HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
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HLC Self-study Subcommittee on Specialization: Education within the Major (Eric
Gidal, ch.; Rebecca Anthony, Paris Ivory, Debra L. Johnson, Craig Kletzing, Amy
Korthank-Gabaldon, Tom Niblock, Tom Rietz, Alec Scranton)
INTRODUCTION
The Self-Study Subcommittee on Specialization: Education within the Major was given
the following charge: to study the programs, policies, and practices that define students’
experiences as they pursue the specialized learning available in their major or majors.
The subcommittee identified the following relevant elements of specialized
undergraduate education pertaining to this charge:
- Selecting a major
- Academic advising in colleges and host departments
- Definition and assessment of learning outcomes
- Mechanisms for supporting effective learning
- Student perceptions of specialized learning
- Patterns of progress through the curricula
Save for the final element, we were able to collect data sufficient to allow us to gain a
sense of how these various components function at the university and to begin to reflect
on how they define and assist undergraduate education.
While considering all of the criteria for reaccreditation provided by the HLC, the
subcommittee attended in particular to the core components of the third criterion, Student
Learning and Effective Teaching, namely:
- The organization’s goals for student learning outcomes are clearly stated for each
educational program and make effective assessment possible.
- The organization values and supports effective teaching.
- The organization creates effective learning environments.
- The organization’s learning resources support student learning and effective
teaching.
The report also offers explicit references to the other criteria for reaccreditation and their
relevant components, and, where relevant and available, includes quotations from student
interviews conducted as a complement to the student survey.
The subcommittee both assembled and collected data relevant to these elements
and components and assembled them as follows:
- Domain and Scope:
o Revisits the University of Iowa’s mission statement as articulated in its
five year strategic plan for 2005-2010.
o Articulates the centrality of the undergraduate major in helping to promote
and administer the goals set forward in the mission statement.
- Undergraduate Majors and Certificate Programs:
o Details the number of majors and their distribution across the colleges.
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o Surveys the admission requirements for the relevant colleges.
o Describes the primary types of curricular structures for the undergraduate
majors.
Outcomes Assessment
o Revisits the mandate currently being pursued by undergraduate majors
across the university.
o Describes the primary mechanisms for defining goals and assessing
outcomes across the majors.
o Examines the relevant professional exams that dictate or influence
outcomes assessment across the majors.
Mechanisms for Valuing and Supporting Effective Teaching:
o Documents the qualifications of instructors teaching within the
undergraduate majors.
o Describes the procedures for curricular review within the colleges.
o Surveys university-wide initiatives and department-based programs
designed to improve teaching.
o Describes university awards for the recognition of achievements in
teaching.
Effective Learning Environments
o Describes advising services available to undergraduates before declaring
majors and evaluates trends for the number of semester hours completed
before declaration.
o Describes advising services within host departments.
o Describes research opportunities available to undergraduate majors.
o Describes extra-curricular activities available to undergraduate majors.
o Surveys programs in place for recruiting minority students to
undergraduate majors.
o Examines new technologies enhancing effective learning environments.
o Describes information available regarding post-graduation outcomes.
Student Perceptions
o Describes and evaluates the results of a student survey on the
undergraduate experience, covering:
ƒ the availability of majors,
ƒ the advising process in selecting a major,
ƒ the ability to get into courses within a major,
ƒ the advising within a major, and
ƒ the level of interaction with faculty within a major
Planning for the Future:
o Describes mechanisms in place within host departments for planning for
the future of their undergraduate programs.
Report Recommendations:
o Offers suggestions for subsequent research in effectiveness of advising
and patterns of enrollment in the undergraduate major programs across the
university.
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DOMAIN AND SCOPE:
As stated in the Strategic Plan for 2005-2010, the University of Iowa seeks to enrich the
lives of undergraduates and help them to become well-informed individuals, lifelong
learners, engaged citizens, and productive employees and employers.
Towards that end, we seek not only to recruit, but also to retain a student population that
can succeed at a comprehensive research university, guiding all students through their
majors and providing appropriate academic advising at all stages of a student’s academic
career.
We seek to promote high quality teaching, effective learning environments, and programs
and opportunities that leverage the university’s strengths. We aim to introduce students
to the process by which research, scholarship, and creative work are produced and to
enable their participation in that process, which is the key ‘value added’ of a
comprehensive research university. At the same time, we seek to develop first-year
seminars, honors courses,
and other small class
Core Component – 1a: The organization’s mission venues where students can
documents are clear and articulate publicly the interact with tenured
organization’s commitments. faculty.
Core Component – 1b: In its mission documents, the organization recognizes the diversity of its learners, other constituencies, and the greater society it serves.
We seek to ensure that all
students graduate with
strong core skills, a broad
liberal arts education, and
concentrated study in one or more majors, promoting their facility for critical thinking,
writing, and other communication skills, creative endeavor, and the use of information
technology. We hope to provide them with opportunities to develop leadership and
teamwork skills in a range of organizational structures.
And we seek to help undergraduates prepare for life within and beyond college by
instilling in them a respect for the life of the mind and a habit of lifelong learning,
communicating to them the value of community involvement and participation in
democratic governance, providing career advising that will enable them to pursue their
employment goals, providing educational experiences that will prompt them to consider
the role postgraduate-education could play in their lives, and offering curricular and
cocurricular opportunities that will enable them to understand and succeed in a
multicultural and global community.
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The undergraduate majors and certificate programs, as administered by various
departments and colleges throughout the university, play critical roles in the
achievement of many of these goals.
Departments and administrative units provide
advising and mentoring to their majors that is
personalized to students’ particular academic
interests and curricular needs. They organize
student learning environments and opportunities,
promote effective teaching, and serve as focal
points for the allocation of resources and
processes for evaluation and planning. They are
crucial units for improving the climate for
diversity and building a critical mass of
underrepresented students, faculty, and staff.
They thus provide both a pedagogical and
administrative means of fulfilling the university’s
mission, improving the quality of its education,
and responding to future challenges and
opportunities.
Core Component – 1c: Understanding of and support for the mission pervade the organization. Core Component – 1d: The organization’s governance and administrative structures promote effective leadership and support collaborative processes that enable the organization to fulfill its mission. This self-study describes the administrative and pedagogical structure of undergraduate
majors and certificate programs at the University of Iowa, presents available evidence
concerning their role in helping the university achieve its primary goals for undergraduate
education, and offers suggestions for future research and planning. It describes how
different departments are developing clearly stated learning outcomes for their majors
and mechanisms for effective assessment. It demonstrates the mechanisms majors offer
in valuing and supporting effective teaching among the faculty and creating effective
learning environments for the undergraduate students. Finally, it summarizes the
strengths of the undergraduate majors at the University of Iowa and identifies areas
where further study is warranted and where improvements are possible or already
underway.
Hence, we argue, that at the University of Iowa the administration of undergraduate
majors speaks to numerous components of the five criteria for accreditation:
- Criterion One: Mission and Integrity – The organization operates with integrity to
ensure the fulfillment of its mission through structures and processes that involve
the board, administration, faculty, staff, and students.
- Criterion Two: Preparing for the Future – The organization’s allocation of
resources and its processes for evaluation and planning demonstrate its capacity to
fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its education, and respond to future
challenges and opportunities.
- Criterion Three: Student Learning and Effective Teaching – The organization
provides evidence of student learning and teaching effectiveness that
demonstrates it is fulfilling its educational mission.
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Criterion Four: Acquisition, Discovery, and Application of Knowledge: The
organization promotes a life of learning for its faculty, administration, staff, and
students by fostering and supporting inquiry, creativity, practice, and social
responsibility in ways consistent with its mission.
Criterion Five: Engagement and Service – As called for by its mission, the
organization identifies its constituencies and serves them in ways both value.
UNDERGRADUATE MAJORS AND CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS
This section seeks to document the actual content of the majors and certificate programs
offered at the University of Iowa. It offers a breakdown and statistical analysis of student
enrollment and participation in the study abroad programs. It provides information
regarding the admission requirements for the different colleges, and describes the primary
types of curricular structures for the undergraduate majors.
The University of Iowa offers 81 undergraduate majors and certificate programs housed
in 60 departments or academic units in 5 of its colleges. These numbers are based upon
the Profile of Students Enrolled for Fall 2006, which offers a breakdown of
undergraduate enrollment with further information regarding the composition of men and
women, ethnic minorities, and international students. These numbers do not include
undecided declarations or declarations of interest.
The Tippie College of Business offers 6 majors: Accounting, Business, Economics,
Finance, Management, and Marketing.
The College of Education offers 1 major: Elementary Education. Students achieve
degrees in Secondary Education in conjunction with the college, but are housed as majors
within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The College of Engineering offers 6 majors: Biomedical Engineering, Chemical
Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and
Mechanical Engineering.
The College of Nursing offers 3 majors: Nursing, Nursing Special, and Nursing RN.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers 65 majors and certificate programs.
Participation:
To assess the major enrollment patterns, we used the major enrollment data from the
Registrar’s Office publication “A Profile of Students Enrolled at The University of Iowa,
Fall 2006” pages 23-28. We eliminated certificate programs, open majors, majors with
no enrollments, majors with only graduate students and other similar categories. We
added major and “major interest” students together. We were left with data on effective
undergraduate enrollments within 106 majors, including pre-professional majors and
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some undeclared “majors” such as “undeclared engineering” that, while undeclared, were
specific in nature. The resulting data paint a diverse picture of the pattern of major
enrollments across colleges and departments.
\The following table summarizes the pattern of undergraduate major enrollments overall
in the University:
Undergraduate Enrollment Patterns for the University
Total count: 106
Total % Male
% Female
% Minority
Mean
174
48%
52%
9%
Std.Dev.
294
26%
26%
12%
10th Percentile
5
12%
18%
0%
25th Percentile
16
31%
33%
3%
Median
69
46%
54%
8%
75th Percentile
209
67%
69%
11%
90th Percentile
417
82%
88%
17%
% Foreign
4%
15%
0%
0%
0%
2%
5%
There was a great range across the university and considerable skewness. The average
major had 174 declared students, but the median had only 69. There were a few
exceptionally large majors. The four largest had more than 1000 students each: Prebusiness (2139), Psychology (1176) and Communication Studies and Students Declaring
a Communications Studies Interest (1072). In contrast, 32 majors had 20 students or less.
Overall, 52% of declared majors were female, but there was considerable variance by
major. There were 4 majors with more than 10 students that were 10% female or less and
7 majors with more than 10 students that were 90% female or more.
