Assessment Report
July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010
DEPT / PROGRAM ASSESSED:
Graduate Program, History
ASSESSMENT COORDINATOR: Carol Herringer
YEAR 1 of a 5 Year Cycle
1. ASSESSMENT MEASURES EMPLOYED
For this year’s (2009-10) Assessment of the History Department’s Graduate Program, the
measures employed are similar—but not identical—to those utilized for the previous
assessment. The measures employed for the current Assessment are as follows:
--informal contacts with alumni of the graduate program
--regular contacts with recent graduates of the graduate program
Formal exit interviews and exit questionnaires were not performed for this Assessment,
owing in large part to overwhelming personal issues that distracted the previous Graduate
Director from attending to these measures in the Spring Quarter 2009.
Prof. Herringer is the principal coordinator for this Assessment.
2. ASSESSMENT FINDINGS
1. Graduates will communicate a sophisticated knowledge of History and disseminate it
to the general public through publications (in books, journals, magazines, newspapers)
and in Public History forums (presentations, displays, projects, websites, mass media).
Findings: The Assessment finds that Objective 1 has been met, thanks primarily to the
students from the Public History track who pursue internships at organizations including
the National Museum of the United States Air Force, the Lloyd Library and Museum
(Cincinnati), and the University of Dayton Archives. Current students and alumni have
been extraordinarily active in the presentation of museum exhibits nationwide as well as
locally. The capstone projects required of all public history students are most effective at
meeting this goal.
2. Graduates will encourage others to explore and understand the historical context of
their lives through public contact in societies, historical organizations, community and
social groups, museums and archives.
Findings: The Assessment finds that Objective 2 has been met. As noted above, public
history students regularly pursue internships. Thanks in large part to the enthusiastic and
capable leadership of our Public History director, Dawne Dewey, graduates and current
students alike have been very active in the annual meetings of major professional
associations, including the Ohio Academy of History, the Society of American
Historians, and the Society of American Archivists. The annual meeting of the Ohio
Academy of History in particular is an excellent venue for our graduate students.
3. Graduates will continue to develop their own appreciation and knowledge of History
through contact and friendship with other historians (through the department, alumni, and
professional organizations), and through a continued quest for knowledge by readings
and perhaps archival research.
Findings: The Assessment finds that Objective 3 has been met. Dawne Dewey’s active
solicitation of news from our Public History alumni (who remain by far the vast majority
of our graduate students and graduates) demonstrates that our graduates are maintaining
close professional ties with historians at other institutions, and—again, largely thanks to
Ms. Dewey—the alumni have continued to keep in close contact with fellow WSU
graduates.
4. Students who desire to do so will be prepared to matriculate into Ph.D. programs or
teach; Graduates in the Public History plan will be qualified to obtain employment in
historical organizations, archives, or museums.
Findings: The Assessment finds that Objective 4 has been met. Most of the students who
complete the M.A. are able to find related employment, especially in the field of public
history.
3. PROGRAM IMPROVEMENTS
The process of converting quarter courses to semester courses allowed the Graduate
Committee to introduce new courses and regularize existing courses. Courses were
renumbered so that the progression of courses, from introductory to capstone/thesis,
would be clear to students.
To meet the need for more graduate seminars, the Graduate Committee is discussing the
possibility of allowing students in the public history track to take related courses in other
disciplines, especially English and Humanities. This would allow the public history
students to pursue an American Studies-type program, should they wish.
Thanks to Christopher Oldstone-Moore, who is serving as the Assistant to the Chair for
Graduate Studies, we are developing a detailed system to track applicants and current
students. This will give us more information on which to base admissions decisions.
Finally, the Graduate Committee has limited admission to the program to the fall
quarter/semester only. This serves several purposes: it ensures more accuracy in
admissions decisions, it makes students part of a cohort, and it allows advisers to ensure
that students pursue courses in the appropriate order. In particular, HST 700: Research
Methods was designed to be an introductory course but is often taken by second-year
students. As of the Fall 2011 quarter, all incoming students will take this course in the
fall or winter quarter.
4. ASSESSMENT PLAN COMPLIANCE
The Assessment for 2009-2010 did not address the five Learning Outcomes listed in the
program’s Assessment Plan, which in the past has been based on the collection and
evaluation of the Student Paper Portfolios. Because of the priority assigned to the
conversion from a quarter-based academic year to a semester system, there simply was
not enough time or faculty resources to devote the requisite attention to the collection and
(especially) the analysis of these individual portfolios. Although the conversions of the
Thesis and Course-Intensive tracks have proven to be—though time-consuming—
relatively simple, the Public History track has required considerably more thought and
time; the large number of courses that currently carry one or two credit hours apiece have
demanded extensive reworking and conflation. Even the revision of the Course Intensive
and Thesis tracks, though not sharing the same problems as the Public History track, has
been heavily dependent on the conversion of the undergraduate history major, a process
that is still going on.
5. NEW ASSESSMENT DEVELOPMENTS
Because of the limited effectiveness of the student portfolios as an assessment tool, the
Graduate Committee will adopt a rubric to assess capstone projects, theses, and courseintensive papers. These assessments will become one of the primary tools for the
graduate program assessment.