Annual Program Review Update
*Be sure to include information from all three campuses.
Program/Discipline: _____Geology (GEOL)___
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 Geology courses have been under the Science Department and within the
Science and Math Division (at the Eureka Campus) for the last four years. Most
recently, the applied sciences of Forestry, Natural Resources, and Agriculture
were added to the Eureka Science Department. This has allowed greater
communication between geology and these other areas, but it has not changed
the curriculum or resulted in new degrees or certificates.
Geology courses (Geol 1, 9, 10) have been taught by a full-time instructor at the
Del Norte Campus and by a part-time instructor at the Mendocino campus (Geol
10, 130 series).
Last year (06-07) the Eureka Campus Science Department formalized a science
preparation program and had it approved by the Program Review Committee.
This program includes the preparatory courses for students majoring in the
sciences, including those intending to major in geology. Although this program
does not include geology courses, the coursework provided in the Science Prep
Program prepares students majoring in geology to successfully transfer as
juniors. Consequently the geology faculty coordinates with the science prep
faculty to assure sufficient offerings and to provide advising tools for geology
students. The Science Preparation courses are not routinely offered at the Del
Norte and Mendocino campuses (except for distance education calculus).
However, geology students at the Del Norte campus receive advising regarding
the science preparation program available at the Eureka campus and interested
students are encouraged to transfer to that campus.
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.
Our observations have been a somewhat steady enrollment over the last several
years, with some minor declines that reflect the overall decline of the school. We
typically offer 3-4 non-lab geology sections and 1-2 lab sections each semester at
the Eureka campus, 1 non-lab section each semester at the Mendocino campus,
and 1 section (lab or non-lab) at the Del Norte campus.
The institutional data shows a drop in the number of active sections (19 to 15
sections per year) in the last two years and a small, but steady, decline in the
average class size (23.3-20.5). Somewhat puzzling is the section fill percentage
has increased from 68% to 73%, although this may reflect changes in the
classroom capacities where the sections are taught.
Our retention numbers for the courses are high (consistent at about 92% for the
last two years), but our success rate (C or better) has ranged from 60%-69%
during that same periods. This is a similar success rate to other general
education physical science disciplines (e.g., Astronomy), but it is an area we need
to investigate and consider strategies for improvement (see plans for next year in
#16c below). This success rate may be somewhat biased by students who remain
in the class through the census week, but stop attending later in the semester.
Their failure grades would then be averaged into the overall class success, even
though students completing the course have a much higher success rate.
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 Applicable to this Discipline
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.
Professional development needs have been sufficient for full-time faculty. Funds
have been available for travel to conferences and for field studies/sample
collection. The Eureka campus faculty have the opportunity to interact with
colleagues at Humboldt State University and to attend their earth science lecture
series. In addition, the Eureka area faculty participate in a local
professional/academic society (Humboldt Friends of Geology) where earth
science lectures are presented on a regular basis.
5. Does your discipline need additional support from Student Services beyond that
previously provided?
During the last year, the Eureka campus science faculty have been working with
the counseling area (part of Student Services) to improve advising for science
majors. Our emphasis is to provide discipline advising and to contact students
early in their academic programs. We will continue with these efforts.
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.)
GEOL
29
81.6%
18.4%
- 4TLUs in Reassigned time
Total TLUs for area
coordination
and fluctuations
in part time
availability
account for
variations
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.)
GEOL
37.5
76.0%
24.0%
-6.91 in
Reassignment
Total TLUs for area
coordination
and fluctuations
in part time
availability
account for the
small fluctuation
in Full Time
load
Do you need more full-time faculty? Associate faculty? If yes, explain why and
be sure to include data sheets justifying the need.
The numbers of full and part time faculty (and availability of part-time faculty) at
the Eureka campus have been sufficient to cover the courses offered. Sections
offered on the Eureka campus are generally not full beyond the 40 capacity limit.
There are also sufficient full-time faculty resources at the Del Norte campus to cover
all of the geology courses offered.
7. 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
Part-time staff
(e.g., Math,
(classified) staff (give number)
English)
(give number)
1 Division
office
coordinator
(Eureka)
Physical
Science shared
Technician
(Eureka)
0.05 classified
(shared with
division)
Gains over
Prior Year
0
Losses over
Prior Year (give
reason:
retirement,
reassignment,
health, etc.)
0
0
0
0.10 (primarily
for chemistry
and biology)
Do you need more full-time staff? Part-time staff? If yes, explain why and be sure
to include data sheets justifying the need.