Overall, minorities accounted for 9% of declared majors on average. These data includes
enrollment of African American / Black (2.3%); American Indian / Alaskan Native
(0.5%); Asian American / Pacific Islander (4.3%) and Hispanic / Latino (2.1%). The
undergraduate minority enrollment is 8.7%, the graduate minority enrollment is 8.8%,
and the professional school enrollment is 11.1%. This also varied considerably by
department. There were 6 majors with more than 10 students that had no minority
enrollment. There were 5 majors with more than 10 students that had 20% or higher
minority enrollment.
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Study Abroad:
The registrar reports that 727 undergraduates studied abroad during 2005-06. Comparing
the number of undergraduates who studied abroad during 2005-06 to the number of
bachelor degrees awarded by the UI during 2005-06 (4101) indicates that approximately
18% of the graduating class studied abroad.
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Admission Requirements:
First-year students enroll in either in CLAS or the College of Engineering. With some
exceptions, the Colleges of Business, Education, and Nursing admit qualified applicants
at the beginning of sophomore or junior years.
Business: Most students enter the Tippie College of Business the first semester of their
junior year. With the exception of the Early Admission Program (EAP), interested
students are admitted to the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as
pre-business majors. Pre-business students must complete 60 semester hours, six
prerequisite courses, and satisfy the grade point average requirement to guarantee
admission to the Tippie College of Business. Usually, students apply to the college in the
second semester of their sophomore year. For admission, students need a 2.75 g.p.a. on
the six prerequisite courses (no grade lower than “C” on any prerequisite course), all
courses taken at the University of Iowa, and all college-level courses attempted
(cumulative). Once admitted to the College, the Bachelor of Business Administration in
finance requires 20 s.h. in the major. Students are placed on academic probation if they
are at a 2.0 g.p.a. or lower.
Education: Undergraduate students seeking secondary school licensure/certification are
degree candidates in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and must complete the
requirements for the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, or Bachelor of Music degrees
described in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences section of the Catalog. Before
taking required professional education courses, undergraduate students must be admitted
to the Teacher Education Program (TEP). Deadlines for application are March 15 and
October 15 for admission. Each program reviews applications and chooses a limited
number of students for admission. In order to be considered for admission, students must
have completed a minimum of 40 s.h. of course work at the time of application with a
University of Iowa and cumulative g.p.a. of at least 2.70. For some subject areas,
applicants must meet additional criteria. A limited number of applicants are accepted into
each teacher education program, so a 2.70 g.p.a. does not ensure admission. Admission
decisions are based on grade-point average in the major and other criteria relevant to
teaching success. The application process includes submission of an application form, a
writing sample, an Iowa criminal history check request form, and two letters of
recommendation. Applicants are required to submit PRAXIS I test scores in mathematics,
reading, and writing. Scores from either the computer-based tests (CBT) or the PreProfessional Skills Tests (PPST) are accepted. All TEP students must complete a 10-hour
volunteer experience in a classroom setting in order to be granted final admission review.
If at any time after admission a student's g.p.a. falls below 2.70, the student is placed on
probation for one semester. Students who do not attain a 2.70 g.p.a. during the
probationary semester are dropped from the TEP.
Engineering: the College of Engineering is organized into five departments and three
research units. First-year students generally have an ACT math and composite of 25 or
higher and have a high school class rank in the top 30%. The Bachelor of Science in
Engineering (B.S.E.) requires 128 s.h. and students must have a g.p.a. of 2.00 on all
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college work used for the degree and on all work undertaken at The University of Iowa.
Students who do not achieve the required g.p.a. are placed on academic probation until
they are restored to good academic standing. Students may earn two bachelor’s degrees in
Engineering, may earn two University of Iowa baccalaureate degrees in a combined
engineering and liberal arts and sciences program, or may enroll in a 3+2 Dual Degree
with Northern Iowa (B.S in applied physics @ UNI) and a B.S.E from The University of
Iowa. This program requires three years of study at UNI and 2 years at The University of
Iowa.
Nursing: Admission to the undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Nursing program is
competitive. An average of 75 students are admitted to the program each semester (Fall
and Spring only). Students must meet the following criteria to be considered for
admission to the undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program: prerequisite
courses in rhetoric, animal biology, microbiology, human anatomy, psychology, human
development and behavior, and general chemistry; a minimum of a 2.7 cumulative GPA
is required and a "C" or higher in all prerequisite courses; a minimum TOEFL score of
550 for applicants for whom English is not the first language. Meeting the above
requirements does not guarantee admission. From the applicants who meet minimum
requirements, those who appear to be best qualified will be admitted. Deadlines for
application are April 1 and October 1.
Liberal Arts and Sciences: Individual departments in CLAS have a range of entrance
and exit requirements. Applicatns are guaranteed admission into the college if they
successfully meet the high school course requirements and achieve the required Regent
Admission Index requirement (245 for Iowa residents; 255 for residents of other states).
The index combines four factors that strongly predict success at regent universities: ACT
or SAT test score, high school rank, high school cumulative grade-point average, and the
number of completed high school core courses.
Curricular Structures:
While every relevant department structures the curricula for its major(s) according to the
disciplinary logics and pedagogical ambitions of its academic field(s), it is possible to
distinguish a few basic curricular structures employed by the vast majority of
undergraduate majors at the University of Iowa.
Those majors designed in conjunction with specific accreditation requirements – namely
the majors in or related to Accounting and the Colleges of Education, Engineering, and
Nursing – offer rigorously articulated sequences of coursework with a student’s entire
passage through the major and college delineated semester by semester.
Other majors in the Colleges of Business and Liberal Arts and Sciences offer sequential
curricula, but these majors provide varying degrees of latitude regarding the exact
semesters of enrollment in particular courses and the range of courses that fulfill specific
requirements. Some majors require a core sequence or cluster of courses that are
followed by a declared concentration or track. These majors include some technical
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majors such as Statistics and Actuarial Science, Biological Sciences, Environmental
Sciences, Geography, Mathematics, and Statistics, but also include many of the foreign
language majors such as Asian Language and Literature, French, Italian, and German, as
well as such related majors as Cinema and Comparative Literature and International
Studies. The degree of flexibility at both stages ranges widely across these different
majors.
Other majors offer a core sequence of courses followed by open electives from discrete
categories. Such majors include the other foreign language majors (Classics, Russian,
Spanish and Portuguese), but also a range of other majors including Communication
Studies, Computer Science, Integrative Physiology, Speech and Hearing Science, Theatre
Arts, and Women’s Studies. Still other majors are structured around multiple sequential
clusters of courses, including many of the hard sciences such as Biochemistry,
Chemistry, Microbiology, Physics, and Astronomy, but also a range of other majors from
Dance to Economics.
Many majors in the humanities and some majors in the social sciences are not properly
sequential. Instead, they offer an introductory course or small cluster of courses followed
by requirements in a range of categories and/or possible foci that may be taken in any
order. Such majors include African-American Studies, American Studies, Anthropology,
Art and Art History, English, History, Linguistics, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and
Sociology. Many, but not all of these majors also require a capstone course, senior
seminar, and/or final portfolio project to complete the major.
The University of Iowa offers all undergraduates the option of entering into a Four-Year
Graduation Plan, a contractual agreement in which the student agrees to map out a
realistic four-year plan of study that includes certain checkpoints along the way. The
university in turn ensures that the courses the student needs will be available.
In conjunction with this plan, most departments offer schematized sequences for students
following the plan within their majors. (Note: some departments have determined that
they cannot absolutely guarantee that the major can be completed in four years due to
specialized course sequencing or when the major is declared.) As a result, most majors
may follow a sequential progress through a major’s requirements, even when the
curricular structure of that major does not dictate a strict sequence of courses.
One significant area for study would be the actual patterns of enrollment and progress to
degree among the various curricular models. This would require an extensive study on
the part of the Registrar’s Office, but could provide valuable information to the colleges,
the departments, and the advising offices.
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OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT
This section speaks most directly to core component 3a – “The organization’s goals for
student learning outcomes are clearly stated for each educational program and make
effective assessment possible.” It revisits the mandate for outcomes assessment plans
currently being pursued by undergraduate majors across the university, describes the
primary mechanisms for defining goals and assessing outcomes across the majors, and
examines the relevant professional exams that dictate or influence outcomes assessment
across the majors.
Mandate:
The University of Iowa is in the process of instituting clearly-stated outcomes assessment
plans across the undergraduate majors.
In June of 2006, in response to a mandate from the Board of Regents, the office of the
Provost initiated the development of outcomes assessment plans across the university to
be completed by May of 2007.
These plans were expected to:
1. Be consistent with the norms and disciplinary practices of the departments.
2. Represent the views of the department’s faculty.
3. Clearly define the intended learning outcomes of the department’s major(s).
4. Describe a system for collecting both direct and indirect assessments of student
learning.
5. Guide periodic examinations of the effectiveness of the department’s major and plans
for improvement based on those examinations.
6. Be documented and published.
7. Be revised from time to time.
Ultimately the Provost, upon the recommendation of a faculty group, will approve plans
that share these characteristics. As of the writing of this report, plans are still being
drafted, but it is possible nonetheless to describe specific outcomes assessment plans that
either are already in place or are in the process of being developed and implemented.
While most
departments will have
some plan for
defining goals and
measuring outcomes
in the very near
future, several
departments have
already developed
advanced outcomes
assessment plans that
Core Component – 1d: The organization’s governance and administrative structures promote effective leadership and support collaborative processes that enable the organization to fulfill its mission. Core Component – 2c: The organization’s ongoing evaluation and assessment processes provide reliable evidence of institutional effectiveness that clearly informs strategies for continuous improvement. Core Component – 3a: The organization’s goals for student learning outcomes are clearly stated for each educational program and make effective assessment possible.
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display a range of possibilities for articulating goals for education within the major and
evaluating learning outcomes. These plans are at various stages of implementation, but
all share a detailed breakdown of educational goals and multi-layered methods of
assessment. Of 55 sampled departments, only three report that they do not have any
outcomes assessment in place and are not in the process of designing an assessment plan
(Cinema and Comparative Literature, Anthropology and Teaching and Learning/Science
Education).
Mechanisms for Defining Goals and Assessing Outcomes:
The Provost’s Office has identified six “pioneer” departments (Spanish and Portuguese,
Art and Art History, Political Science, Chemistry, Finance, and Psychology) to complete
their plans early in the year and share them with the campus. We discuss plans in these
departments as examples and models of outcomes assessment plans as they are
developing across the university.
The plans developed by
Core Component – 4b: The organization demonstrates the “pioneer”
that acquisition of a breadth of knowledge and skills and departments share some
the exercise of intellectual inquiry are integral to its basic features: 1)
educational programs. objectives that focus on
both knowledge and
skills unique to the discipline, 2) assessment plans that combine testing within designated
courses, and 3) projects or portfolios prepared by students towards or at the end of their
studies in the major.
