Synopses of Departmental Work
Student Learning Outcomes Day (SLOD) – October 3, 2007
Applied Communication
During the October, 2007 assessment meeting, professors connected to the applied communication major made significant progress in collectively agreeing upon clear outcome goals for the major. In addition, we have begun in earnest the process of curriculum revision in order to implement a more developmentally cohesive academic program for our majors. Assessment data indicate that our courses need to be more consistent in building a requisite skill and knowledge base so that students can effectively engage in the use of “expert insider prose” (see Bean, J.) as they complete their senior capstone theses projects. Specifically, we are implementing a set of required lower division core classes which reinforce writing, effective oral communication, and research knowledge and skills. We are also currently engaged in discussions about requirements and content areas for upper division courses. For whatever it is worth, our major, (Applied Comm.), made considerable progress in curriculum revision yesterday.
Art
The Art Dept. faculty discussed the possibility of implementing a review of work by art majors that would ideally take place during the spring semester of their junior year, or at the beginning of the senior year. We envision the review as an assessment in which students present to the studio faculty samples of their art made in 200-level or higher studio courses. The faculty would then discuss with each student areas where progress to date is acceptable or surpasses the basic expectations of accomplishment for a student entering into the senior year, and areas where he/she needs to achieve substantial improvement and growth. After this meeting a letter would be sent to each student that articulates in writing areas of strength and areas where improvement is most needed. This review process would give students some direct guidance and understanding of their current strengths and weaknesses as they approach their final year and plan their work towards the senior show in the spring (mid April-May). Such a review process would also add a greater understanding for the student of their own direction as they are required to articulate this before a group of their faculty.
Biology
Our session kept denigrating into a conversation about whether it was an oxymoron or inane to cancel a day of classes for SLOD, but I tried to keep things on track as much as possible.
The Biology department has been trying to find time to assess the status of our Biology
Core (Biol 101, Biol 102, Biol 201 and Biol 202) classes. We finally did have some time to create a rough outline of what we want this series to do for our students, and ideas on gathering appropriate outcomes information on the biology core. We now need a way to decide how to incorporate that information into actually proposing some changes in the biology core. A departmental subcommittee has been established to do just that. Their mandate is to come to the department by the end of current semester with some options for the department as a whole to consider.

Chemistry
After the morning presentations at the Student Learning Outcomes Day, the members of the Chemistry Department met and did the following:
1. We reviewed our notes from the spring Departmental retreat.
2. We agreed that we will continue to focus our efforts this year on the development of an assessment tool for laboratory reports.
3. We agreed that the Chemistry Major Field Exam and the alumni survey are useful tools for gathering information so we will continue to use them.
4. We decided we would ask Howard Glass if he can provide us with feedback from employers who hire our students for internships.
Classical Civilizations
Andy Goldman and I met with Dan Bubb the afternoon of October 11. Dan answered our questions, asked "piercing questions" and offered us some advice. Now it is up to Andy and me to find the time to draw up our plans. I teach First and Second Year Latin and
Greek.
The Department of Classical Civilizations has but one full-time language teacher, yours truly, and then three other GU professors who teach various other courses: Andy
Goldman in History (the present department chair), Patrick Hartin in Religious Studies and Fred Schlatter, emeritus, who teaches the upper division language classes.
Counselor Education:
The faculty and staff of Counselor Education utilized their SLOD time by reviewing their assessment plans, the information gathered thus far from the data gathered, and the process on the whole. An agenda was built for discussion of the findings in our next faculty meeting (departmental). The plan itself was reviewed for adjustments needed to make the process more smoothly, to produce better (more meaningful/useful) reports, and to eliminate errors. Changes we made included a shift from a summative set of data to a formative one (looking at growth rather than only outcome) so as to assess more readily what we could do differently and what we were doing well at various points throughout the process rather than only at one point. We also discovered errors we were making in our coding system and made corrections to that format. Finally, we determined that we would restructure an entire course to be more in-line with our formative approach and have stretched that course across the two-year span of the program. In all, the SLOD day was productive and appreciated.

