CURRICULUM AND EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE
September 15, 2015
Response to Political Science Year One Report
The Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee thanks the Political Science
discipline for the submission of its Year One program review report. It has provided
the committee with concise mission and vision statements, a brief narrative
regarding the program’s relationship to the College and to wider communities, a
summary of progress made toward strategic goals it established for itself in 2010,
and a synopsis of decisions that were made at the discipline’s roundtable discussion
this summer. We appreciate the time and effort you have given in response to the
program review guidelines and commend your program team for the thoughtful
approach that it has taken in preparation for the submission of its report.
Mission and Vision Statements
While the CEPC applauds the elegance, precision and universality of the discipline’s
mission statement, we believe it might realize additional benefit by incorporating
elements or phrases that more accurately illustrate what makes Political Science
distinctive as a major on our campus. Of course, it is undeniable that your discipline
shares with the other disciplines at St. Norbert its stated goals of training
responsible citizens and thoughtful scholars. But the strength and passion of your
unique mission seems to be more amply expressed in the second paragraph of
Section III, which describes objectives of enhancing student understanding of the
concepts of power, justice, law, social order, and the creation of equitable human
relationships. Incorporating those aims into your mission statement would serve to
even more clearly explain the governing purposes of your program to the College
community and would also strongly establish its correspondence with the
overarching mission of St. Norbert.
The Political Science vision statement is also commendable for its goals of attracting
students, increasing learning opportunities, and encouraging collaborative work
and relationships. But it is less clear about how things such as the individual career
development of faculty will promote the goal of creating model citizens. In fact, the
committee was quite struck with the phrase “Every Political Science student will be
a role model citizen.” This phrase seems to spring from a vision that is powerful,
imaginative and aspirational - but, without further description from the discipline, it
was difficult for us to define or quantify. Because this vision statement will strongly
influence the Year Two strategic plan and decision making by the discipline in the
future, the CEPC would like you to think through and discuss as a program team
specifically what a “role model citizen” might look like. And, as this committee’s role
is to encourage programs to develop effective assessment protocols, we also
recommend that you formulate that definition in terms of what Political Science
students will know, what they will value, and what they will be able to do as role
model citizens at the conclusion of their studies on campus. Then, the individual
elements of your vision statement can serve as valuable guides when you begin to
envision strategic disciplinary goals in Year Two of the program review process.
2010 Goals
The 2010 goals outlined in your report appear to fall into three principal categories:
1) raising the profile of the Political Science discipline, 2) increasing the resources
available to the discipline, and 3) developing contacts with program graduates. The
first has been partially accomplished through the establishment of a Pi Sigma Alpha
chapter, an improved recent ability to offer additional Political Science coursework,
and a reported expanded capacity for campus presentations. The second has also
been at least partially addressed via modified course rotations, the availability of a
visiting professor, and an annual budget supplemented by discretionary funds. And
the third has seemingly been successfully accomplished through social media and
other alumni outreach efforts.
We congratulate the discipline on this impressive list of achievements, and also note
the discussions already underway among discipline members regarding the
development of new goals - such as employing high impact practices in the
curriculum, collecting data on the achievement of student learning outcomes, and a
critical examination of the curricular paradigm. We encourage you in these efforts,
and members of CEPC and OIE stand ready to help you undertake these important
tasks of evaluation and assessment and to develop them into practical strategic
objectives.
Conclusion
We thank you again for your informative Year One report. Although it will be
unnecessary to submit additional materials to the CEPC before your Year Two
report is due, the committee does encourage you to reexamine your mission and
vision statements, for the purpose of clearly defining for yourselves what makes
your program unique, and clearly deciding for yourselves what strategic goals will
best help you achieve whatever long term vision you establish for the Political
Science discipline.