None needed for geology. Numbers shown above are shared staff. The
technician positions are primarily for chemistry and biology, with less than 10%
of their time devoted to geology.
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 need of 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 former Partnership for Excellence) grants have
helped to maintain these needs. The suspension of this program will eventually
impact this discipline as equipment wears out. Transportation support for
Eureka campus field trips was terminated three years ago and consequently one
of our most useful pieces of equipment (vans for field trips) has not been
available. Van transportation continues to be available at Del Norte and
Mendocino and is a crucial part of field-based science courses on those
campuses. The Eureka campus typically schedules 1-3 sections of field-based
instruction per semester (lab and field studies course). We currently employ an
inconvenient system of student-provided transportation. This results in a loss of
valuable instructional time and raises liability issues. We request that a shared
system of transportation (geology, biology, astronomy) be reinstated.
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 Geology discipline has incorporated student learning outcomes through our
updating of course outlines. All of the general-education courses have outlines
written in this format. Secondly, the full-time faculty have discussed these
outcomes in depth (the outlines are the result of collaborative work) and are
currently considering a systematic way of recording assessment results. Both
full-time instructors informally track the results of in-class activities, tests and
projects and compare these to outcomes. Our observations are that at least 6070% of students completing the course are able to demonstrate the outcomes.
However, this is merely anecdotal and we are in the process of formalizing
questions and project assessment rubrics to provide a more accurate analysis.
Our intention is to have a set of criteria used for each course and require fulland part-time instructors to use these and record and report 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.
All of the General Education geology courses have been updated in the last five
years, with the exception of Historical Geology (Geol 2 – CR GE), which will be
deactivated this fall. We also plan to deactivate several other courses as shown
in the grid below. An update of the Geology 9 outline (a change to Geology 99)
will complete our recent efforts to update all courses.
One innovation used throughout the updated curriculum is to employ in-class
activities to allow students to self-assess prior to more formal testing. In
addition, our lab course (Geology 1) emphasizes field-based and hands-on
learning. Likewise, both Geology 10 (non-lab environmental geology) and
Geology 15 (non-lab plate tectonics/earthquakes) include projects centered on
local and real-world examples. These methods empower students with useful
information and provide multiple methods that appeal to a variety of learning
styles.
13. Identify curricular revisions, program innovations, and new initiatives planned for
the next year.
We are in the process of updating the field studies course and changing it to a
“99” (multiple topics course). Our intent is to better define the expectations of
the course and to provide flexibility to allow it to be adapted to topical subjects
and the expertise of our instructors.
Additionally, we have employed in-house class packets in both lab and non-lab
courses. We will continue with these efforts and possibly experiment with using
them as the sole resource for the course. Our experience is that the packets are
both cost-effective (for our low-income students) and increase the focus of
students on more specific information and learning.
14. Complete the grid below
Course
Geol 1
Geol 2
Geol 3
Geol 9
Geol 10
Geol 15
Geol 130E
Year Course Outline
Last Updated
5/12/06
6/8/89
10/18/88
9/11/89
10/14/05
3/23/07
11/17/86
Geol 130F
11/18/86
Geol 130G
11/19/86
Year Next Update
Expected
Spring ‘11
Deactivate, ‘07
Deactivate, ‘07
Change to Geology
99, Fall, 07
Fall ‘10
Fall ‘11
Deactivate or
Update, Fall‘07*
Deactivate or
Update, Fall‘07*
Deactivate or
Update, Fall‘07*
* Pending discussion between faculty at branch campuses
Goals and Plans
15. If you have recently undergone a comprehensive review, attach your Quality
Improvement Plan if applicable.
Does not apply.
16. If you do not have a QIP, what goals and plans does your area have for the
coming year?
Our plan:
a. Update the Geology 9 course outline (to Geology 99) and deactivate several
courses so that we will be 100% compliant with course outline updates by the
end of fall, 2007. We are currently discussing whether to update or deactivate
the Geol 130 series. We intend to have this resolved (and updated, if that is the
decision) by the end of fall ’07.
b. Develop a student learning outcomes assessment plan (and methods) to assess
the outcomes present in each updated outline. This will be a district-wide,
multiple instructor plan to provide consistency throughout the district.
c. Initiate a district-wide dialogue concerning section success rate. The success
numbers in our initial data (approximately 65%) need to be understood. We
need to investigate the reasons for these rates and possible methods of
improvement.
d. Continue to assess enrollment trends. Our efforts from last spring (offering
more sections at the Eureka campus, targeting mid-morning periods, etc.)
appear to have helped with enrollment. We will analyze data from this fall to see
if the data confirm this perception.