Economics
During the breakout session, the Economics faculty focused on assessment of the
Economics concentration in Business. In contrast to the Economics major in the College of Arts and Sciences, for which we have a well-established assessment using the
Comprehensive Exam required of all Economics majors, and the economics component of the Business core, which was discussed in my presentation on October 3, the concentration in Business has not been assessed prior to this year. Previous assessment work in Business has focused on the Business core.
The plan for assessment of the Economics concentration in Business is to use an exam on microeconomics administered in ECON 403 and an exam on macroeconomics in
ECON 302. The first exam in ECON 302 will be given in Spring 2008, but the first exam in ECON 403 was already administered this semester, so most of the breakout session was devoted to discussing the results. The questions were divided into six areas: (1) concepts and definitions, (2) supply and demand analysis, (3) production and cost functions, (4) perfect competition, (5) monopoly and imperfect competition, and (6) consumer choice. The questions were taken from test banks provided with textbooks.
After the exam was administered, two questions were thrown out as bad questions. Of the questions analyzed, the areas in which students performed the worst were (2) and
(4). This was somewhat surprising because many of the other questions covered what the faculty considered more "advanced" topics. We concluded that there is a need for more practice and review of the basic topics in our courses.
Exercise Science
Our departmental work on October 3 included a discussion of student work in EXSC 476
Physiology of Exercise, one of our senior-level courses. It was evident to the faculty member teaching the class that students were not coming in with adequate skills in the areas of writing lab reports, statistical analysis, and presentation of results; and that students were not equally prepared in these areas. We talked about the need for systematically including critical knowledge and skills across/throughout the curriculum, similar to the Writing Like a Chemist approach used in Chemistry, where students are progressively exposed to writing lab reports throughout the four years in their program.
In addition, it was determined from our discussion of student knowledge and skills that a curriculum revision was in order. Some ideas for curriculum revision discussed were breaking up the EXSC 305 Experimental Research course into two courses: a disciplinespecific statistics course and a research design and scientific writing course; and including a freshman-level course to introduce students to the field, such as Introduction to Human Biology/Physiology. Our next steps are to 1) identify curriculum revisions that will improve the likelihood of achieving student learning outcomes, 2) develop rubrics for assessing student work in 300- and 400-level classes, and 3) to revise the outcomes assessment plan to be more concise in its presentation of goals and results.

Finance
The finance faculty will develop approximately 5 multiple choice questions designed to assess the mastery of essential principles-level concepts, terms and financial techniques, and will develop approximately 10 multiple choice questions designed to assess the mastery of essential learning at the concentration-level. This instrument will be attached to the School of Business’ Comprehensive Exam that is required of all seniors, all of whom will be asked to answer the first five questions and those earning a finance concentration will answer all of these questions. The instrument will be designed so that it may be graded automatically (answered on bubble sheets, similar to the student evaluations). The standardization of the instrument will help ensure objectivity in the assessment, will allow year-to-year comparison, and will enable the department assess areas of instruction that need to be addressed.
Step one in the process is to identify the major skills and ideas that we aim to impart to students in principles courses and a second set for concentrations. From these the questions will be developed.
Modern Languages Department
The meeting centered on review of our current mission statement, our assessment cycle, and the feedback we had received from the evaluating team last summer. We discussed the ways in which we would integrate more opportunities for student selfevaluation into our assessment process, and the manner in which we want to frame and encourage student self-evaluation (i.e. as an opportunity for students to think about their own accountability in their learning process). We also had a rich discussion about the instruments and measures we currently have in place for assessment. We agreed that this is the area where our assessment cycle needs the most work. The agenda for our meeting had proposed several types of instruments for discussion: a new computer adaptive language exam that we purchased over the summer; student portfolios; grading rubrics; national and international achievement exams. At the end of the meeting, we formulated several action steps for follow-up at our department retreat (which will be held on October 25). Our goals for this year are to clarify further the expectations we have for cultural proficiency, using the standards of language-specific organizations
(AATF, AATG, etc.) instead of the more general guidelines given by ACTFL; to make a determination about the role of our new WEB-CAPE placement exam in our assessment cycle; and to develop a writing rubric for grading of composition in 300-level language courses.

