campus, and 17 sections of English courses were
actively using Blackboard technology to facilitate coursework. Last spring’s (2007)
curricular enhancement of increasing English 1A to a 4- unit course with an increased
research component makes the need for a Computerized Writing Classroom all the more
urgent. Current facilities provide inadequate student contact with Internet research
capabilities. Since the potential for online research will undoubtedly continue to expand, as
it is now expanding daily, students will need more time to practice and hone their online
research skills. The California Community College Strategic Plan, Area B, “Student
Success and Readiness,” recognizes that “facilities improvement” is a key to student
learning. And it is important to note that a networked classroom would benefit more than
just the courses that focus on research such as1A and 1B—the increasing numbers of
developmental writing students would also greatly benefit from such facilities
enhancement. The possibilities for innovation in a networked Computerized Writing
Classroom with integrated classroom management software are, at this point, unknown on
our campus. Simply put, without such a facility, we do not know what we could be doing.
Some instructors have begun to reserve Learning Resources Center 103 because it has
multiple computers than can be recessed to create a line-of-sight working classroom
environment, and while this facility does provide students with the ability to practice online
research for English 1A and 1B and other courses, the system is not currently networked
and the tables are immovable and arranged in the antiquated lecture style, ensuring
minimal interactive participation. The facility is also shared by the entire college and is
thus extremely limited in its utility for the English Department. Undoubtedly, creating a
Computerized Writing Classroom with networked integrated classroom management
software would increase the usage among faculty, improve student success rates, and allow
for more effective data gathering and interpretation. Indeed, with the increase in
developmental students and the continued need for composition coursework, and with our
society’s rapid and continued movement toward information technology, two, or even three
or four, such networked Computerized Writing Classrooms would be in order. Since it
seems practically certain that in the future all writing courses will take place in such
facilities, College of the Redwoods should have one at the Eureka campus and at the
branch campuses as well.
In addition to the need for a Computerized Writing Classroom, the Eureka campus
Writing Center’s lack of ventilation must be addressed. In a Writing Center survey of
students taken spring semester 2003, most of the negative comments appeared under the
category “quality of study atmosphere.” The main complaint is that the WC’s atmosphere
is too hot and stuffy. The problem persists and has real, serious effects on student success.
All of the faculty who have worked in the Writing Center have complained at one time or
another about the oppressively warm and smelly atmosphere. To alleviate the situation,
the Writing Center director has had to remove herself from the important duties of
working with students and, by a complicated jerry-rigged system of ventilation—involving
notification calls, deactivated alarms, fans elevated on chairs and chairs propping open
doors—tried her best to move air through the room. Her efforts produce only limited
results. Although the former Learning Resources Center director repeatedly requested
that something be done to alleviate the problem, nothing has been changed. The problem
should be rectified.
On the Mendocino Coast Campus bond-funded renovation projects have created a new
ASC/Writing Center facility equipped with new computers. The facility is sufficient to
meet current and near-term future demand.
Equipment
10. Have your discipline’s equipment needs changed? If so, how? Is equipment in need of
repair outside of your current budget? Please provide a data-based justification for any
request that requires a new or additional budget allotment.
On the Eureka campus, our multi media classrooms are equipped with new computers and
adequate multi media capability; however, because the college has not funded any sort of
computer or hardware replacement, there are no spare LCD projector bulbs, nor is there
sufficient money in the department or division budget to replace these when they fail. (The
average life-span of an LCD bulb is 1000 hours.) Also, since PLE grant monies have been
cut, faculty presently have no way to replace these bulbs.
Similarly, the Eureka Writing Center has been equipped or maintained primarily with
grant monies. This can not continue if lab equipment is to be maintained on a regular
schedule.. Even now we have had 2 computers down for a significant amount of time. We
need to have several spare computers on hand so that we can easily pull a broken machine,
replace it with a working model, and then send off the broken one to be repaired. Since the
Writing Center sees so much daily student traffic and since IT is often slower than we
would hope in fixing machines, these spare computers are vital.
At the Del Norte campus, a Writing Center has opened in Fall 2007, but it is still a work in
progress, currently equipped old monitors that are so large there is little table space left
for workbooks and notebooks. However, new computers have been ordered and will be
installed as soon as possible. In addition, at least 50% of the Del Norte classrooms are
without usable internet-linked computers, PowerPoint ready projectors, or screens.
Learning Outcomes Assessment Update
11. How has your area or program been engaged in student learning outcomes assessment?
a.
Summarize your results.
