Annual Program Review Update
*Be sure to include information from all three campuses.
Program/Discipline: ___Geography (GEOG)______
Date:
_____9/17/07______________________
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 life-science courses.) If not, skip to #2.
Note: curricular changes should be addressed under 12-14.
The Geography Discipline at the Eureka campus has been administered through
the Science Department (and equivalent departments/units at the branch
campuses) throughout the history of the college. Our recent restructuring on the
Eureka campus has resulted in the Science Department incorporating the
applied science disciplines of forestry, natural resources, and agriculture. This
has allowed a closer connection between applied aspects of the sciences (e.g.,
soils) and areas included in physical geography (e.g., soils, natural resources).
An informal structure of applied sciences, natural sciences, and geography has
been present at the Mendocino campus for at least the past 20 years. Geography
has not been taught at the Del Norte campus for at least the last 10 years.
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.
Approximately, 1-3 sections of geography have been offered throughout the
district over the past two years. The Eureka campus offers Geography 1
(physical geography) and Geography 2 (cultural geography) on a regular basis –
one or both each semester. Faculty at the Mendocino campus have offered
physical geography on an intermittent basis, and no geography sections are
taught at the Del Norte Campus. It is difficult to assess significant changes given
this small data set. In general, district-wide classes average about 30 students,
retention rates are high (near 90%) and success rates are consistent with other
GE physical sciences courses. We are skeptical of the quality of some of the
institutional data that show absurdly low success rates (2.8%). First hand
knowledge proves this incorrect. On the Eureka campus, the geography courses
are very popular with typical enrollment of 35-45 students and success rates
similar to other introductory earth science courses. Similar trends exist for
cultural geography.
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.
Not an occupational program – not applicable
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.
Our geography courses have been taught primarily by part time instructors.
Travel funds and professional development opportunities are available for these
faculty. To date, these needs have been sufficient.
5. Does your discipline need additional support from Student Services beyond that
previously provided?
Student support services offered through the Academic Support Center at the
Eureka campus have been adequate for students in this discipline. Library
support of resource materials at the Eureka campus are also provided for the
geography courses. In addition, instructors make use of Blackboard as a student
resource.
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
4.5
100%
0%
-4.5 TLUs
100% PT
Explanations and
Additional
Information (e.g.,
retirement,
reassignment, etc.)
A long time
geography
instructor (PT)
retired after Spring
‘06
Faculty Load Distribution in the Program
Discipline
Name
(e.g., Math,
English,
Accounting)
Total
Teaching
Load for
spring 2007
term
4.5
% 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.)
100%
No Change
New Part-time
faculty are being
recruited
Do you need more full-time faculty? Associate faculty? If yes, explain why and
be sure to include data sheets justifying the need.
A long-time Associate faculty member working at the Eureka campus retired in
the spring of 2006. He had a favorable reputation and a strong connection with
Humboldt State University’s geography department. Since his departure we
have used both full and part-time faculty to teach these classes (including an
emeritus professor from Humboldt State). We are in the process of recruiting a
more reliable set of instructors to teach both physical and cultural geography.
While, the previous instructor was well versed in both branches of geography,
we anticipate that this may be rare and a combination of two instructors will be
required. Furthermore, the full-time earth science instructor at the Eureka
campus has the minimum qualifications to teach geography and will be helping
with the physical geography course. Teaching of the physical geography course
on the Mendocino campus resumed in the fall of ‘07 and is being undertaken by
a full-time instructor at that campus. No additional needs for faculty are
anticipated at this time.
7. Complete the Staff Employment Grid below (please list full- and part-time staff
numbers in separate rows:
Staff Employed in the Program
Assignment
(e.g., Math,
English)
Eureka – 1
shared office
coordinator for
MSE.
Mendocino –
shared office
coordinator for
campus.
Full-time
(classified) staff
(give number)
Part-time staff
(give number)
Gains over
Prior Year
None
0.05 –shared
office assistant
(for division or
campus) at each
campus
Losses over
Prior Year (give
reason:
retirement,
reassignment,
health, etc.)
Do you need more full-time staff? Part-time staff? If yes, explain why and be sure
to include data sheets justifying the need.
Current staffing is adequate for this small discipline
8. 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.
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.
Facilities are adequate for the current scheduling. However, many aspects of the
facilities, such as cabinets, desks and floors are in of need repair. Also many
aspects of the rooms are not ADA compliant (height of desk/benches, width of
aisles) We anticipated that much of this would be updated during bond-funded
construction. However there has been little communication (at any of the
campuses) regarding bond-funded facilities improvements during the last year.
Unfortunately, this lack of communication regarding scheduling and/or
modification of bond-funded upgrades prevents developing intermediate or
long-range plans for remedying these deficits.
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.
Equipment needs have been constant at all three campuses. Our Partnership for
Learning Enhancement and Partnership for Excellence grants have helped to
maintain these needs. The suspension of this program will eventually impact
this discipline as equipment wears out.
Learning Outcomes Assessment Update
11. How has your area or program been engaged in student learning outcomes
assessment?
a.
Summarize your results.
b.
What did your program learn from these results that enabled you to
improve teaching and learning in the discipline?
c.
How have part-time faculty been made aware of the need to assess SLOs?
The Geography discipline is engaging in student learning outcomes through our
updating of course outlines. We are in the process of updating the Geography 1
(physical geography) course outline (including appropriate outcome statements) and
we intend on doing the same for Geography 2 (cultural geography) later in the
semester. The geography instructors informally track the results of in-class activities,
tests and projects and compare these to their expectations (prior to formal outcomes
being described in course outlines). Our observations are that at least 70% of
students completing the course are able to achieve these expectations. However, this
is merely anecdotal and we are in the process of formalizing questions and project
analyses to provide a more accurate analysis that is consistent with the new student
learning outcomes in the course outlines. Our intention is to have a set of criteria
used for each course and require full- and part-time instructors to use these and
record the results.
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.
No revisions or initiatives were undertaken during the fall ’06 to Spring ’07
period. We are making revisions now (Fall ’07). Details are described below.
13. Identify curricular revisions, program innovations, and new initiatives planned for
the next year.
We are in the process of updating the Geography 1 course outline and intend to
have it submitted to the curriculum committee by the end of September, 2007.
We also intend to update the Geography 2 outline during the fall, 2007 semester.
The revision of the Geography 2 outline (cultural geography) will require interdivisional discussion because this course satisfies a social sciences general
education requirement. We prefer to keep the administration of all geography
courses within the Sciences (Science Department/Group); however, we will
consider ways to best integrate management of the cultural geography course
with social science faculty scheduling and expectations. Two other, seldom
taught geography courses, will be deactivated by September, 2007.
14. Complete the grid below
Course
Geography 1
Physical Geography
Geography 2
Cultural Geography
Geography 3F
Field Geography
Geography-125
Earthquakes
Year Course
Outline Last
Updated
9/1/89
Year Next Update
Expected
9/07
6/12/89
11/07
10/24/85
Deactivate
11/14/86
Deactivate
Goals and Plans
15. If you have recently undergone a comprehensive review, attach your Quality
Improvement Plan if applicable.
Not applicable to the geography discipline
16. If you do not have a QIP, what goals and plans does your area have for the
coming year?
Our Goals are:
1. Update course outlines and deactivate courses to have 100% compliance of
course outlines
2. Develop an assessment plan for SLOs in new course outlines. Disseminate
this plan district-wide and begin data gathering by Spring, 2008
3. Initiate dialogue with social science faculty concerning the administration
and goals of our cultural geography course.