Military Science Department
We need to measure and display results of our training and assessment to the cadets so that they can then act on the feedback.
What are our outcomes?
We will focus on preparation for the Leader Development and Assessment Course (33
Days) Results as an external assessment of our Cadets’ individual performance under the most standardized conditions possible in the Army today. Focus Events are: PT,
LN, OPORD/Tactics, Troop Leading Procedures, and Character/Attitude. All events are measured against the 7 Army values and the 16 Leadership Dimensions.
Physical Training (PT):
Five basic measures of combat readiness are:
APFT:
Push-ups in 2 minutes
Sit-ups in 2 minutes
Run 2 miles
5-Mile Endurance Run: Assess mental and physical endurance
10km Force March with Equipment: Assess endurance and commitment
Pull-ups: Upper Body
Swim 200m: Required Skills for soldiers.
Land Navigation:
Four measure of land navigation proficiency are:
Written Test – 20 question multiple choice exam
Day Land Navigation: 8 points in 5 hours
Night Land Navigation: 5 points in 3.5 hours
Employ navigation skills as a leader of a Squad/Patrol mission.
Operations Orders/Tactics:
Squad and Patrol level order that uses proper format, correct tactics, and is communicated effectively. Prepares small unit and executes the mission IAW higher level mission guidance.
Troop Leading Procedures:
Effectively executes the given small unit mission in accordance with the troop leading procedures as outlined in Field Manual 7-8. Unit is prepared to execute a successful mission.
Character/Attitude:
Cadets demonstrate proper military customs and courtesies conduct themselves IAW the 7 Army values. Cadets execute correct Drill and Ceremony to instill discipline and a sense of precision and accuracy. They maintain a high level of passion and commitment to serve Soldiers and the nation.

Philosophy Department
The Philosophy Department met the morning of October 3 to further discuss and revise its outcomes assessment plan. We focused on three matters.
First, we revisited the outcomes measurement instrument which involves the comparison of essays written by our entering majors in the Philosophy Pro Seminar to essays that they write in the Spring of their senior year in the Senior Seminar. We recognized that we needed a more precise description of what we are looking for in the comparison, and that we needed to develop a scoring rubric to use for the comparative evaluation. A committee of faculty members who regularly teach both courses was formed to work on both items. We will have in place a scoring rubric by the end of the Spring term, which is the first chance for us to apply this instrument.
Second, we discussed putting in place a revi ew of past years’ outcomes assessment results. We decided that a report would be compiled after each academic year and reviewed by the whole department at one of its first departmental meetings each Fall.
Third, Ellen Maccarone reported that she and Richard McClelland had nearly completed the alumni survey, which is to be implemented this Spring. The final version of the survey will be sent out for departmental approval in late October.
Psychology Department
I. Review of previous assessments:
A. Are we happy with goals/objectives?
B. Primary “findings” (see attached)
We began with a larger discussion on the GU culture and on the multiple pressures that seem to have been exacerbated by growth. We are concerned that our most valued role – that of providing individual attention to students – is undermined by larger classes, more advisees, pressure to write grants & publish, etc.
Our goals were initially informed by the APA, but we agreed that we should continue to review them. We also agreed that critical thinking skills as well as building a healthy sense of skepticism in our students are central to our goals, especially in the first two areas (General Knowledge Base and Scientific Foundation and Method).
We reviewed the primary findings across the past two assessment cycles (both based on limited data). We discussed ways to get better data (e.g., higher response rate on senior survey, better tracking of letters of recommendation for grad school plus outcome, etc.).
II. Plan f or this year’s assessment
A. GRE vs. MFT (Can we figure out why 25% are failing GRE?) – plan for pilot test
We talked about concerns around our students’ preparation in statistics as well as changes in our curriculum (e.g., we used to require two lab/methods courses). We discussed the resources needed to offer statistics again to our majors. We also talked about moving to the major fields test (which we will pilot this fall) and adopting a mastery vs. individual differences model. We also discussed the benefits of using
Psyc 101 as an alternate retake option for students who don’t pass the GRE.

