Annual Program Review Update
*Be sure to include information from all three campuses.
Program/Discipline: ______Political Science_(POLSC)
Date:
____10/8/07 (Revised 10/29/07)
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.
Yes, our only full-time instructor on the Eureka campus resigned in June,
2007, leaving no full-time faculty in the district who devote all of their time
to this discipline. Including the branch campuses, the three full-time faculty
who teach in POLSC also have duties in other disciplines such as
Administration of Justice, Economics, History, etc. One of these full-time
faculty members has taken on the role of “Area Coordinator” for POLSC.
This position reports to the ALSS Division Chair. The District provides 1.5
TLUs annually of re-assigned time for this position.
Note: curricular changes should be addressed under 12-14.
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.
According to the POLSC annual program review data, student success has
remained remarkably steady since Fall 2005. For some reason, the success
rates in summer offerings of the class have been much higher (both V1 and
V2 categories).
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.
No market data is currently available.
certificates in this discipline.
CR does not offer any degrees or
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.
No, the CTE provides some opportunities for both full and part-time faculty
development. The on-line databases from the CR library are good. The
main problem is the dearth of printed materials, e.g. magazine subscriptions
and books in the CR Library collections. The lack of print material is
considerably heightened at the CRDN and CRMC campuses.
5. Does your discipline need additional support from Student Services beyond that
previously provided?
No, there seem to be sufficient support from Student Services personnel,
except for the tutoring program. It no longer exists to any great degree (at
least 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
Full-Time
Faculty
% of Total
Teaching
Load Taught
by Part-Time
Faculty
Changes
from fall
2005
Explanations and
Additional
Information
(e.g., retirement,
reassignment,
etc.)
POLSC
51
55.6
55.4
-24.7%
F/T
faculty
Only F/T
instructor
became
division chair
– 9.0 of his
TLUs picked
up by another
F/T faculty
member
Changes
from spring
2006
Explanations and
Additional
Information
(e.g., retirement,
Faculty Load Distribution in the Program
Discipline
Name
(e.g., Math,
English,
Total
Teaching
Load for
spring
% of Total
Teaching
Load by
Full-Time
% of Total
Teaching
Load Taught
by Part-Time
Accounting)
2007
term
Faculty
Faculty
POLSC
45
40.0
60.0
reassignment,
etc.)
-29.2
Same as
above – also,
due to fewer
sections being
offered – lack
of associate
faculty
Do you need more full-time faculty? Associate faculty? If yes, explain why and be sure to
include data sheets justifying the need.
The increase in a pool of more associate faculty members would be
helpful. Currently, either class size would have to be increased or the
number of sections frozen as all full and part-time faculty members in
the District are teaching POLSC courses at maximum load.
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
(e.g., Math, (classified)
staff (give
number)
English)
staff (give
number)
Gains over
Prior Year
Losses over
Prior Year
(give reason:
retirement,
reassignment,
health, etc.)
ALSS
Division
Secretary
Do you need more full-time staff? Part-time staff? If yes, explain why and be sure to
include data sheets justifying the need.
No – Given the small size of the POLSC program, no additional staff is
needed.
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.
With the exception of FM 100 and one other classroom, many
classrooms in which POLSC courses may be taught lack basic A/V
equipment other than an overhead projector. Many of the POLSC
instructors use basic multi-media presentation in their instruction,
such as PowerPoint, film clips, etc. At the Del Norte Campus, the
recently-completed construction project has modernized almost all of
the classrooms, so that the Political Science classes there all have
overhead projectors, internet access, full audio-visual equipment, and
Ethernet network connectivity.
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.
See #9
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?
No systematic SLO assessments have been done as of this time.
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.
None
13. Identify curricular revisions, program innovations, and new initiatives planned for the
next year.
Complete revision of all POLSC course outlines to be done this academic year
14. Complete the grid below
Course
POLSC 1 –
Contemporary
Problems
POLSC 3 – Modern
World Problems
POLSC 10 –
American
Institutions
POLSC 12 – State &
Local Politics
POLSC 20 –
Comparative
Politics/Government
POLSC 30 – The
Campaign Trail
POLSC 40 Independent Study
in Political Science
POLSC 99 –
Selected Topics/
Political Science
Year Course
Outline Last
Updated
Year Next
Update
Expected
9/19/89
2007
10/23/88
2007
10/26/88
2007
11/22/02
2007
4/23/99
2007
10/26/88
2007
--
--
--
2007
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?
1. Update all course outlines/assess student learning outcomes
2. Study the feasibility of restoring the full-time faculty position for
political science
3. Find ways to recruit additional part-time faculty
4. Continue to monitor institutional research data gathered on
political science courses
5. Explore the possibility of starting a political science club on
campus
1. Primary need is more print materials in all CR Libraries
2.
3.
4.
Low
Moder
ate
List Resources Needed for Academic Year___________________
High
Please list/summarize the needs of your program on your campus below
This section to be filled out by
Subcommittee
Degree of
Justification (as
Approval
substantiated by
Status
the program
review)
Approv
ed
Not
Approv
ed
Very
High
This section to be filled out by the program at each campus (all campuses)