The Department of Finance in the College of Business conceives of its learning goals in
terms of the application of principles, the use of technologies, the analysis of situations,
and the communication of findings. Specific examination questions within the required
courses track the acquisition of principle knowledge and write-ups and presentations of
cases and projects are evaluated by faculty and practitioners to assess student competence
in tools and methods. The standards for evaluation are spelled out clearly and the
mechanisms for evaluating are well integrated into the existing program.
Three detailed plans from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences display similar
formats for articulating goals and evaluating outcomes. The Departments of Chemistry,
Psychology, and Spanish and Portuguese all break down their goals for learning in terms
of knowledge and skills and all seek to understand those goals as existing both within the
disciplinary instruction offered by the major and in broader professional, social, and
cultural domains. The Department of Chemistry seeks to impart knowledge of
nomenclature and models for chemical analysis, an understanding of different modes of
chemical description, and a content knowledge across the major disciplines and subdisciplines of the field as well as basic laboratory skills. Their curriculum also aims at
developing advanced research skills, independent and creative thought, and an
understanding of the mechanisms of the profession. Analogously, the Department of
Psychology seeks to impart to their majors scientific methodologies for examining
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psychological questions, a content knowledge across the principle theories and
perspectives in the field, the ability to apply such knowledge to a range of situations, and
an appreciation for ethical standards and goals of diversity within the discipline.
Likewise, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese articulates their goals in terms of
knowledge (linguistic, literary, historical, and cultural) and skills (conversation, writing,
literary, linguistic, and cultural analysis).
All three departments are developing similar, though not identical, means of assessing
learning outcomes, typically a combination of exams, projects, portfolios, and surveys.
The Department of Chemistry will administer standardized exams to all juniors and
seniors, require a final poster presentation or report or paper from graduating seniors, and
is creating a final “capstone course” that will be taken by all majors near the completion
of their studies. The Department of Psychology, in addition to tracking graduating
students’ plans through a survey, will be constructing standard examination questions to
be embedded in the exams for core required courses at every level. Furthermore, the
department will be assessing the curriculum as a whole for its introduction, extension and
refinement of the key learning outcomes and engaging in regular reflection and
adjustment based upon examination results and faculty feedback. The Department of
Spanish and Portuguese, in addition to basic exams in oral and written competency in the
language, is developing a portfolio system whereby students both collect coursework
from different stages in their studies and compose reflective essays concerning individual
courses, their coursework as a whole, and their experience with study abroad.
Beyond the “pioneer” departments, specific mechanisms for defining educational goals
and assessing outcomes vary across the different colleges and departments. In a number
of colleges and department (i.e., Accounting, Nursing, Engineering and Education) these
goals and outcomes are strongly influenced by national accreditation requirements within
their field. This is also true for some departments (i.e., Music) within the College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences.
In the case of the Nursing majors, the standards for both the curriculum and outcomes are
set by both the AACN (American Association of Critical Care Nurses) and the National
Council of State Boards of Nursing. The learning outcomes themselves are in turn
directly tested by a standardized exam administered at the conclusion of every course, a
second predictive exam for the licensing examination, and the state licensing exam itself.
In order to graduate from a teacher education program in the College of Education and be
recommended for licensure to teach in the state of Iowa, teacher candidates must
demonstrate competence according to eleven standards, derived from the Interstate New
Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), and aligned with the eight
standards used to evaluate teachers in the state. Each standard is a focal standard in a
subset of their required teacher education courses and all standards must be met during
the student teaching semester. To pass the core courses in which they are enrolled during
any semester, students are required to document their attainment of the course’s focal
standards through satisfactory completion of identified artifacts that they upload to their
ePortfolio. Teacher education students also are assessed in other ways at regular
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checkpoints throughout their program. Each semester they must maintain minimum 2.70
UI and cumulative GPAs. They must achieve satisfactory supervisor and cooperating
teacher evaluations during all field experiences. In order to teach as a student, they must
meet all prerequisite criteria and have program area recommendation. Students who wish
to student teach outside of the immediate geographic area, out of state, or out of the
country must meet additional criteria. In addition, students’ professional dispositions are
monitored regularly and faculty are encouraged to complete a Professional Development
Assessment form for any student whose professional dispositions are in question. Even if
academic performance is satisfactory, students can be dismissed from the program if
there is a pattern of poor evaluation of their professional dispositions. In addition, in
order to be recommended for licensure, students in the Elementary Teacher Education
program must meet or exceed the state-established criterion score on one of two Praxis II
tests that assess content knowledge.
The College of Engineering, while less directly focused upon the accreditation of
individual graduates, nonetheless is held to external standards of assessment for its
program learning objectives and its program outcomes. Chemical Engineering, as
representative of all six majors housed within the College of Engineering, is required to
assess student achievement on a continuous basis. This achievement is measured in
terms of scientific and technical knowledge, problem solving skills, and the ability to
pursue professional and advanced studies in the field. Like their counterparts in the
Colleges of Education and Nursing, Chemical Engineering and the other majors in the
College of Engineering assess student learning at both the micro and macro levels,
regulating exams and quizzes in individual courses and establishing a sequence of
program-level assessment tools to gauge the overall performance of the program. For the
program-level analysis, assessment tools include interviews and surveys of students,
employers, and alumni, and faculty retreats held at the end of every semester.
For departments whose outcome assessments are not set forth as part of an accreditation
process several common strategies are employed.
A number of departments require students to produce portfolios as they go through the
coursework for the major. These portfolios typically contain several examples of the
students’ writing and creative abilities that can be shown to prospective graduate
programs or employers. In some cases the content of the portfolio is left up to the
students and in some cases the required contents are strictly defined. Portfolios are
utilized by Sociology, French and Italian, History, Journalism and Mass Communication,
and Classics.
The departments of Finance, Marketing, Communication Studies, and Psychology use
embedded questions or testing of students in specific courses. These performance
measures provide an indication of the percentage of students within a course who show
mastery of specific concepts.
Successful attainment of employment, acceptance into graduate school and pass rates on
professional exams (see below) are used by some departments to measure the success of
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
19
their students. Departments such as Accounting, Speech Pathology and Audiology,
Psychology, Physics and Astronomy, Actuarial Science, Radiology/Nuclear Medicine
Technology and Pathology/Clinical Laboratory Sciences believe these indirect measures
provide a reasonable indicator that their curriculum has successfully prepared students to
move on in the profession.
Some departments employ surveys of graduating students and/or alumni to measure and
track successful employment and advanced training within the field. These departments
include Russian, Accounting, Physics and Astronomy, Geoscience, Statistics, Political
Science, Psychology, and Mathematics.
Faculty and/or departmental committees regularly review and assess outcomes for
students in Integrative Physiology, Radiation/Radiation Sciences, Social Work, Civil and
Environmental Engineering, and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.
Professional Exams:
For a number of majors there is some professional certification or licensure that is
requisite for employment in the field. Departments and colleges associated with these
professions typically have data about the performance of their students on these exams.
A list of these programs and the certification/licensing exam is listed below:
Accounting (CPA Exam), Nursing (NCLEX exam), Actuarial Science (Professional
Exams by SOA and CAS), Pathology/Clinical laboratory sciences (MT exam by
American Society of Clinical Pathology and/or CLS exam by National Credentialing
Agency for Clinical Laboratory Personnel), Radiology/Nuclear Medicine Technology
(two national certification exams which meet state licensing requirements), Health and
Sports Studies: Health Promotion (Certified Health Education Specialist Exam and/or
The American College of Sports Medicine Health and Fitness Instructor certification
exam), Radiology/Radiation Science (Professional exams by the American Registry of
Radiologic Technology, American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers, and
Nuclear Medicine Technology Certification Board), Pharmacy (licensure exam),
Management Sciences/MI (Microsoft MSCA/MCSE Certification and CISCO
certification).
Many departments provide a broad education and prepare their students for entry into
many different graduate or professional degree programs. In these departments many,
but not all, students take exams required for entry into graduate programs, but the
departments do not collect or maintain data about the performance of their students on
these exams. For example, students in Political Science, Biochemistry, Integrative
Physiology, Philosophy and Psychology frequently take the MCAT, LSAT, DAT,
Optometry Entry Exam or the General GRE. Students in some programs (Physics and
Astronomy and Spanish and Portuguese) take the Subject GRE.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
20
Foreign language departments such as French, Spanish and Portuguese, and Asian
Languages and Literature require students to pass proficiency exams (i.e., French
Chamber of Commerce or ACTFL).
Several divisions within the College of Engineering use the Fundamentals of Engineering
Exam. The Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental
Engineering and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering departments use these exams and
several maintain data about student performance.
In order to be admitted to a teacher education program, students must meet the programestablished criterion scores on the required Praxis I subtests (or GRE if applying to a
graduate teacher education program). In order to graduate from a teacher education
program and be recommended for licensure to teach in the state of Iowa, students in
Elementary Education must meet or exceed the state-established criterion score on one of
two Praxis II exams that assess content knowledge.
MECHANISMS FOR VALUING AND SUPPORTING EFFECTIVE TEACHING:
This section speaks most directly to core component 3b – “The organization values and
supports effective teaching.” It documents the qualifications of instructors teaching
within the undergraduate majors, describes the procedures for curricular review within
the colleges, surveys university-wide initiatives and department-based programs designed
to improve teaching, and describes university awards for the recognition of achievements
in teaching.
Qualifications of Instructors:
According to a survey of Department Executive Officers (54 reporting), a median of 80%
of classes in the majors are taught by full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members.
The other
Core Component ‐1d: The organization’s governance and 20% are
administrative structures promote effective leadership and taught by
support collaborative processes that enable the organization to visiting and
fulfill its mission. adjunct
Core Component – 3b: The organization values and supports professors,
effective teaching. lecturers, and
graduate
student instructors. According to statistics provided by the Provost’s office, the median
number of majors per faculty member in a department is 11.2, the 25th percentile is 3.2
and the 75th percentile is 21.3 (N=60). According to the Provost’s office 96.4% of our
tenured and tenure track faculty have a terminal degree.
