Department Learning
Outcomes Assessment Report
History
majors will:
1. Demonstrate competence in
conducting research and analyzing data.
2. Be able to write with clarity
and concision.
3. Be able to speak with
clarity and concision.
4. Be able to develop and
sustain a historical argument or answer to a historical problem or question.
5. Will have foundational
knowledge of the history of the
6. Will be able to work
independently.
Learning Outcome(s)
Assessed:
Points
1 through 4 are assessed annually in the manner described below under
assessment procedure. Points 5 and 6 are
ensured by the distribution requirements for the History major. All majors must take a minimum of two courses
each in
Assessment
Procedure:
At
the end of each academic year, the history faculty hold
a meeting for the purpose of reviewing our majors one-by-one. Points 1 through 4 of the departmental
outcomes statement are addressed in each case, with input from all professors
who have had the student in a history class that year. The academic adviser also reports on how the
student has done in courses outside the major.
We share ideas on the strengths and weaknesses of each history major. This procedure enables us to identify areas
in which a student has shown improvement from year to year as areas that a
continuing student needs to work on in the upcoming year.
Recommendations
and Action:
Changes
Resulting from OA:
Summary
of Student Achievement and Honors:
In
2002-2003, two history majors completed honors research (HIST 491W and 492W):
Shannon Curry, “Bewitched or
Bewitching?—Gender and Possession in
John Andrew Maynard, “The Work of
Demons: Otto Ohlendorf and the
Einsatzgruppen” (distinguished honors).
Summary
from Student Exit Interviews:
Due
to the change in department chair, I have not seen the results of the exit
interviews.
Summary
of Faculty Activities and Honors
Summary of Departmental Initiatives or
Significant Changes
We proposed a curriculum revision, which was approved by the Faculty at the
March 2003 faculty meeting. The new
curriculum enlarged the major from 9 to 10 courses, required majors to take a
second comparative history course, and changed the American history survey from
one semester to two. Many of the
individual course offerings were modified, and a number of new courses were
created. These changes were not
by-products of the outcomes assessment procedures described above.
Departmental Decennial Review
Report Summary
Department: History Semester/Year: Fall 2003
The Self Study was completed
in November 2002. It recommended changes
in the departmental curriculum, most importantly instituting a two-semester
U.S. history survey in place of the previous one-semester survey,
reconstituting HIST 101-102 as comparative history courses within the major
(HIST 261-262), expanding the major to ten courses, and raising the comparative
history requirement from one course to two.
The Self Study also recommends the creation of a new tenure-line
position in Medieval/Early Modern European history. As of this writing, the External Review will
take place in mid-November 2003.
The curriculum changes
recommended in the Self Study were approved by Academic Council and ratified by
the full faculty in March 2003.