Approximately three years ago, the ENGL Dept. began updating curricula to include
SLOs. Reviewing our courses has been a collaborative and thoughtful process involving all
English faculty. Of particular concern has been the revision of our core curriculum. Since
all faculty teach these courses in a tight, skills-based sequence, making certain that we
collectively agree on SLOs is critical. As of October 26, the ENGL Dept. will have updated
17/20 or 85% of our English curriculum, developing or revising SLOs in the process.
What confronts us now is critically analyzing whether our SLOs are truly measurable and
then determining whether we have authentic assessment strategies in place for all English
courses. We will need to work in the future with Title III staff and IR to better understand
how classroom research can be done and how SLOs can be authentically assessed.
However, one excellent assessment already in place and used by all faculty district-wide
teaching ENGL 350 and ENGL 150 is the holistically graded essay competency exam given
to all students at the end of every semester. Also, ENGL 350 faculty on the Eureka campus
regularly assess reading skills by administering a nationally normed and standardized
reading exam as a pre-and post-test. Portfolio assessment, already done at Del Norte for
ENGL 1A courses, is a promising direction in the future for district-wide use.
In conjunction with the Underprepared project, for the past five years, the Eureka faculty
have done classroom research on assessment of reading and writing skills for all ENGL 350
classes. Records of grades received and pass rates on the essay competency exam and the
reading test have been kept and collaboratively shared with faculty. We have also kept
track of retention, completion, and success for all ENGL 350 much of this data will be
critical as we learn to authentically assess our SLOs and as we address as a department the
Basic Skills Initiative.
Part of students’ exit from English 1A at Del Norte is determined by portfolio evaluation, a
comprehensive overview of the performance on SLO’s for source-based, documented,
academic discourse.
b.
What did your program learn from these results that enabled you to
improve teaching and learning in the discipline?
From ENGL 350 classroom research, we have learned that the reading score (determined
at the beginning of the semester) is the best indicator of overall success in the class. We
have also learned that form of entry into ENGL 350 (Accuplacer exam, retake of ENGL.
350, or promotion from RDG 360) has bearing on student success. Former RDG 360
students have the most difficulty in passing ENGL 350. It would be helpful to track
persistence, how ENGL 350 students perform in ENGL 150, but currently IR does not have
that research capacity.
c.
How have part-time faculty been made aware of the need to assess SLOs?
Associate faculty have been involved district-wide in the collaborative determination of
SLOs as we updated our curriculum. Before teaching a new course, it is incumbent that
they review the revised course outlines. They are also encouraged to include a statement of
SLOs in all course syllabi. If associate faculty are teaching ENGL 350 or ENGL 150,
classes in our core curriculum, they routinely assess SLOs by administering and holistically
grading the essay competency exam. In ENGL 350 on the Eureka campus, they assess
reading SLOs by giving standardized reading exam.
Curriculum Update
(Reminder: Send updated course outlines to the Curriculum Committee.)
12. Identify curricular revisions, program innovations, and new initiatives undertaken in the
last year.
Again, since the English Department has not undergone program review since 1996, the
following section will identify significant curriculum changes that have taken place since
the late 1990s.
Developmental Composition:
Over the past five years, ENGL 350 has increased in rigor, particularly regarding critical
reading. Faculty on the Eureka campus have increased the exit score on the reading exam
from 67 to 70 percentile, selected and now require the use of a more challenging reading
textbook, and raised the level of difficulty of the essays students read. To support our
students, we have created an instructor-designed 300-page packet, which serves as an
excellent alternative to the students having to buy two textbooks while specifically targeting
the essential skills they need. The October 2007 curricular change of consolidating ENGL
350 and ENGL 350L into a combined lecture/lab course further benefits the students in
supporting their retention and success.
Since the late 1990s, ENGL 150 began a gradual evolution away from an earlier emphasis
on formal essay modes and multiple-choice grammar drills to become a course focused on
basic argumentation. By the time the course outline was revised in 2004 to conform to a
SLO model, the English faculty had concluded that reading, analyzing, and assessing
arguments and writing simple, logical argument essays stood as the two skills most
essential to prepare students for college-level work. From the late 1990s on, reading took
on an increasing importance in the ENGL 150 curriculum, a development reflected in
changes to the 150 Competency Exam to incorporate reading comprehension into a course
assessment that had previously addressed writing skills alone. In a recent curriculum
innovation designed to address the needs of Del Norte’s pre-nursing students, Ruth Rhodes
has developed a section of 150 focused on reading and writing about health-care issues.