(Psychology Department, continued)
B. Do we want to focus on one objective?
– How best to assess?
– Bean’s approach: Moving students from naive toward expert in discipline.
I briefly reviewed Bean’s approach and talked about how I am using it to inform my work on a proposal for revising our curriculum. We ran out of time for more discussion on above and for the next section; although we are considering some major revisions to the curriculum as informed by both assessment and program review.
III. Proposal: Thoughts to improve curriculum
A. 101 – not an adjunct course?
B. Lower-division (vs. upper-division) methods course
– key objectives
– statistics
– APA style
C. Changes in upper-division requirements
– clusters
– more “basic” science
– requirement of seminar?
From Program Review:
3 & 5. Program Objectives and Desired Student Outcomes
As part of our recent accreditation efforts, we identified five program objectives. These are presented below with some modifications:

General knowledge base: Students will develop a general knowledge base in psychology and will demonstrate a basic competency in general content.

Scientific foundation and method: Students will gain an appreciation for the scientific foundation of psychology and will demonstrate basic competence in the use of the scientific method on which modern psychology is based.

Communication skills: Students will enhance their abilities to communicate in both written and spoken form in ways appropriate to the discipline of psychology (e.g., becoming conversant with APA style, completing research presentations).

Values, diversity, social action, social justice, & service: Students will examine their biases and preconceptions around psychological issues, will expand their worldview, and will have opportunities to engage in social action and service.

Preparation for future achievement/success: The psychology major will prepare students for success in graduate programs in psychology or related fields or for successful employment/career development in psychology or related fields.

(Psychology Department, continued)
7. Summary of assessment and curriculum changes: Assessment cycles of 2005-06 and
2006-07
Our assessment processes over the past two years have utilized several methods: passing rates across foundational courses, passing rates on the GRE subject test in psychology, primary traits analyses of papers and presentations in upper-division courses, 2006 and 2007 senior surveys (approx. 30% response rate), and rich faculty discussions. Generally, these assessments have provided converging data (i.e., students’ self-report matches faculty observation). Additionally, we have compared our curriculum to that of other psychology programs at similar institutions.
Based on the assessment processes over the past two years, it appears that most of our students are doing well in learning content and fairly well in retaining that learning. Likewise, they appear to master the foundational research skills central to the discipline and to demonstrate strong writing skills.
The assessment processes have revealed several potential shortcomings:
Preparation in basic psychological processes (vs. applied and clinical areas)
On average, one-quarter of our students are failing the comprehensive test: the
GRE subject test in psychology. For 2006-07 year, the breakdown of passing rates across the three test dates was as follows: November 2006: 87.5%; December 2006:
60%; April 2007: 77% (average passing rate: 25.17%). More telling was the breakdown across content areas. Students scored significantly lower in the experimental area (basic psychological processes, statistics and methods) ( M = 27.40) than in the social area
(applied, developmental, clinical) ( M = 34.68) ( t (49) = -2.74, p <.01).
Consistent with this data, our consensus it that our present curriculum does not provide enough course-work in basic psychological processes: only one of our upperdivision requirements (choice of either cognition or learning) fits squarely under basic processes. Additionally, our elective courses in this area are also limited, and many students select the more applied and clinically-oriented courses to complete their program.
A review of other undergraduate programs (see Appendix X) showed that many use blocks or areas, where students must select 2-3 courses from each of several areas
(e.g., basic psychological processes, applied psychology, clinical psychology). We are in the process of discussing similar revisions to our program. We have also recognized that we need to better prepare students in the area of physiological or biological psychology as there has been a resurgence in the field of examining biological factors related to psychological processes. Indeed, students report that physiological psychology is one of the primary areas tested on the GRE psychology subject test. This year we hope to fill our open tenure-track position with someone with expertise in biological or physiological psychology. Recruiting someone in this area is complicated by our minimal lab resources.