Overall, these numbers suggest a high level of faculty-student contact across the
university. Nonetheless, given the variations among majors, it would be illuminating to
compare patterns of enrollment and progress-to-degree to the numbers regarding access
to full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members by major.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
21
Curriculum Review
Each college at the university has in place policies by which the tenure track faculties of
departments develop and control curricular content both at the departmental and
collegiate level. Hence qualified faculty determine curricular content and strategies for
instruction throughout the university.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provides an example of how this process works
on these two levels:
Core Component – 2a: The organization realistically prepares for a future shaped by multiple societal and economic trends. Core Component – 2c: The organization’s ongoing evaluation and assessment processes provide reliable evidence of institutional effectiveness that clearly informs strategies for continuous improvement. Core Component – 3b: The organization values and supports effective teaching. Core Component – 4c: The organization assesses the usefulness of its curricula to students who will live and work in a global, diverse, and technological society. Departmental curriculum development. Departments typically develop the
curriculum of their major through committees with periodically changing
membership. These committees are typically composed of tenured and tenuretrack faculty members in the department. New courses are suggested by interested
faculty and these committees periodically review the requirements for the major
to ensure that the requirements remain current for the field and that students are
able to take the needed courses to complete their majors. Often these committees
handle faculty course assignments so that the committee has information as to
which courses are being taught in a given year. This system of self-governance
provides a direct mechanism for departments to manage their curriculum. CLAS
has made the creation of new courses a fairly streamlined process which allows
faculty to develop new curricula with a minimum of impediments.
College-wide curriculum development. For courses in the General Education
Program (GEP), CLAS exercises greater control. This is because these courses are
required of all CLAS students, regardless of major, and it is appropriate that there
be collegiate governance of the content of these courses. The overall content
requirements for these courses are set by the CLAS Educational Policy
Committee (EPC). The EPC has determined a number of categories of courses as
well as the criteria for each category. All GEP courses are reviewed on a rotating
basis every five years by the GEP committee (GEPC). This committee also
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
22
reviews all new proposed courses before they receive official GEP status. The
membership of both the EPC and the GEPC are tenured and tenure-track faculty
members from a mix of disciplines designed to ensure good representation across
the various units of CLAS.
In contrast to course creation, the creation of majors, minors, and certificates involves a
significantly more deliberative process in all of the colleges.
Again, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) provides a good illustrative
example. Within CLAS, proposals for new undergraduate major, minor, or certificate
programs must be approved by the College's Educational Policy Committee and Faculty
Assembly, and then, as for all colleges, by the Provost. New programs must also be
approved by the Board of Regents. The process of approval for a new program proposal
takes six months or longer.
The criteria for acceptance of new majors, minors, and certificate programs include
conformity to the general design of college programs (with special provisions for
interdisciplinary programs) and must specify the required and elective courses for the
program and the frequency with which the department expects to offer them.
Additionally, the proposals must assess the impact of the new program on university
resources, including an estimate of all costs associated with implementing the program
and a discussion of possible duplication across the Regents institutions. New
interdisciplinary programs must also have the DEO of each participating department,
school, or college supply a letter specifying the courses the unit will contribute and the
schedule on which they will be offered.
Once approved at the collegiate level, the proposal is then passed to the provost’s office
for approval. Upon successful approval at the provost level, it is then presented to the
Regents for final approval. This process provides for a thoughtful review of proposals for
new academic minors, majors, and certificates and strikes a balance between the need to
allow for creative, new academic endeavors and maintenance of strong academic
standards.
A comparable system is in place in the College of Nursing which maintains a standing
committee (the Academic Council) charged with addressing all curricular issues. The
Academic Council reviews requests for changes to curriculum, and approves new
programs and course offerings. While individual faculty have autonomy to propose such
changes and additions, these proposals will usually be sounded out in the Undergraduate
Assembly, composed of all undergraduate faculty as well as some non-voting
undergraduate students. The Academic Council, in turn, will recommend changes the
Faculty Organization which is composed of all faculty in the College of Nursing.
However, in addition to the institutional considerations guiding curricular decisions in the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, curricular standards in the College of Nursing are
set by both the AACN and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. All changes
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
23
to the curriculum therefore need to be either reported or requested to AACN or the State
Board for Nursing.
The College of Engineering maintains a standing curriculum committee responsible for
reviewing and evaluating all existing and any proposed curricula within the college, for
reviewing and evaluating all existing and any proposed courses taught within the college
or required in any of its curricula, and for making appropriate recommendations to the
dean and the faculty. The Dean of the College, or his/her representative, serves as an exofficio nonvoting member. A nonvoting student member is also appointed every year for
a one-year term by the Engineering Faculty Council, in consultation with the Dean’s
Office and President of the Associated Students of Engineering.
The only undergraduate programs in the College of Education are the K-12 teacher
education programs. All teacher education candidates take a set of core courses,
secondary (grade 7-12) candidates also have a College of Liberal Arts major in the
content area in which they are preparing to teach, and the Elementary Education major in
the College of Liberal Arts includes a minimum 24 semester-hour area of specialization
which candidates choose from a number of areas.
Primary curriculum review occurs around the core courses in each program area and the
content area teaching endorsements. Each core course in a given program area is aligned
with one or more of the University of Iowa Teacher Education Standards. These teacher
education standards, set by the Iowa Department of Education and the Iowa Board of
Educational Examiners, are in turn aligned with the INTASC Teaching Standards and the
Iowa New Teacher Standards. These standards can be viewed at
http://www.education.uiowa.edu/tess/policy/standardspolicies.htm.
Programs in the college also are in the process of ensuring that their curricula are aligned
with the standards of their respective content area professional organizations such as the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the International Reading Association and
the National Council of Teachers of English. In addition, curricula in the areas of
specialization in Elementary Education and in the content teaching minors in Secondary
Education programs must meet Iowa Board of Educational Examiners criteria for
endorsements to teach in those areas. Current criteria in each endorsement area are
accessible at
http://www.education.uiowa.edu/resources/page_templates/index.htm .
Every five years, the teacher licensure program faculty and administrators complete an
internal review, to insure that teacher education programs meet the conditions included in
Iowa Chapter 79 Standards for Practitioner and Administrator Preparation Programs. The
two standards most relevant to the curricula are those associated with teacher education
candidates’ knowledge, skills and dispositions and with program evaluation and teacher
education candidate assessment. The internal review is followed every five years by a
review from a team led by the Iowa Department of Education that includes
representatives from peer institutions across the state. In order to continue recommending
candidates for Iowa licensure, our programs must be rated satisfactorily in all areas.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
24
According to Beth Ingram, the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs at the Tippie
College of Business, the college has no formal procedures for creating new majors.
Some departments and colleges use advisory boards composed of professionals in the
field to assist in providing feedback about curriculum design and implementation. Twice
a year the Tippie College of Business gathers a “Board of Visitors” composed of
respected business leaders from around the country. Most departments within the
College of Engineering have a standing Professional Advisory Board that convenes once
or twice every academic year, as do the departments of Journalism and Physics &
Astronomy,. These boards regularly make recommendations for curriculum review and
reform. The impact of these boards on education within these majors and the potential
benefits of analogous boards for other departments would be worth studying
systematically.
Professional Development:
The University has a number of university-wide initiatives designed to improve teaching
pedagogy. These include:
- Council on Teaching (http://www.uiowa.edu/~cot/). This university wide
initiative discusses and advises the administration on teaching issues including
curriculum development and funding, policies and procedures and experimental
and non-traditional educational programs. It establishes and awards a number of
teaching awards.
- Instructional Improvement Awards
(http://www.uiowa.edu/~cot/IIA/iiamenu.htm). These awards, of up to $5,000
each, are made by the Council on Teaching “to support instructional initiatives
that will make exceptional and specific contributions to learning.”1 There have
been eight or nine awards made each of the last 5 years.2
- Careeer Development awards
(http://provost.uiowa.edu/faculty/facdev/policies.htm#cda). Faculty can apply
periodically for these awards, which support faculty development projects for one
semester at full salary or two semesters at half salary, are made to help support
innovations in teaching as well as other research, creative and scholarly work.
- The Center for Teaching (http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Ecenteach/). Established by
the Council on Teaching, this center has been in existence since 1996. The
center’s mission “is to ‘promote and support efforts to enhance instruction at The
University of Iowa.’ In pursuit of this mission, the Center has established four
overlapping goals. They strive to:
o Support and promote the development of teaching skills.
o Strengthen the culture of teaching.
o Serve as a symbol of the University's commitment to teaching.
1
2
2006 Call for Proposals. http://www.uiowa.edu/~cot/IIA/IIA%20Call.pdf
List of recipients. http://www.uiowa.edu/~cot/IIA/IIA%20Winners.htm
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
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25
o Influence policy discussions in ways that support the development of an
excellent teaching and learning environment.”3
Teaching evaluations and review are part of the review process for all faculty
members (annually for probationary faculty and every five years for tenured
faculty).
Most departments have
additional training
programs, formal
mentoring programs or
both for teaching
assistants and faculty.
Core Component – 3b: The organization values and supports effective teaching. Core Component – 4a: The organization demonstrates, through the actions of its board, administrators, students, faculty, and staff, that it values a life of learning.
To assess the degree and range of formal mentoring programs for teaching and advising
in major programs across campus, the Department Executive Officers (DEOs) were asked
to respond to the question: “What formal mentoring is provided for new faculty and TAs
on how to teach and/or how to advise?” The responses show a wide range of practices
across departments. Some have formal, institutionalized programs for mentoring and in
all three areas of TA teaching, Faculty teaching and advising. Some report no mentoring
whatsoever. Many, if not most, DEOs report training and mentoring as if they are the
same. As a result, any analysis we do assesses the degree of formal mentoring and
training programs combined.
To measure the typical amount of training/mentoring being conducted by departments,
we coded the responses to this question separately for the three areas of TA teaching,
faculty teaching and advising. For each area, we coded responses to determine whether
(1) a formal training/mentoring program exists or is required; (2) a recognized informal
training/mentoring program exists or is required; (3) the response specifically states that
there is no formal program or (4) there is no response with respect to a specific area. The
following table contains the results of this coding.
Total Number of Survey Responses
Number of Responses that Address Each Specific Area
(% of Total Survey Responses)
Number of Responses that Cite a Formal Program in an Area
(% of Responses in the Specific Area)
Number of Responses that Cite an Informal Program in an Area
(% of Responses in the Specific Area)
Number of Responses that Specifically State that the Is No Formal
Program In an Area (% of Responses in the Specific Area)
3
Center for Teaching Mission Statement.
http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Ecenteach/about/mission.html#history
Area of Mentoring
and/or Training
TA
Faculty
Teaching Teaching Advising
55
55
55
46
34
23
(84%)
(62%)
(42%)
32
15
11
(70%)
(44%)
(48%)
6
12
5
(13%)
(35%)
(22%)
8
7
7
(17%)
(21%)
(30%)
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
26
The data show that most departments formally train and/or mentor TA’s. Of the
respondents that specifically mentioned faculty training and/or mentoring, most discuss
having a formal or informal program. While less than half of respondents discuss
whether they have programs relating to advising, most who do mention that they have
either a formal or informal program. Few departments specifically report no mentoring
or training programs. Several of these departments actually reported that they have no
program because they are interdisciplinary programs that draw all of their instructors
from other academic departments and rely on these other departments for training and
mentoring.