The role of the lab portion of the course has also evolved, moving in a direction that can be
traced in the lab course name changes from Grammar Skills Review Lab in the 1990s to
English Skills Practicum in 2004. What was once defined primarily as a resource for
students to work on grammar exercises has become a tutorial workshop where students
receive individualized support and instruction on all stages of the writing process, as well
as on reading and sentence (grammar/punctuation) skills. Reflecting the close
coordination of the lecture and lab components of ENGL 150, the most recent revision of
the course outline (October 2007) has integrated the co-requisite ENGL 150 and 150L into
a single lecture-lab course. This revision also included a long overdue change to the course
title—from College Reading and Writing to Pre-collegiate Reading and Writing—which
should help to clarify the course’s developmental, non-transferable status.
Before 2004 at the Mendocino Coast campus, students enrolled in English 150, 350, and 152
were offered only unstructured computer lab time as the “lab/practicum” component of
their course, and they had no access to tutors. Students’ “lab” experiences were not in any
way integrated with their lecture experiences, and actual attendance for labs was very
loosely monitored and not documented in any verifiable manner. In Spring 2004, CRMC
adopted the Writing Center model used on the Eureka campus and began offering
structured lab experiences that are integrated with the lecture components of these courses.
In Fall 2007, a new Writing Center opened on the Del Norte campus, enabling a unified
approach to the lab portions of English courses across the district.
In line with the department’s commitment to district-wide standards, the past several years
have seen more collaboration between campuses in norming and scoring the ENGL 350
and 150 competency exams. Both full- and part-time CRMC English faculty have
participated in the English 150 and 350 competency exam reading/scoring sessions with
English colleagues on the Eureka campus every semester since Fall 2003. This has
expanded the conversations about pedagogy on the CRMC campus and has helped
promote consistent standards district-wide, despite geographical isolation. In 2005, the
English 150 Course Leader from the Eureka campus traveled to Del Norte to lead a
norming session with full- and part-time faculty there—again, to insure that we are sharing
district-wide curriculum and standards.
To comply with Ed. Code regulations regarding prerequisites, the English department has
also developed standardized prerequisite challenge assessments for ENGL 350 and ENGL
150.
Transfer Composition:
In the past six years, English 1A has also undergone significant curriculum changes. In the
early 2000s, the English department developed a selection of English 1A themes to replace
the sometimes disjointed variety of reading and writing topics characteristic of the
traditional First-Year Composition course. The aim was to focus students’ critical reading
and source-based writing within topic areas, such as the environment, popular culture, or
social issues. Based on the anecdotal evidence of ENGL 1A instructors, the English
department has concluded that the themed classes do seem to maintain students’ interest
more effectively than the less focused ENGL 1A model. In addition, the themed-based 1As
provide us with the opportunity to tailor this essential GE course for specific target groups,
like the Business and Applied Technology students who gravitate toward the Business and
Technical Writing 1A theme.
The 2006 update to the ENGL 1A course outline introduced another major change to the
course: a unit increase from 3 to 4 units specifically intended both to preserve and update
ENGL 1A’s research and source-based writing emphasis. Recognizing that the course
plays an essential role in CR’s information literacy instruction, the English faculty were
faced with trying to fit the complexities of 21st-century academic research into a unit/hours
configuration that had not changed since the days of card catalogs. The additional weekly
hour now allows instructors to teach the necessary skills of accessing, evaluating, and citing
electronic sources in addition to the fundamental transfer-level reading, writing, and
research competencies.
Transfer Literature:
Keeping abreast with developments in the field, literature curriculum at CR has been
revised to better integrate multicultural (including women’s) perspectives into standard
survey courses. In response to the shrinking enrollments in literature courses, the English
department has also developed so-called “hybrid” courses that combine Honors and nonHonors sections, so a single class may address the needs of regular transfer students as well
as Honors students.
13. Identify curricular revisions, program innovations, and new initiatives planned for the
next year.
The English department needs to understand and to be involved in the implementation of
the Basic Skills Initiative for California community colleges since our developmental
courses, ENGL 350 and ENGL 150, comprise approximately 63% of ENGL Courses
taught by the department. Any curriculum developments that result from the BSI will, of
course, need to discussed and communicated within the English department district-wide,
including both full- and part-time faculty.
In October 2007, ENGL 152 (a course which allows any CR student to make use of
Writing Center resources and instruction) was revised to incorporate SLOs and assessment
measures. These changes, effective in Fall 2008, will constitute a significant change in the
requirements for this lab course, which is popular with students seeking help with reading
and writing across the curriculum. Working closely with Writing Center manager Leslie
Leach, the English department plans to clarify processes for these new assessments and to
communicate the changes in ENGL 152 to Student Services advisors and to students.