(Psychology Department, continued)
Preparation in statistics and research methods
Presently, the math department teaches our foundational statistics course (PSYC
202 offered as MATH 121). Professors who teach our research methods course have expressed concern that the math course focuses too heavily on theory and not enough on application. Most students who enter our foundational methods course (for which statistics is a prerequisite) lack the ability to understand when and how to use some basic statistical tests (e.g., t-test). Further, on the senior survey students reported a significantly lower mean score for the item: “knowledge of statistics (e.g., being able to understand and interpret statistical findings)” (M = 4.04) than for any other item, including “understanding basic research methods” (M = 5.54) ( t (26) = -5.31, p < .001).
Only 34.6% of respondents endorsed “knowledge of statistics” with a value of 5 or higher
(7-pt. scale).
We are exploring several ways to enhance the statistical preparation of our students: offer at least some sections of Psyc 202; build in more application of statistics into our foundational research methods course (PSYC 207); offer an upper-division statistics course, especially for our graduate-school bound majors. The ability to offer additional courses is dependent upon having enough faculty resources.
Preparation in the area of research is essential for graduate school. We are well behind the preparation other schools are providing in this regard (see Appendix X). For several years, we have discussed adding an advanced research methods course to the curriculum, and only this spring (2008) will we have sufficient faculty resources to do that. Further, other programs have added a B.S degree as an option for their graduate school bound majors; we are exploring the possibility of doing that as well, provided we have the resources. The importance of preparation in both statistics and research for graduate school is discussed further below.
Written and oral expression skills
Just 68% of respondents to the 2006 senior survey endorsed a 5 or higher (7-pt. scale) on their growth in oral expression skills (as compared to 84% endorsing a 5 or higher for growth in written expression skills). On the 2007 senior survey, these figures improved with 80.8% of respondents endorsing a 5 or higher for oral expression skills and 88.5% endorsing positive growth in writing skills. In discussion, we identified that students continue to struggle with APA writing style in their upper-division courses, and on one assessment during the 2005-06 cycle, students scored less well on APA style than on overall writing style. We plan to continue to offer opportunities to develop confidence in these skills. We are also considering adding a requirement that all majors take at least one writing-intensive seminar course, where oral participation is expected.