Evaluation and Recognition of Achievements in Teaching:
The University offers
Core Component – 3b: The organization values and several campus-wide
supports effective teaching. awards that recognize
Core Component – 4a: The organization demonstrates, faculty and staff for
through the actions of its board, administrators, students, their achievement in
faculty, and staff, that it values a life of learning.
teaching. The recipients
of these awards are
nominated by faculty, staff and/or students.
A. Outstanding Teaching Assistant AwardsOutstanding Teaching Assistant Awards are accepted in two categories to ensure that
each nomination is compared with others that are similar. The recipient responsibilities
will either fall into complete or the partial category in determining what ways the
nominee’s teaching directly enhance student learning. The council administers 25 awards
in the amount of $1000 each.
B. President & Provost Award for Teaching ExcellenceThis award is presented to up to three clinical-track or tenured track faculty members that
have demonstrated a sustained record of teaching excellence and commitment to student
learning. Each award carries a $3,000 honorarium.
C. President's Award for Technology Innovation
This award recognizes the year’s most creative uses of technology for the benefit of our
learning community. The recipient receives $3,000 .Consideration is given to the breadth
of the impact on the learning community. Higher value is placed on projects that enhance
student-teaching interactions, student-student interactions, inter-institutional applications,
or ties between course-based learning and workplace applications.
D. Collegiate Teaching Award
These awards are presented to faculty that demonstrate unusually significant and
meritorious achievement in teaching. The honor carries a $2,000 award. Award winners
are chosen based on how their teaching and informal contacts enhance student learning,
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
27
an analysis of teaching materials and class activities, scholarly works or creative
achievements, and student evaluations of the nominee’s teaching ability.
E. Annual probationary review and 5 year post tenure reviews
Annual reviews have two interrelated purposes. The first more important purpose is
developmental: to provide faculty with substantial feedback—both positive and
negative—regarding their progress toward meeting departmental and collegiate
expectations for reappointment, tenure, and/or promotion in the areas of teaching,
research, and service with the goal of increasing the likelihood of future success. The
second is evaluative: to provide an evaluation of faculty members' status in teaching,
research, and service for administrative decision making. The evaluative component is
most prominent in reappointment reviews and when important administrative decisions
(e.g., a tenure-clock extension) are being considered.
F. ACE process
Assessing the Classroom Environment (ACE) is an evaluation system that utilizes
scannable answer sheets to collect student opinions about a course/instructor and provide
a standard set of summary results. The ACE system is based on a bank of approximately
200 evaluative statements from which instructors can select a set of items appropriate to
their courses. In addition, the ACE system allows for instructor generated items that
require either a scaled response or open-ended comments. ACE results include the
number and percentage of students agreeing or disagreeing with each evaluative
statement, an item mean, median, and variability measures.
EFFECTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
This section speaks primarily to core component 3c – “The organization creates effective
learning environments.” It describes advising services available to undergraduates before
declaring majors and evaluates trends for the number of semester hours completed before
declaration. It furthermore describes advising services within host departments, research
opportunities available to undergraduate majors, and extra-curricular activities available
to undergraduate majors. It surveys programs in place for recruiting minority students to
undergraduate majors, examines new technologies enhancing effective learning
environments, and describes information available regarding post-graduation outcomes.
Advising Services:
Advising systems focus on student learning, including the mastery of skills required for
academic success. As such, they form an integral component in the creation of effective
learning environments in the undergraduate experience.
Academic Advising
Core Component – 3c: The organization creates effective Center: The academic
learning environments. advising center provides
four programs geared
specifically towards first-year students that enhance student learning and mastery of skills
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
28
required for success with in the major. “Iowa Link” is a first-year academic support
program for recruited students who show potential for academic success but who do not
meet the University of Iowa’s admission standards. “Courses in Common” provides first
year students with the opportunity to take two or three courses together with a group of
about 20 other first year students. “College Success Seminar” is a one-semester hour
course designed specifically for first-year students who have been placed on probation.
And the College Transition is a traditional first-year experience course with a reflective
component created especially for University of Iowa students.
The nature of academic advising, at any level of a students’ academic career, is to teach
students valuable skills required for academic success, such as: “planning their academic
programs of study; selecting courses each semester; exploring possible majors; seeking
information on and off campus; making viable academic decisions and to solve academic
problems” (Academic Advising Center Mission Statement). This philosophy of advising
is also shown in how the very structure of advising is built at the University of Iowa. The
majority of freshman students are advised at the Academic Advising Center, which is
where students can begin to learn the skills mentioned previously to become a successful
student, while receiving consistent information and an increased number of mandatory
meetings. After a student has chosen a major and/or been admitted to another college,
advising duties are assumed by the relevant department and college advising structures.
An analysis of a representative sample of students from a range of majors across the
university shows the trends for the number of semester hours students complete before
declaring a major. Figure 1 shows a histogram of a sample of departments within the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. As can be seen there is a range in the number of
semester hours at which students declare a major ruing from the low end at 10-15
semesters to the high end of 30-35 semester hours with average being 21.1 semester
hours. This suggests that students typically declare a major in the spring of their first year
or the fall of their second year.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
29
In contrast, Figure 2 shows the same data for the specialty programs in the Business
School, School of Social Work, and the School of Education. The increase in time to
declare major is quite dramatic jumping to a mean value of 48.2 semester hours. This is
not surprising, however, as these programs require students to first establish a track
record in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, often with a required minimum GPA.
Typically, these programs focus on the final two years that students are at the university
and this is reflected in the longer period before declaring a major.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
30
Advising services in host departments:
Department size, undergraduate enrollment, and faculty assignments determine how
undergraduate advising services are offered. Smaller departments often rely on faculty –
either a single designated student advisor, or multiple faculty members share the
undergraduate advising responsibilities. Departments with larger undergraduate
enrollment often use professional staff as student advisors or use a combination of
professional staff and faculty advisors.
For example, Biochemistry has currently 137 undergraduate majors. One faculty member
(a full professor) serves as the Director of the Undergraduate Biochemistry Major
Program. This full professor meets with each student each semester to advise the student
on coursework, opportunities for work in research labs, degree requirements, career
opportunities and other issues that may arise.
In Linguistics, all students are assigned a faculty advisor. Students meet with their
advisors before registration each semester and prepare a plan of courses, mapping out
which courses will be taken, so that at the end of four years, students have met all
requirements.
In Psychology, a three tiered system is used in undergraduate advising. An academic
coordinator (Professional Staff) serves as the academic advisor for all majors. In addition,
students are assigned a faculty advisor who is available to provide advice concerning
careers and preparation for graduate school. A group of junior and senior psychology
majors, called the Psychology Peer Advisors, maintain an advising office. Peer Advisors
in Psychology offer advice about course selection, volunteer and research opportunities
and can offer student advise to fellow majors and minors.
Of 55 Departments surveyed, 29% (16/55) have a centralized advising location for
students in their major, either a single advisor who meets with all students in the major or
a centralized advising “center” that all students can go to. Some of theses centers also
have faculty advisors available to students.
85% (48/55) of departments surveyed utilize faculty to advise, alone or in conjunction
with a advising “center”.
23% (13/55) of departments surveyed used professional advisors.
5% (3/55) use graduate students to advise and 5% (3/55) use other (peer advising or
academic advising center, etc.)
20% (11/55) of departments surveyed have a formal system in place to assist faculty in
advising methods, mainly through formal mentoring and new faculty orientations or
workshops/meetings.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
31
Research Opportunities:
Of 55 departments surveyed, 83% (46/55) have research opportunities available to
undergraduates, through honors, volunteer, work-study or class credit.
Some departments have
Core Component – 3c: The organization creates effective formal programs or
learning environments. criteria for
undergraduate
Core Component – 4a: The organization demonstrates, participation in
through the actions of its board, administrators, students, research, while other
faculty, and staff, that it values a life of learning.
departments do not
have a departmental program, and instead utilize the University’s Honors Program.
For example, Geoscience undergraduates can work with faculty in research projects and
senior honors thesis. In Teaching and Learning, students participate in research
opportunities through the Undergraduate Honors Program offered through the Belin
Center. Classics students have opportunities their junior and senior year to work with
faculty usually through the Honors Program. Physics and Astronomy students enjoy
substantial external funding. Some of these funds are used specifically for undergraduate
research. Most undergraduates in Physics and Astronomy have an undergraduate research
experience prior to graduation. Faculty compete for internal funds (IREU) for
undergraduate research support. The department also has foundation funds specifically
targeted at undergraduate summer research opportunities. Students in Economics can
participate in a departmental honors program. Students can conduct their own research in
this program with faculty supervision. To be involved in the Economics Honors Program
students must satisfy the University’s requirements for honors. Non-honors students can
work with faculty on independent study research projects. In Marketing undergraduate
students may take “Directed Readings” with a faculty member, and may complete honors
projects or work as a research assistant with a faculty member. The Math department
offers a number of undergraduate research assistantships. Students work closely with a
faculty member on various research projects present in the department.
John Heineman: Every professor [in the Biology Department] that I went to that was doing something that was interesting to me, I was able to work in their lab. So I'd say they're very willing to create a position for you if they don't already have one to work in the lab. Thomas Niblock: That was probably one of the strongest things...looking back I'm really happy I did. Within economics, I wanted to do research my first semester. So I emailed Amy, who was our contact person for the college of business, and she sent out an email to all the economics faculty. And Beth got back to her, and we did a project all the way through my freshmen year to my senior year. And so that was great doing that. It taught me a lot about research and taught me a lot more about economics, too. In the religious studies department, I haven't done really that much research outside of class. I took a graduate seminar my junior year with a faculty called Howard Rhodes. There were about eight or nine of us in there, mostly undergrads, actually for being a graduate seminar. But that was my first real research experience, because we had to write a large term paper at the end—about HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
32
twenty pages or so. And he was really good for helping me to write that paper. So I think the actual research I did in religious studies was by those faculty members. Luveta Hill: I have been satisfied with that. Actually in the school of journalism, you have to research everything, because one of the slogans is, “Trust but verify.” So you have to verify all of your information—research it all. Using the academic search engines the University of Iowa provides, I've been happy with the people who have taught me how to use those, people who have assisted me, the librarians at the main library, the librarians at the resource center in the school of journalism. The faculty and staff there all know how to use it, and they're all really good at it. I've carried that over to my second major, looking up research for those papers. So the school of journalism helped me in both areas...how to research. Extra-curricular activities:
Extra-curricular opportunities for undergraduate students abound across campus. These
opportunities vary in nature – academic, social, fraternal – and in type – picnics, clubs,
outings, talks, etc. In addition to this, many departments sponsor various workshops,
lectures and discussion opportunities throughout the year.