After monitoring the evolving norms in the discipline and conferring with the English
Chair at HSU, the CR English faculty has resolved to complete the process of revamping
our literature courses so that they reflect the standard lower-division literature selections
offered across the state, particularly at the CSUs. To this end, we will revise the world
literature surveys, ENGL 10 and ENGL 9, to include non-western literature in addition to
the European works these courses have always covered.. This update will render ENGL 20
(Non-Western Literature) redundant, so it will be deactivated. These curriculum changes
will demand adjustments to our articulation with the HSU English department regarding
LDTP requirements.
The final step in standardizing our literature offerings will be the development of a new
course, a one-semester Introduction to Literature, organized by genre (poetry, fiction,
drama). Based on our research into common course offerings at public colleges and
universities throughout the state, the English department has concluded that such a course
has a widespread appeal as a GE Humanities and an English LDTP option. When
approved, the course will be submitted for approval to the CR GE list, the CSU GE LDTP
list, and IGETC.
14. Complete the grid below
Course
ENGL 350
ENGL 350L
ENGL 353
ENGL 150
ENGL 150L
ENGL 152
Year Course
Outline
Last Updated
2007
Deleted
effective F08
2007
2007
Deleted
effective F08
2007
Year Next
Update
Expected
2012
2012
2012
2012
ENGL 153
ENGL 1A
ENGL 1B
ENGL 5
ENGL 8
ENGL 9
ENGL 10
ENGL 17
ENGL 18
ENGL 20
ENGL 22
ENGL 32
ENGL 33
ENGL 41
ENGL 47
2007
2006
2005
Deleted F 2007
Deleted F 2007
2002
2002
2007
2007
2007
2001
2007
2007
2007
2007
2012
2011
2010
2008
2008
2012
2012
2012
2008
2012
2012
2012
2012
(pending C.C.
approval
10-26-07)
ENGL 60
ENGL 61
ENGL 70
2007
2007
Deleted F 2007
2012
2012
Goals and Plans
15. If you have recently undergone a comprehensive review, attach your Quality
Improvement Plan if applicable.
16. If you do not have a QIP, what goals and plans does your area have for the coming year?
The most important goal the English department has for the upcoming year will require
the support of the administration and the Academic Senate: with a reduction of two fulltime faculty positions district-wide in Fall 2008 and a limited pool of associate faculty, we
must hire new full-time English faculty if we are to continue to serve our students and the
college community.
This goal is particularly important in light of the Basic Skills Initiative mandate for
California community colleges. Mirroring the national rates of 70-80% of community
college students arriving under-prepared and requiring basic skills coursework, College of
the Redwoods currently schedules approximately 63% of available English sections at the
developmental/basic skills level. However, with the Basic Skills Initiative’s
recommendation that “orientation, assessment, and placement [be] mandatory for all new
students,” we can only anticipate a demand for more sections of English 350 and 150,
requiring additional faculty and renewed commitment to basic skills mentoring and
professional development for new and current staff. Additionally, we project that English
faculty will be asked to play lead roles in all phases of BSI, from initial assessment of
district needs to providing professional, comprehensive training for colleagues in all
disciplines working with developmental/ESL students.
The English department also looks for institutional support to fulfill two additional goals.
First, we hope to receive clear, advance information about the Work Study funding, so we
may plan the hiring of student tutors in the Writing Center instead of hiring them blindly
in hopes there are funds to pay them. Secondly, it is essential that we have the facilities and
equipment readily available to hold regular district-wide department meetings through
teleconferencing.
A major focus for the department in 2008 will be developing systems for assessing the
SLOs that are now in place for 85% of our courses. Our semiannual extended department
meetings and work days (the English “retreats”) will be devoted to this essential task. A
common assessment must be implemented in ENGL 1A. We also need to collect and
analyze data from the ENGL 150 competency exams, much as the ENGL 350 faculty have
already begun to do with that course.
The English department is looking forward to collaborating with Counseling and Advising
on a more effective means of identifying English and English Education majors and
referring them to the English faculty for discipline-specific advising (see section 5 above).
In 2006-7, the English program has made progress in communicating with our colleagues
in both the high schools and at HSU through occasional meetings with Fortuna High
School teachers and with the HSU English Department Chair and Acting Composition
Director. In the next year, we will continue these efforts, expanding our outreach at HSU
in particular, where we have arranged a regular schedule of meetings not only with faculty
but with MATW graduate students eager for information about community college
teaching.