(Psychology Department, continued)
Growth in values, diversity, social action, social justice, and service
As reported on the 2006 and 2007 senior surveys, participation in psychology courses that require service-learning and/or emphasize social justice was higher than last year (65% vs. 42%) but still lower than we would like. Also, students’ self-report on positive growth (i.e., endorsing a 5 or higher on a 7 pt. scale) in the areas of ethics, diversity, social justice and social action ranged from 76.9 - 92.3% (which is an improvement over last year, with a range of 53% - 68%). During the 2006-07 year, we made several changes to the curriculum. In particular, we added a course on ethics in psychology, and we expanded our service-learning course offerings and our social justice course offerings. We also launched a study abroad/social justice course experience in Zambia, Africa during the summer of 2007 and hope to expand that program (preliminary outcomes assessment from that experience suggest it was transformational, particularly in the area of social justice). Next year, we plan to expand service-learning and social justice course options even further. Additionally, we will continue to explore study abroad options for psychology students as well as how existing study abroad opportunities (e.g., Florence) can be better tailored to the needs of psychology students.
Preparation for graduate school
On the 2007 senior survey only 11% indicated that they were presently applying to graduate school, but 50% indicated that they planned to apply in the future. Our stud ents’ preparation for graduate school, especially for Ph.D. programs, is limited by the research experience they are able to obtain (which, itself, is limited by faculty resources). Last year’s data indicated that our students do well getting into Masters programs but less well getting into Ph.D./Psy.D. programs. According to one professor who wrote letters of recommendation for 27 students, 14 of 16 students (87.5%) who applied to Masters programs were accepted; 4 of 5 students (80%) who applied for
MSW programs were accepted; but just 1 of 6 students (17%) who applied for
Ph.D./Psy.D. programs was accepted. This year’s data suggested the same pattern:
66.6% acceptance rate into Masters program; 0% into Ph.D. programs (note this is based on only 3 cases).
The graduate school admissions process is very competitive. Surveys completed by the chairs of graduate departments across the U.S. indicate that research experience is essential preparation for undergraduate students. For a number of years, we have recognized that the preparation we are able to provide our undergraduates falls short in this regard. Several of our senior faculty and all of our junior faculty have provided select students with the opportunity to work on research projects, which usually culminate in conference presentations or publications. With our continual growth in majors (presently
265) we have not been able to offer research mentoring opportunities to all of the students who seek them. However, we do hope to expand the research preparation of our students in several ways. In particular, we plan to add an upper-division research course, geared to our graduate-school bound majors, where they can initiate their own research projects. As noted above, this course is being planned for Spring of 2008. We are also exploring the possibility of adding a B.S. degree, which would intensify the preparation of our students by adding more course work and research preparation.
These changes, again, are dependent on faculty resources. Finally, the ability of faculty to maintain ongoing research programs, in which to mentor students, is dependent on lab space. Our present space (1800 sq. feet shared by seven faculty) is vastly insufficient. We hope to successfully petition for additional lab space.

Religious Studies Department
On October 3 the Religious Studies Department invited Dr. Jim Minkler, a member of the
Northwest Accrediting team and Dean of Humanities at Spokane Falls Community
College, to speak to us about program outcomes. After reviewing our department outcomes assessment grid, he made suggestions about tools we might use to shift from course outcomes to program outcomes, focusing on the possible use of entrance and exit surveys/tests. We discussed the possibility of using the majors' senior thesis as an outcomes assessment tool and committed ourselves to developing a gird to review these papers at our spring outcomes assessment discussion in April.
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The School of Engineering and Applied Science has an ABET accreditation review looming in October 2008. The exhaustive self-studies (one per program) must be submitted by July 12. We used the 2 hour breakout time to organize our assessment/improvement work and the writing.
The first hour, each department reviewed their faculty what assessment work must be done, and what each faculty is expected to contribute. The assessment committee also collected feedback from each department concerning how the assessment committee could better complete the assessment work.
The second hour the assessment committee met to expedite near-term assessment work. Meeting minutes for the assessment committee meeting are attached.
Sociology
Background Information: We completed our first round of outcome evaluation testing and collected other outcome evaluation data required by our department's outcome evaluation plan last spring. I analyzed the data this spring and I completed a draft of the report summarizing those findings this summer. I distributed the a draft Outcome
Evaluation Report to the Sociology faculty a week before the SLOD. We have also been working on our required program review, and a draft of the Sociology/Criminal Justice
Department Program Review Report was mailed to all department members about a week before the SLOD.
With all of the Program Review and Outcome Evaluation "pieces" available for the first time, we discussed recommendations for changing our program in the light of these two documents. We will now revise the recommendations for change in the Program Review
Report and submit it for approval. Assuming we receive that approval, we will revise the
Sociology and Criminal Justice course requirements and publish them in the 2009-2011 catalog. Students declaring a Sociology or Criminal Justice major who were admitted to the university after August 2009 will be expected to meet the revised requirements.

Theatre Arts
The theatre program, part of the Comm Arts Department, decided that the assessment system that we presently have is too cumbersome, so we decided to revise it. Our new system, which we hope to have in place by next semester, will have a comprehensive final along with a few other tools that will be used as part of the senior project course in the spring.
I'm wondering if the work of preparing the comprehensive test, which will be done during the Christmas break, would qualify as something that could be funded under the grant you are offering.