36% (20/55) of
Core Component – 3c: The organization creates effective departments surveyed
learning environments. have activities above
Core Component – 3d: The organization’s learning and beyond the
resources support student learning and effective teaching. required bi-yearly
Core Component – 4b: The organization demonstrates advising meetings.
These include
that acquisition of a breadth of knowledge and skills and workshops, jobthe exercise of intellectual inquiry are integral to its shadowing,
educational programs. orientations for new
Core Component – 4d: The organization provides support majors, working with
to ensure that faculty, students, and staff acquire, student groups. 21%
discover, and apply knowledge responsibly. (20/55) of
Core Component – 5b: The organization has the capacity departments offer a
and the commitment to engage with its identified lounge for
constituencies and communities. undergraduates. 87%
(48/55) have a student
group associated with their major.
For example, in Computer Science there is substantial departmental support for campus
chapters of two national computer science professional organizations – The Association
for Computing Machinery, and Women in Computer Science. Faculty advise and support
these groups. Activities are wide-ranging and include – academic and technical
presentations by guest speakers, career planning, conferences, visiting corporations and
social activities. Gifts from a corporate sponsor have provided each of the groups funding
to cover several years of operating expenses.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
33
International Programs/International Studies have established a student group called
Prism for International Studies majors. The group sponsors monthly guest speakers on
international careers, has a student mentoring program, develops service learning
projects, and plans collaborative projects with other international student groups. IP also
sponsors the International Crossroads Community – a learning community throughout the
residence halls. All students receive a newsletter highlighting relevant events across
campus. A Student Ambassadors program is being established in which ISBA students
speak with groups in their home communities about their experience at Iowa, studying
abroad, and internationalization topics in general. This helps IP establish strong
connections across the state and helps our students develop professional contacts
throughout the community.
Several student organizations run through the Department of Chemical and Biochemical
Engineering: the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Omega Chi Epsilon,
Chemical Engineering Honors Society, and the Multi-Ethnic Society of Engineers to
name a few. These organizations organize and run several outreach events such as the
Spooky Spring 5K to raise money for the Iowa City Homeless Shelter.
The Department of Theatre Arts produces about 25 productions a year, all of them extracurricular, and all ofthem open not only to theatre majors but to anyone in the University
community. They also sponsor No Shame Theatre, a student organization that performs
once a week in the Theatre Building. They were also instrumental in founding the
performing arts dormitory for first year CLAS students and the department continues to
be engaged in that.
The Economics Department has an undergraduate economics organization, the
Economics Forum, which sponsors the occasional speaker and faculty panel discussion.
The department sponsors a team that takes part in the Fed Challenge, a competition for
college and university economics majors sponsored by the Federal Reserve.
The Biochemistry Department sponsors a Biochemistry Undergraduate majors (BUMS)
club that undertakes a number of activities and events during the academic year to bring
the undergraduate majors together. In addition, undergraduates working in research
laboratories present the results of their research at a biochemistry conference on campus
each spring semester.
Honors students in the Accounting Department participate in Beta Alpha Psi, a student
organization that sponsors weekly meetings with professional accounting organizations
(both in the public and private accounting arena), sponsors Meet the Firms Night in the
fall, sponsors an awards banquet in the spring, and sponsors field trips.
The College of Nursing provides student lounge areas in several places within the
Nursing Building. These lounges provide an opportunity for students to meet informally
and are often the site for organized social and professional activities. The Student
Services office provides a series of Monday night interactions particularly geared to
undergraduate students called Monday Night Medleys. The University of Iowa
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
34
Association of Nursing Students (UIANS) is the undergraduate student professional
organization of the College. UIMSNA (UIowa Minority Student Nurse Association)
works to recruit, support, and mentor minority student nurses from racial and ethnic
groups and cultural backgrounds historically under-represented within the nursing
community, including but not limited to men and persons of color. Gamma Chapter of
Sigma Theta Tau sponsors several events throughout the year that encourages
interactions between undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty.
The School of Art and Art History has several student organizations: Undergraduate
students in Design (USID), Ceramics Society, Art History Club, Student Chapter of the
National Art Education Association. USID meets regularly to exchange information
about Graphic Design. They also hold a large show at the end fo the academic year for
senior BA and BFA students. The Ceramics Society raises money to visit Ceramic
Studios in other cities and states. The students also have attended conferences in the past.
The Art History Club is the undergraduate art history club. The Club works with the Art
History Society (graduate students) to organize symposia, field trips and speakers. The
Student Chapter is Art Education works to design experiences for students to develop
professional leadership skills, experience growth, and enjoy opportunities for
professional development. The Art Education Department also participates in a smaller
graduation ceremony where TEP candidates are recognized.
These are simply samples of the wide range of student organizations, facilities, and
activities sponsored by or in coordination with majors and their host departments.
John Heineman: [In] political science they have Pi Sigma Alpha, which is like the political science honors group—which has been kind of up and down. But they've been able to get some professors and speakers in to talk and kind of create a forum for discussion and things like that. And then there's a couple, I guess not necessarily formal groups, but just like political science circles that we just get together and talk about things—which has been nice. And then in biology, there's BUGS, which I think is Biology Undergraduate Students. They did a lot of volunteer activities, like out at MacBride and things like that—going out on nature things, which has been nice. Lisa Raffensperger: I’ve been to a few of the BUGS events—Biology Undergraduate events. But I never really pursued a much higher level of involvement in those. And then I did, if it can even be considered an English associated event, I did some Earthwords work my freshman year. And I really liked Earthwords a lot. BUGS was nice to have an extracurricular application of class things—a way to meet biology professors outside of class. Earthwords was really some hands on real world applications of sort of English work. So I guess I’ve always been…I’ve never really thought to myself that I wish there were more English extracurricular events or clubs, but at the same time, I don’t think you can ever really have too many of those. I think with the strength of the English program here, for instance, we could definitely have a much bigger literary magazine or even a sort of a club. I’ve never been dissatisfied, but now that you mention it, I think it could be stronger. Luveta Hill: Within journalism, like I mentioned before, the National Association of Black Journalists. I've been involved with that. I'm not really too involved with any other extracurriculars in the school of journalism, because I like the sports studies aspect a little bit better. It just intrigues me a little bit more. In health and sports HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
35
studies, I don't know. The Field House is like the extracurricular. Everything that is based out of the Field House...there are just so many things that you can do. When I was a physical therapy major, I was in the pre‐physical therapy club, and that's pretty much based in the Field House. So I don't know...the Field House is the extracurricular. Promoting Diversity in the major:
There are multiple formal and non-formal programs in place at the University of Iowa to
recruit minority students for undergraduate programs. Many function at the college level
(for example the Ethnic Inclusion Effort for Iowa Engineering, the Iowa Diversity in
Business Initiative, and the Minority Student Nurse Association) but a small number of
departments - 12% (7/55) of surveyed departments – have an organized system for
recruiting minorities into their major, via Committees or specialized group.
For example, the
Core Component – 3c: The organization creates effective Psychology Department
learning environments. has a pilot project
designed to attract and
promote achievement among ethnic minority students. The program, called Promoting
Excellence in Psychology Through Diversity, includes mentoring of undergraduate
students by graduate students from the same ethnic background, monthly social meetings
and placement of students into research laboratories. The School of Social Work sponsors
an annual Latino Youth Leadership Conference for juniors and seniors in high school.
This event is used as a recruiting tool. The School of Social Work’s Diversity Committee
sponsors an annual recruitment and retention reception and provides scholarships for
students of color. A formal faculty mentoring program for diverse students has been
established.
In addition to these formal examples, multiple departments recognize the importance of
diversity in recruitment efforts but base recruitment decisions on achievement. Several
institution-wide programs exist, notably Opportunity at Iowa, to assist departments with
minority recruitment and retention.
With such a small number of departments offering formal programs for minority
recruitment, it is impossible to determine their effectiveness. Psychology does attract an
appreciable number of minorities to its major (as indicated in the “Profile on Students
Enrolled at the University of Iowa”) but so do many majors without formal programs at
the departmental level such as Finance, Biology, Communication Studies, English,
Health and Sport Studies, and Political Science.
New Technologies:
There are three examples of
new technologies that
enhance effective learning
environments for students
Core Component – 3c: The organization creates effective learning environments. Core Component – 3d: The organization’s learning resources support student learning and effective teaching. HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
36
within the major: ICON, Quizdom, and the MAUI project.
The Iowa Courses Online (ICON) is the course management system at The University of
Iowa. ICON aims to be easy to use and intuitive, encouraging faculty adoption and an
enhanced student experience. This full-featured system is being built to meet diverse oncampus and distance learning needs. ICON is intended to improve efficiency while
eliminating barriers to teaching and learning.
Quizdom is an interactive handheld technology that has been utilized by two courses in
the College of Business: Professor Kenneth G. Brown’s Introduction to Management
course and Professor M. Beth Ingram’s Statistics for Strategy Problems course. Every
semester, students use the device in classroom lectures to answer questions posed via
PowerPoint in class, participate in classroom surveys, and provide feedback to the
instructor.
Finally, the MAUI project is a Provost Office sponsored project designed to replace its
thirty year-old home grown mainframe-base student information system with a new
integrated web-based system. In the summer of 2002, the Office of the Provost, and the
offices of Admissions, Continuing Education, Student Financial Aid, University
Registrar, and Information Technology Services formed a Steering Committee to explore
the various system replacement options. A series of investigations and discoveries were
completed to assist the University in determining the best system replacement strategy.
In the end it was determined that a hybrid or “best of breed” system was the most
appropriate strategy for the University of Iowa. With this strategy, where possible, the
project will purchase software components for specific functionality and integrate them
with internally developed modules and components. Implementation of the new system
began in the fall of 2006.
This is a major enterprise system implementation project. This project involves
significant effort from the offices of Admissions, University Registrar, Student Financial
Aid, Continuing Education, and Information Technology Services along with collegiate
input. A phased approach will be used to deliver the student information system
functionality. MAUI will use short planning horizons and development cycles to break
the project down into manageable components. Simple and lightweight processes will be
used to gather requirements and develop the system. The fully-integrated, web-based
Student Information System is expected to be completed in spring 2011.
Student Perceptions, by major:
We sent student surveys to 8,251 students. These surveys included several questions
regarding student perceptions of aspects of their major within their educational
experience. All questions were rated on a 5 category Likert scale ranging from 1=”not
satisfied” to “5= very satisfied.” For each question, a table below lists the college-bycollege and overall responses. The response rate for each question was just above 10%.
