SACS Reaffirmation
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Assessment : 2007 - 2008 : Administrative Support :
Political Science, Department of
3 Goals 6 Objectives 6 Indicators 6 Criteria 6 Findings 6 Actions
GOAL: Academic Program Improvement
| Objective | Faculty Teaching | |
| The Department will provide high quality teaching. Associated Goals: Academic Program Improvement |
| Indicator | Faculty Teaching Faculty will be evaluated using the data collected through the Individual Development and Educational Assessment program. |
| Criteria | Faculty Teaching 60% of the department''''s courses will be scored at or above the national average as indentified by the Individual Development and Educational Assessment program. |
| Finding | Faculty Teaching For fall of 2007 71% of the courses taught in the department were scored at or above the national average. For spring 2008 77% of the courses taught in the department were scored at or above the national average |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Faculty Teaching In an effort to improve individual faculty members'' teaching scores the department chair will review individual faculty members'' teaching scores to determine if there are any faculty members who have the majority of their courses fall below the national average in a given academic year. Individual faculty members who are scoring below the national average will be asked to meet with the department chair. The department chair will assign the faculty member a mentor, specifically another faculty member whose teaching scores have been consistently above the national average. The mentor will provide the mentoree with advice and suggestions for improving teaching scores. |
GOAL: Academic Program Improvement
| Objective | High Quality Curriculum | |
| The department will maintain high quality curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Associated Goals: Academic Program Improvement |
| Indicator | High Quality Curriculum Curriculum will be reviewed annually by the deparment's Curriculum Committee. |
| Criteria | High Quality Curriculum Curriculum (hours required and courses offered) will be comparable to curriculum found at universities and colleges ranked by US News and World Report as the top 10% universities and colleges for the study of political science and government. |
| Finding | High Quality Curriculum The Curriculum Committee reviewed the department''''s curriculum (hours required and courses offered) and concluded that it was comparable to curriculum found at universities and colleges ranked by US News and World Report as the top 10% universities and colleges for the study of political science and government |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | High Quality Curriculum The committee will continue its annual review of the department''''s curriculum. |
GOAL: Academic Program Improvement
| Objective | Professional And Political Markets | |
| The department will enhance students' exposure to the professional and political/government markets. Associated Goals: Academic Program Improvement |
| Indicator | Professional And Political Markets The Department's ability to offer students the opportunity to participate in professional and political/government markets will be measured according to the number of internships offered each year. |
| Criteria | Professional and Political Markets The Department of Political Science will offer at least 20 internships per academic year. |
| Finding | Professional and Political Markets The department offered roughly 20 internships at the local, state, and federal levels of government. As we had hoped the reduction in the number of internships from 40 to 20 allowed us to focus strictly on internships that promised very rewarding experiences (e.g., numerous opportunities to make professional contacts, involvement in important and high profile projects, direct and consistent professional training, etc) and allowed us to grant internships only to high quality students by making the application process more competitive (e.g., requiring higher GPAs, better writing samples, etc). |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Professional and Political Markets For the 2008 - 2009 period the department will continue to limit the number of internships to roughly 20 as this allows us to offer internships that promise very rewarding experiences for the students and allows us to grant internships to the most qualified students. However, during the 2008 - 2009 period the department faculty will meet with the internship director to discuss how the department as a whole can increase the number of quality internships as well as the number of students who are highly qualified for such internships. |
GOAL: Academic Program Improvement
| Objective | Student Satisfaction | |
| The Department of Political Science will improve students' overall satisfaction with academic programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Associated Goals: Academic Program Improvement |
| Indicator | Student Satisfaction  Student satisfaction will be measured using an anonymous exit survey. All undergraduate and graduate students will complete the survey prior to graduation. |
| Criteria | Student Satisfaction At least 80% of our graduates will provide a positive answer to question 12 on the graduate exit survey and at least 80% of our undergraduates will provide a positive answer to question 9 on the undergraduate exit survey. Respondents'''' answers will be considered positive if they describe their overall experience with the programs as satisfactory or very satisfactory. |
| Finding | Student Satisfaction Fall 2007: Technical problems with the online survey prevented us from collecting data. Spring 2008: 9/32 undergraduates completed the survey. All students offered positive responses to question 9. 2/2 graduates completed the survey. Both students offered positive responses to question 12. We continue to encounter the problem of low response rates for the undergraduate survey. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Student satisfaction We continue to encounter problems with the response rate despite the shift from mail surveys to online surveys. We believe we can increase the response rate if me make a more concerted effort to inform students about the survey. Previously students were sent two emails reminders towards the end of the semester. In the future we will send out monthly email reminders throughout the semester, make announcements in classes, and post information in areas frequented by our students. We will continue to send the reminders until we have reached a reasonable response rate. |
GOAL: Research Track Faculty
| Objective | Research Track Faculty | |
| Research faculty will engage in scholarly activities. Associated Goals: Research Track Faculty |
| Indicator | Faculty Research Research faculty's progress will be measured by the number of publications. |
| Criteria | Faculty Research Over a rolling 3 year period research track faculty will produce an average of 1 peer reviewed article per year or 1 book during the 3 year period. |
| Finding | Research Faculty Progress The mean number of publications we had antitipated was 1.0. The actual mean number of publications was 1.4 |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Faculty Research We will continue to encourage faculty research efforts regarding publications. For the 2008 - 2009 period the department will take steps to encourage research faculty to submit grant applications. These steps will include: providing support for faculty attendance to grant writing seminars, informing faculty of on-campus grant writing resources, and organizing departmental gatherings designed to allow faculty members to explore possible grant writing partnerships. |
GOAL: Teaching Track Faculty
| Objective | Teaching Track Faculty | |
| Teaching track faculty will engage in service work designed to promote the department, college, and university. Associated Goals: Teaching Track Faculty |
| Indicator | Teaching Track Faculty Teaching track faculty's progress will be measured by the the number of service projects completed in a year. Service projects include: membership in college and university committees, participation in department recruitment programs, organizer of major campus event, etc |
| Criteria | Teaching Track Faculty We expect our teaching faculty to complete at least 2 service projects per faculty per year. |
| Finding | Teaching Track Faculty 1/3 teaching track faculty completed two or more service projects. Discussions with faculty members indicate that teaching track faculty are not always aware of service projects in need of completion. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Teaching Track Faculty In an effort to increase the number of service projects completed by teaching track faculty the department chair will create a list of department level service projects designed to improve the department''''s programs. Projects may include graduate and undergraduate recruitment projects, alumni development projects, internship development projects, and more. Teaching track faculty will be expected to complete at least two projects from the list. |