2013-2014 Annual Program Assessment Report
Please submit report to your department chair or program coordinator, the Associate Dean of your College, and to
james.solomon@csun.edu, director of assessment and program review, by Tuesday, September 30, 2014. You may submit a
separate report for each program that conducted assessment activities.
College: Humanities
Department: English
Program: Graduate and Undergraduate
Assessment liaison: Anthony Dawahare
1. Overview of Annual Assessment Project(s). Provide a brief overview of this year’s assessment plan and process.
On the suggestion of Dr. Bonnie Paller (the University Assessment Director for AY 2013-2014), Anthony Dawahare (the English Department
Assessment Liaison) and Jackie Stallcup (the English Department Chair) met with Dr. Paller to discuss the possibility of making the 20132014 academic year an assessment design year that would involve the formation of an English Department assessment committee and a review
of our current assessment plan to improve its goal to enhance student learning. Dr. Paller agreed to the plan and, after consultation with the
English Department faculty, Dawahare formed an English Department Ad-hoc Assessment Committee composed of the chairs of each option
in the undergraduate and graduate programs and began review of the Department’s assessment policies and practices.
After review and study of the history of English Department assessment and current assessment needs, Dawahare concluded that the English
Department was engaged in an excessive amount of assessment activity relative to all other University departments. Aside from the workload
issue, the review revealed that the Department’s assessment of SLOs for each option (6 in total) contained redundancies (such as several
option committees simultaneously and year after year assessing the same SLOs, even though the assessments were “good”). He also found
that the assessment of each option in the graduate and undergraduate programs left little time for the English Department to evaluate
collectively the outcomes of assessment. Therefore, the lack of adequate outcome assessment analysis limited the Department’s ability to
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address adequately possible program changes to enhance student learning. In short, the Department excelled in the collection of assessment
data, which left little time for assessment review and, if necessary, program modification.
As a way to slow down the assessment cycle to create more time for the kind of self-reflection and programmatic self-analysis needed for
proper assessment and program modification to enhance student learning, Dawahare submitted a new assessment plan to the Ad-hoc
Assessment Committee for discussion and approval. The new plan, based in part on useful suggestions from Dr. Paller, proposed that "Every
other year we can assess one SLO from the Common Undergraduate Program SLOs and one SLO from the Common Graduate Program SLOs
and make all other assessment (for Creative Writing, Rhetoric and Composition, Honors, and Subject Matter) optional and solely internal to
the English Department. During the alternate, non-assessing years, the English Department can collectively evaluate assessment results and
discuss and/or implement any program modifications as needed." After review and discussion of the proposal, as well as of the Department’s
Common Undergraduate and Graduate SLOs and Rubrics, the Ad-hoc Assessment Committee approved the proposal and the assessment
tools. The Ad-hoc Assessment Committee then submitted the proposal for the assessment plan to the entire English Department for discussion
and approval. At the English Department Faculty Meeting on February 19, 2014, the English Department faculty voted in favor of the new
plan.
Dawahare then drafted new 6-year plans (attached) for both the undergraduate and graduate programs, which he submitted to the English
Department for discussion and possible approval at the English Department Faculty Retreat on August 22, 2014. In general, the new 6-Year
Plans will provide direct assessment of common graduate and undergraduate SLOs. The direct assessment will entail sampling student work
(primarily essays and creative writing) from both introductory courses and capstone/culminating experience courses to provide the basis of a
cross-sectional comparison of students within both graduate and undergraduate programs.
The English Department unanimously approved the new 6-year plans. The Department also agreed to resume program assessment under the
new 6-Year plan during the 2014-2015 academic year. Faculty also discussed the possibility of streamlining the number of SLOs to eliminate
redundancies in the assessment process. Since program assessment is a work-in-progress, the Department plans to modify the 6-year plans,
the SLOs, and rubrics as needed to enhance student learning.
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2. Assessment Buy-In. Describe how your chair and faculty were involved in assessment related activities. Did department
meetings include discussion of student learning assessment in a manner that included the department faculty as a whole?
See answer to question 1.
3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
None.
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)
3c. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
N/A
3d. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at different
points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment points used.
N/A
3e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from the
collected evidence.
N/A
3f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible changes
include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in program, changes
in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs, new or revised
assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
N/A
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4. Assessment of Previous Changes: Present documentation that demonstrates how the previous changes in the program resulted in
improved student learning.
N/A
5. Changes to SLOs? Please attach an updated course alignment matrix if any changes were made. (Refer to the Curriculum Alignment
Matrix Template, http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
N/A
6. Assessment Plan: Evaluate the effectiveness of your 5 year assessment plan. How well did it inform and guide your assessment
work this academic year? What process is used to develop/update the 5 year assessment plan? Please attach an updated 5 year
assessment plan for 2013-2018. (Refer to Five Year Planning Template, plan B or C,
http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
See response to question number 1.
7. Has someone in your program completed, submitted or published a manuscript which uses or describes assessment activities in your
program? Please provide citation or discuss.
No
8. Other information, assessment or reflective activities or processes not captured above.
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