We are planning to evaluate the options for the "yes" and "yes, hire with reservations" response given by employers of student interns as part of the evaluation process.  We are planning to use the fourteen professionals skills noted on the evaluation instrument as a means of evaluating content area knowledge and skills.

The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences received some marketing funds from Enrollment Management and we worked with them to produce brochures, appropriate advertising specialties, videos and other marketing materials.  We believe that some of the growth in this program is due to these marketing efforts, and we will be able to continue them with the materials that have been developed.   

The Interior Design Program is participating with the Department of Art (that department is taking the lead) in pursuing NASAD (National Association of Schools of Art and Design) accreditation.  Dr. Laura Burleson, Program Director for Interior Design, has been involved in the writing of the interior design portion of the self-study document in anticipation of a site visit in October of 2013.  This is a university-wide accreditation and must include every program within the university that offers art or design.

We decided to eliminate the options for "yes" and "yes, hire with reservations" and go with simply "yes" and "no."  However, instead of using the fourteen professional skills noted on the evaluation instrument as a means of evaluating content area knowledge and skills, we developed a different plan that will be explained in the section below. 

The marketing funds were put to good use!  One of the reasons this cohort of graduates is small has to do with the timing of the accreditation for interior design.  During the time leading up to the accreditation, some of the students who were very much wanting to graduate from an accredited program transferred to other institutions that already had accredited programs.  Also during this time, there was a downturn in construction activity in the Houston area.  However, now that the program is accredited and the construction activity has greatly increased, numbers of students in the lower-level interior design courses have improved significantly.

The department did participate in the bid for NASAD (National Association of Schools of Art and Design) accreditation, although a final decision has not yet been rendered.  Dr. Laura Burleson, Program Director for Interior Design, was involved in writing both the interior design portion of the self-study and, more recently, a response to the report of the site visit team. 

The program will continue its recruitment efforts, while at the same time it is planning a sophomore review.  The sophomore review will mean that at the end of the sophomore year, faculty will review each student's work and decide on the top twenty students who will go forward to junior studio.  This is a common practice in many art and design programs.  

In recent years, we have struggled with how to handle the various program Exit Survey data.  It is difficult to remember to update the survey every time a change in the curriculum occurs (programs and courses in the department must continually be updated because they are pre-professional programs that serve fields that are constantly in flux), so we get to the point of administering it and realize that it is needs updating.  Dr. Laura Burleson is working on a rubric whereby we would access students' logs during the internship process to determine effectiveness of course content as students applied it to the internship activities and problems.  We are going to try it for a cycle with the expectation that it will lead to curricular changes and improved program effectiveness.