Program Assessment Report
PROGRAM INFORMATION
Date submitted: _____May 31, 2012____________
Degree Program(s):
Humanities BA
Department:
Humanities
Department Chair:
Chris Jochim
Phone:
4-4465
Report Prepared by:
Scot Guenter
Phone:
4-1366
2016-2017
E-mail:
Scot.guenter@sjsu.edu
Next Self-Study due :
Note: Schedule is posted at: http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/programplanning/
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Location:
Clark 420
Person to Contact:
(Bldg/Room #)
Eliza Rentschler
(Name)
4-4463
(Phone)
Assessment schedule is posted at http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/assessment
Please send any changes to the schedule or to student learning outcomes to Jackie Snell
jacqueline.snell@sjsu.edu
Enter the number and text of the SLO in this box (we post reports by
SLO)
Initial Evidence of Student Learning:
Spring 2012:
Instead of assessing PLOs that would no longer be relevant in Fall 2012, this year we have reorganized
this major, shifting existing emphases to concentrations, folding in Liberal Arts and Comparative Religion
concentrations, and creating a new shared cored curriculum with significant coursework at initial,
intermediary, and capstone levels, the better to identify, assess, and increase student success in
achieving the desired Program Learning Outcomes. Collaboratively, first we came up with these shared
department goals.
Department of Humanities Goals
1. Investigate topics using interdisciplinary approaches;
2. Appreciate, understand and celebrate diversity, while knowing how to identify and bracket one’s
own cultural bias;
3. Think critically and creatively, and be willing to question authority and to express rational
skepticism;
4. Understand and appreciate creations of the human imagination and intellect;
5. Synthesize various forms of knowledge to solve aesthetic, social and cultural problems;
6. Read, write and speak as members of the educated public and as citizens prepared to face
controversy;
7. Develop and integrate performance and research skills, including information literacy;
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Program Assessment Report
8.
9.
Become concerned and involved citizens, speaking on controversial issues and acting to
influence the course of history.
Engage in informed discussion and reflection about human values.
Next, we crafted the following PLOs for the Humanities BA and its various Concentrations (American
Studies, Asian Studies, European Studies, Liberal Arts, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies).
Humanities BA Program Student Learning Objectives
1. Demonstrate the ability to frame questions and pursue answers to aesthetic, social, cultural and
global problems using interdisciplinary methods.
2. Demonstrate the ability to describe and compare the roles, impacts and ethical implications of
ideas, texts, social movements, contemporary situations, and creations of the human imagination.
3. Demonstrate skill in written and verbal communication, including argumentation.
4. Demonstrate the ability to identify, select, use, and cite information sources appropriately.
Additional SLO: American, Asian, European, and Middle East Studies Concentrations:
1. Explain how current events and contemporary issues are understood with knowledge of the
historical and cultural background of a particular world area (e.g., America, East Asia, Europe, or
the Middle East), including processes of cultural formation, historical development, and social
change.
Additional SLOs: Religious Studies Concentration
1. Demonstrate a high level of religious literacy, including the ability to articulate etic and emic
perspectives for specific religions, and a functional understanding of at least five major world
religious systems (e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism,
Sikhism, Jainism, a specific geographic set of indigenous religions [African, Australian, North
American, South American, Pacific Islander, North Asian, pre-Christian European], Wicca, AfroCaribbean religions).
2. Function adroitly within the interdisciplinary nature of comparative religious studies. Describe how
religion, as a phenomenon, can be analyzed historically, philosophically, psychologically,
sociologically, geographically, and artistically, as well as theologically. Demonstrate ability to write
and speak about religions in a scholarly, civil, and respectful manner, using the academic
discourses that have evolved for this purpose. Foster civil discourse about religion by
encountering and engaging community members, faculty, and students who hold diverse views
within and about religious traditions.
Other assessment activities that we have engaged in the past year and will continue to do in the future
include:
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Developing curricular maps;
Developing policy documents for courses in which data will be collected and in which activities
leading to objectives should be taught (Such as our core courses: Hum 85; Hum 101; Hum 160;
and Hum 190);
Developing an assessment schedule;
Beginning a department-wide discussion on having student representation on the department’s
curriculum committee; and
Identifying courses where students are required to assess their own progress toward the learning
outcomes.
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Program Assessment Report
Change(s) to Curriculum or Pedagogy:
N/A
Evidence of Student Learning after Change.
N/A
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