An analysis of these questions leads to some interesting observations.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
37
The first question asked how satisfied students were with the availability of majors. The
following tables shows the responses to this question:
How satisfied are you with the availability
of majors at the University of Iowa?
College
1
2
3
4
Business
0
1
14
53
Engineering
1
2
10
48
Liberal Arts & Sciences
6
23
79
263
Nursing
0
0
3
12
Overall
7
26
106
376
5
61
55
225
14
355
Average
4.35
4.33
4.14
4.38
4.20
Overall, 80% of students were satisfied to very satisfied (response of 4 or 5) and less than
4% indicated a lack of satisfaction (response of 1 or 2). There were no significant
differences across colleges (according to paired χ2 tests of response frequencies by
college).
John Heineman: I chose my majors, biology and political science. I guess I came into college as wanting to do biology, wanting to go into medicine just with some sort of science background. Then political science I actually didn't plan to study it, but I just HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
38
kept taking the classes. And they just were really exciting, and I ended up just figuring out that it wouldn't be too hard to major in that one as well. So, I guess one for more career oriented. The other one was just interest in general. Thomas Niblock: You know, looking back, one thing I wanted to do was international relations. I know they have international studies, but I guess there's kind of a difference there in the focus of the major, and that's what I'd really appreciate having. Since in graduate school I'm going to study that, it would have been helpful to take more classes in that area, I think. And really, I wanted to do more international stuff with the university. But it seemed like the international studies program was pretty underdeveloped when I first came in. I think it's gotten a lot better in the last couple years, but when I was picking majors back my sophomore year, I considered it but I saw that there's not much I'm really getting out of there. It's just a bunch of classes you take and call it international studies. And so that was pretty disappointing…having that happen. But besides that, it really is...it's worked out really well. HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
39
The second question asked how satisfied students were with the advising process in
selecting a major. The following tables shows the responses to this question:
How satisfied are you with the advising process in selecting a major?
College
1
2
3
4
5
Average
Business
17
21
33
31
25
3.20
Engineering
10
22
35
33
16
3.20
Liberal Arts & Sciences
91
109
156
146
95
3.08
Nursing
3
6
5
8
7
3.34
Overall
121
158
229
218
143
3.12
Satisfaction ratings were significantly lower than in the prior question with 42%
responding 4 or 5 and 32% responding 1 and 2. Again, there were no significant
differences across colleges. Thus, while students seemed very satisfied with the offerings
of majors, they appear less satisfied with the advising process that helps them select a
major.
Paris Ivory: I was pretty satisfied. I more so used my advisors my freshman, sophomore years. Once I got accepted into the college of business, I didn't really go to my advisors too much at all. Just because of the simple fact I knew the criteria to graduate. HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
40
Luveta Hill: The academic advising center wasn't really helpful for me. All they did really was give me the list of classes I was supposed to take for my declared major. And pretty much was like, “Here, pick from this list. This is offered in the spring. This is offered in the summer. This is offered in the fall.” That's about it. I found the major specific advisors a lot more helpful. Thomas Niblock: It was great in the college of business. I came in as an early admission program student, which meant we came in right as freshmen in the business college and took the same class—about forty or fifty of us. Most students come in as juniors. Like...later on. And we had an advisor given to us right away. Amy Bartachek’s her name, and Amy was great. She sat us all down right away and made us all come in and talk with her and was always there for questions outside of class and stuff. And really, I used her as an advisor all the way through college. I didn't really use an economics advisor, necessarily. I got some outside advice from a faculty member I was doing research with named Beth Ingram. But Amy was the big one that really helped out a lot, and she just does the college of business advising. So, I guess to answer your question, she really helped us all pick majors. Interviewer: If you could offer any advice to the University in terms of...specifically anything about undergraduate education within the major, advising, faculty interactions in courses...if you have any advice... John Heineman: I would say, yeah, if you could maybe get a lot more contact when you're a freshman or a sophomore. I mean, it's hard just because there's so many more students, but I guess that would probably be good. Just to make sure, you know, I guess. I'm lucky that I decided I still want to do these majors, but I definitely have friends that went two years and decided they didn't want to do this major. Then you're kind of starting over again. If you could maybe have those interactions earlier...just so you know earlier down the road that this is the path you want to go on. Interviewer: So you feel you need a more solid sense of if this is the correct major. John Heineman: Right. Interviewer: And you only get that through interaction with faculty... John Heineman: Yeah, so I guess if you could...if freshmen and sophomores could get in seminars more. But I guess now honors has some seminars for freshmen and sophomores. But I guess through the majors if they would offer a first or second year seminar, I think that might be beneficial—if possible. Luveta Hill: One things I would suggest to students who are unsure of what area they want to go into or they might want to dip into this area or that area, I would suggest they speak with at least one faculty member or one staff member or a teaching assistant or student already in that department. Just so they can have that worldly view of what to expect. They may sit in on a class or two. I would definitely have them talk to faculty and staff. They're wonderful. The faculty and staff love talking to the students, which is something...I couldn't ask for anything better. I just remember back in high school some faculty wouldn't really want to talk to the students. But here, it's that they want you to come in for office hours. They want you to stay after class to talk with them, and that's just a really good feeling to have when you go home at the end of the day. HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
41
The third question asked how satisfied students were with the ability to get into courses
for their major. The following tables shows the responses to this question:
How satisfied are you with your ability to get into courses within your
major when you need them?
College
1
2
3
4
5
Average
Business
5
7
21
51
43
3.94
Engineering
3
5
12
42
55
4.21
Liberal Arts & Sciences
44
80
115
187
154
3.56
Nursing
4
3
5
5
12
3.62
Overall
56
95
153
285
264
3.71
Overall, students appear satisfied with 64% responding 4 or 5 and 18% responding 1 and
2. However, there are some significant differences across colleges. Students in Business
and Engineering are significantly more satisfied in their ability to get into courses than in
Liberal Arts & Sciences and Nursing.
Thomas Niblock: That's been great. Part of the great thing as coming in as one of the early admission students is that we get to register early. So we go right after the football players, with the presidential scholars, and before everyone else gets in. So I've always registered on the first few days of class. Or the first few days of HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
42
registration days, which is just a huge benefit. I've never missed out on a class I wanted to take. And very rarely, did I miss out on the discussion session I wanted to be in either. … No one has really complained about it too much. A lot of people who do religious studies do something else, too, and so that's kind of a second major for them it seems like. So no one really complains about those classes, because they're all big lecture classes at first anyway. There were upper level classes…they don't offer too many of them each semester, and there's always some competition for those seats. And sometimes, I mean, I would have taken a few different ones had they been offered that semester, but that just didn't work out. But I made it work in the end. Paris Ivory: Very satisfied. Coming in with credits as a freshman and a sophomore, I was always able to register the first or second day. So not really... no problem there…. With management and organizations a lot of classes that are offered in the spring aren't offered in the fall or offered fall aren't offered in the spring just due to lack of numbers as far as faculty go. So they offer two or three classes with human resources but not really a focus in that. For example, one of the classes I wanted to take this spring it wasn't offered because there was a shortage of faculty. The fourth question asked how satisfied students were with advising within their major.
The following tables shows the responses to this question:
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
43
How satisfied are you with the advising within your major?
College
1
2
3
4
5
Average
Business
22
14
19
41
30
3.34
Engineering
12
10
29
36
30
3.53
Liberal Arts & Sciences
79
74
142
144
136
3.32
Nursing
1
0
3
7
17
4.39
Overall
114
98
193
228
213
3.39
Overall, students appear more satisfied with advising within the major than with advising
before the major. Overall, 52% responded 4 or 5 here (compared to 42% for pre-major
advising) and 25% responded 1 and 2 (compared to 25%). Here, Nursing stands out.
Students are significantly more satisfied with their advising within the major than in any
of the other three colleges.
John Heineman: I guess that most of it was figuring out what classes. Biology was nice. For some classes they recorded a lot of like physician, er not physician, uh, teacher's comments that people had taken the class so you could read through the comments and see if you might like this professor or that professor—so that was helpful, but I guess the most I used them for was studying abroad and getting major requirements to transfer over. And that was where I needed the most help, I guess. Thomas Niblock: I feel most of it's been on me to find my own advisors in those departments, and I've really had some great faculty that have been really willing to help out with helping me to pick classes and finding internships and choose jobs later on or graduate schools. The faculty has been great for doing that. But the person I was assigned, I've never actually spoken with in economics. In religious studies, they gave me either one or two advisors. And I've kind of used those two guys, but really one of the classes that I took was with a different guy who's not my advisor, and I talked to him more than I talked to anyone else in that department. So it's kind of been, I think, on me to find my own advisors. Lisa Raffensperger: I was really happy. I’ve always...I’ve made it a point to keep making appointments with my advisor even after I’ve gotten to my upper class status, because I felt like they were always really interested in helping me choose the right classes, helping me get into honors classes…so I felt well taken care of at that point. Paris Ivory: I've had a very strong relationship with a lot of the faculty and staff in the college of business so they more so advise me versus the advisors that are there. Luveta Hill: Well, advising in the school of journalism...I spoke with actually a staff member in the school of journalism. She's not an advisor or anything like that, and I kind of told her I wasn't sure if I wanted to do health promotions and physical therapy. She suggested I take the general education classes that were also the prerequisite classes. She got me involved with one of the newspapers that's run...it's the paper that's put out by the National Association of Black Journalists, which is in the school of journalism. So she helped me, and kind of guided me that way. Then I spoke with a faculty member in the school of journalism, and she kind of helped me sift through and weigh [my] options. What do you like? What do you dislike? What do HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
44
you think you might want to do? You know, this could help you as opposed to doing this. So the advising was very, very good. I can say I might have spoken with one person who really didn't help me, and she was my assigned advisor for the school of journalism, and I just switched from her to someone else. And it was just that simple. Just go and ask the new person if you could switch, and then go to the main office and tell them. Just that simple. And sports studies, the advisor there is great. I don't know what I'd do without her. I love her. Actually, with the sports studies, I was just going to declare it as a minor, because I didn't know if I had enough credits for the major. But my advisor pretty much sat me down and said, “No, you're going to finish your major. You're five credit hours short. You're finishing it.” And I was like, “Wow.” Without her, without that push from someone to say, “You're going to do this,” I don't know if I would have. I probably would've been just like, “Whatever. It's a minor. Who cares.” HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
45
The fifth question asked how satisfied students were with the level of interactions with
faculty within their major. The following tables shows the responses to this question:
How satisfied are you with the level of interaction you have with faculty in
your major?
College
1
2
3
4
5
Average
Business
3
15
39
36
34
3.65
Engineering
3
12
32
45
24
3.65
Liberal Arts & Sciences
40
71
157
182
127
3.49
Nursing
1
2
5
6
16
4.13
Overall
47
100
233
269
201
3.56
Overall, there are more satisfied students (55% responding 4 or 5) than unsatisfied (17%
responding 1 or 2). Again, Nursing stands out. Students are significantly more satisfied
with the level of interaction with faculty than in any of the other three colleges.
Overall, as one might expect from a comprehensive research university, students are
satisfied with the wide range of available majors. However, they are less satisfied with
the process of choosing a major. Once in a major, there is considerable, sometimes
significant, variance across colleges. We would recommend that the University try to
improve how advise and facilitate students in choosing a major to improve overall
satisfaction. We also think that the colleges may be able to learn from each other. In
several cases, one or two colleges seem to stand out in terms of student satisfaction.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
46
The University should try to identify the sources of these differences to allow it to
maximize the satisfaction of all students.
John Heineman: I would say, if you could draw some sort of line graph, like, as you get higher or as you become...or get through the years into more of an upperclassman, your classes get a lot smaller and your contact... I would say my junior and senior years are the majority of my faculty contacts. Otherwise, my freshman and sophomore year I was mainly just in large lecture halls with pretty big classes for the basic science requirements….I've taken a lot of seminars that are ten students or less. I took a seminar that was, like, five students. So I mean, then you get to...a very good personal relationship with your professors, and I think that's helped a lot in just communicating in a smaller setting as well as mainly helping with writing skills that you can't really do in a bigger lecture. Thomas Niblock: Both majors have been great for that. Since I took advanced placement economics, I tested out of both principals of micro and macro, and those are the two large lecture classes that they have in that department. All the rest of them after that get pretty small, so all the classes I've had have been less than fifty students in economics. And in a couple of those classes, I've really gotten to know the faculty really well through those. It's kind of strange, because the faculty member that I know the best in economics is Beth Ingram, but I never really took a class from her. We just did research all the way through set up by the early admission program. In religious studies, it's been a little more challenging, because...I've taken a lot more big classes. But in the classes I've taken that I really enjoyed, I've gone in to talk to the professor on my own. They've all been great about that, actually. I've never really had a problem finding one, or when I've wanted to talk to them they've always been willing to talk. Lisa Raffensperger: I’ve been happy with it, but it’s definitely been achieved when I’ve …made a purposeful effort towards it. I think opportunities for research, opportunities to keep pursuing appointments with my advisor even when I didn’t have to, those sorts of things have formed relationships. And I’ve always felt like faculty were willing to make those relationships if I was taking the step toward it….I’ve been doing research—biology research—with a doctor—a pediatrician through the hospital, Dr. Jeff Murray for the last two years. And he’s very accessible. He writes me letters of recommendation and I meet with him every so often. And Maryann Rasmussen has been my advisor—my English honors advisor—and has been incredibly helpful developing my thesis. I always met with her to choose classes. She’s now guiding me through the…sort of the what’s next…guiding me through the future process. Yeah, those sorts of relationships have been really close and really helpful through my career. Paris Ivory: Very, very satisfied. Not even just with management organizations, but with finance staff, entrepreneurship staff and faculty also. They are wonderful . They helped me with any questions I may have had. As far as guidance with a course that I may have been interested in taking, too. They've been very, very helpful. Luveta Hill: I've been extremely happy with the school of journalism. The faculty and staff there are great. They're just great. I don't even know how to describe them besides great. And then health and sports studies, I had already known plenty of people in that department since I was in the health promotions aspect and it's the same facility department kind of. And they helped me switch my course and they're HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
47
there when I need them. And I love it because I feel like the professors I've had in that department, they all know my name and face. The school of journalism, all the professors know who I am. I don't know. They just make you feel welcome. Post-Graduation Outcomes
The Registrar’s office surveys recent graduates to determine their post-graduation status.
The following table summarizes the outcomes by college for the 2004-2005 class.
Post Graduation Outcome Analysis 2004-20005
Respondents
College
Business
Engineering
Liberal Arts & Sciences
Nursing (BSN Only)
Overall
Graduates
758
218
2574
113
3663
No.
566
173
850
112
1701
% of
Graduates
75%
79%
33%
99%
46%
Employed or in
Further Education
No.
540
152
734
112
1538
% of
Respondents
95%
88%
86%
100%
90%
Response rates vary considerably by college; Liberal Arts & Sciences had the low with
only 33% and all but one BSN Nursing graduate responded. Of those who responded, the
majority were employed or in further education. Overall, 90% of respondents were
employed or in further education. The percentages ranged from 86% (Liberal Arts and
Sciences) to 100% (Nursing). While rates were high across the board, the percentage in
Nursing was significantly higher than each other college. The percentage in Business
was significantly higher than either Engineering or Liberal Arts & Sciences, though the
low response rate in Liberal Arts and Sciences makes interpretation of the statistics
difficult.
Planning for the Future
Almost all departments surveyed have basic mechanisms in place for planning for the
future of their undergraduate programs. Specifically, departments regularly review and,
when appropriate, revise their undergraduate curricula in response to changes in the
needs of the student body and the direction of the relative fields of study and practice.
Most departments are also planning for the implantation of formal outcomes assessment
plans, as detailed above.
Many different plans are being considered by various departments relative to their own
perceived needs. Some of these plans represent efforts to expand and/or diversify their
undergraduate majors. Chemical and Biochemical Engineering is considering increased
participation in the General Education program across the university. Physics and
Astronomy is exploring creating a Learning Community in conjunction with CLAS.
“Learning Communities” are dormitory clusters of first- and second-year students with
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
48
the same majors or similar interests. Computer Science, Cinema and Comparative
Literature, and Mathematics are also considering mechanisms to more actively recruit
students to their majors. Alternatively, programs such as Dance and Health and Sports
Studies are seeking to implement selective admissions and Communication Studies is
likewise exploring means to reduce the number of majors so as to enhance the overall
quality of the undergraduate experience for their students.
Several departments are considering revisions to their curricula that provide additional
structures for their majors. English is instituting a formal gateway course for the major,
while Economics and Mathematics are instituting new tracks for majors to choose from.
The Russian department is exploring distance courses that would be coordinated with
UNI and ISU and Radiology wishes to expand their on-line courses and create an on-line
degree program. Physics and Astronomy is exploring increased collaboration with the
College of Education to help train high-school instructors. Anthropology, French and
Italian, and Social Work are also seeking to expand their emphases on educational and
career opportunities for students in their fields.
The University of Iowa is promoting service learning – integrating academic study with
engagement in the community –and several departments (International Programs, Health
and Sports Studies, Spanish and Portuguese) are pursuing this approach at the
departmental level. Marketing is analogously seeking to increase the number of field
studies courses, which are projects pursued in conjunction with companies with business
problems.
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
49
STRENGTHS OF THE UNDERGRADUATE MAJORS AND ARES FOR
IMPROVEMENT
This report has aimed to document the comparative structures and mechanisms within the
varied majors across the university pertinent to outcomes assessment, valuing and
supporting effective teaching, and creating effective learning environments. Given the
enormous diversity of disciplines, pedagogies, and professional aims across the colleges
and departments, the report recognizes the limitations of drawing synoptic conclusions or
forwarding uniform recommendations. One of the organizational strengths of the system
of majors as practiced at the university is the delegation of specialized educational
decisions to those most qualified to make them. Throughout the colleges, qualified
faculty provide the leadership and effort in creating and maintaining specialized curricula
and are thus in the best position to translate the university’s strategic goals into effective
and purposeful programs.
Nonetheless, it is appropriate to consider from a university-wide perspective how the
general strategies of admissions requirements, curricular design and review, pedagogical
training and recognition, and academic advising, as well as offerings of research
opportunities, extra-curricular activities, and new technologies correlate with patterns of
student enrollment, progress-to-degree, and post-graduation outcomes. Assessing such
correlations would seem an essential means of outcomes assessment across the
university, one that measures the mechanisms of specialized undergraduate education
against the goals set forward by the university’s mission statement.
At present, however, establishing such correlations is very difficult. While some data
exists regarding enrollment, graduation, and post-graduation patterns, it does not exist in
a form amenable to comparative assessment across majors. A systematic tracing of
selective cohorts of students across the span of their time at the university, compiled by
the Office of the Registrar would allow for a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of
various components of concentrated study in the undergraduate major in relation to such
goals as:
-
acquisition of core skills
achieved liberal arts education
faculty access
research opportunities
timely progress-to-degree
post-graduation employment and education patterns
Correlating patterns of enrollment with students’ chosen major(s) would allow the
university to understand how students actually move through the different majors,
patterns that might be connected to curricular structures, admissions requirements,
faculty-student ratios, and other variables among different majors. While many of these
variables are tied to contingencies and requirements particular to different disciplines,
departments, and colleges, it would be valuable for faculty and administrators at every
HLC Self Study: Education Within the Major
50
level to understand some of the quantifiable implications of curricular and admissions
decisions.
The student survey conducted in the compilation of this report is marked by certain
important limitations of sample and respondents, and further surveys might help to refine
some of its conclusions. Nonetheless, it seems worthwhile to attend to some of those
results.
Very few students expressed a lack of satisfaction with the availability of majors at the
university, a result that was relatively uniform across the colleges. Yet satisfaction
ratings were significantly lower, again uniformly across the colleges, in regards to the
advising process in selecting a major. Students are more satisfied with advising within
the major than they are with the process that guides them to those majors. While students
are generally satisfied with their ability to get into courses for their majors, students in
Business and Engineering are significantly more satisfied than those in Liberal Arts &
Sciences and Nursing. And students are generally satisfied with the level of interaction
with faculty, Nursing students standing out as particularly satisfied in this regard.
It is important not to take this survey as definitive, given its limited sample and general
phrasing. Students confront numerous anxieties and limitations in the process of
selecting a major, many of which would seem beyond the domain of any advising service
the university might offer. But these results can at least be used as a motivation for a
more aggressive study concerning the particular question of the advising process in
selecting a major. Additional and more focused study in this area might help both to
clarify the nature of the dissatisfaction and to locate areas for possible improvement.
Both of these avenues for research – correlations between enrollment patterns and
curricular and extra-curricular variables and mechanisms for assisting students in
choosing a major – would be facilitated greatly by the creation of an office for
institutional research. Such an office could provide a regular and professional staff for
the purposes of coordinating and developing self-studies as directed by various
components of the university administration. Such staff would serve the university’s
purposes more efficiently and effectively than ad-hoc committees and would provide a
greater degree of institutional memory to help correlate studies and data on a regular and
on-going basis.