Faculty in the Department of English will demonstrate quality in the instruction of their classes.
Objective
Quality Instruction
The Department's faculty will maintain a level of instruction at or above the average for all departments at SHSU.
Indicator
Student Evaluation Of Teaching
Successful teaching will be demonstrated by faculty performance on the Individual Development and Educational Assessment (IDEA) Class Evaluation System. The IDEA survey is a nationally normed, university-adopted evaluation instrument developed at Kansas State University and scored by the IDEA Center at KSU that measures student perception of instructor teaching.
Criterion
IDEA Scores, 2009
The faculty of the Department of English will average at least 3.9 (the university's average) on the IDEA student evaluations of teaching. Part of the quality instruction is also adherence to stringent student evaluation; courses need to be interesting yet not too easy.
Finding
Instruction Results
A wide distribution of evaluative measures was made available to students in order to ensure that the feedback they get is accurate and not inflated. Quality teaching is not easy; it is challenging. The English Department's IDEA teaching scores indicate that the goal of being above the university's 3.9 average was met and exceeded generously. The Department's average IDEA teaching score for the year 2009 was 4.38. The range of the scores was from the low 3.8 to the high 4.7. There were only 3 professors (out of 24) who scored below the university's average, and even the lowest one was only one decimal point below the university average. Altogether 21 professors (i.e. 88%) scored above the university average. In the Fall of 2009, the Department of English received collectively the College of Humanities and Social Sciences teaching award. During the spring 2010, one of our Associate Professors received the University-level Excellence in Teaching Award, and another faculty member was also a finalist. The Department is now the home for eight Excellence in Teaching Award winners; we also have a Minnie Stevens Piper Professor. In addition, two of our faculty members were nominated for mentoring awards. A student of an adjunct faculty member won a mentee award.
Action
High Quality Teaching And Stringent Evaluation
IDEA scores are monitored by the instructors themselves and the Department Chair, and should they descend below the average, action will be taken. This action is discussion and consciousness-raising about the factors leading to lower scores, but in extreme cases, the services of the Professional and Academic Center for Excellence (PACE) will be utilized. The percentage of faculty above the IDEA national norm in at least one class is reported to college deans and is aggregated and summarized across colleges in order to arrive at a university indicator of faculty excellence. This finding is reported in President's Performance Indicator Report.
In order to enhance the quality and stringency of the English Program, the Undergraduate Studies Committee has recently implemented a rule that all English majors need to take one course that has traditionally been found challenging because of its scientific approach, English Grammar or the English Language.
The Department Chair and Associate Chair visited the classes of all adjunct faculty, wrote feedback letters to them or gave oral evaluations, met with the adjuncts in small group meetings and in two large meetings, and solicited individual feedback from all adjuncts.
A mentoring system for graduate teaching assistants was implemented.
Goal
Research And Creative Activities Productivity
The Department's tenured and tenure-track faculty will engage in research and publication.
Objective
Research Agenda
Each of the Department's faculty will develop and maintain an active research agenda.
Indicator
Research Agenda
The number of peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and grant proposals by the Department's tenured and tenure-track faculty will serve as indicators of active research agendas.
Criterion
Research Productivity
Presenting a paper at a meeting of a professional association and/or publication of one article will certify research productivity. [Note: given that the research interests of English faculty range widely, "article" will be construed to mean creative work that is article length--e.g., short story, 5 poems, or book-length work.]
Finding
Research And Scholarly Activity
The Department's teaching and service scores in the FES evaluation system are significantly higher than their research score, which was 3.5. In 2009, the faculty published 7 articles, 3 book chapters, 1 monograph, 11 poems, 7 short stories, and 2 book reviews. These were peer-reviewed. In addition, faculty published 3 tokens of non-peer-reviewed items. Even though some faculty members are productive, many do not publish at all, or publish sporadically. Quality of publications is important, but before we can talk about quality, we must bring the numbers up. The so-called impact factor of faculty research was measured by a Google-books search. English has five faculty members whose scholarly work has made an impact, measured as eight or more citations in the Google-books search. Two faculty members were cited in over one hundred books and journals.
Action
Publication Activity
Presented conference papers are revised into publications and submitted within roughly a year after the conference. At any given time, each faculty member has an article submitted, an article forthcoming, and an article being worked on. The publication outlets are peer-reviewed.
Goal
Professional Service And Activity
The Department's faculty will engage in professional activities and service at a level appropriate for the individual faculty member's rank.
Objective
Professional Service Activities
English faculty will take part in service activities at local, state, regional, national, and/or international levels.
Indicator
Professional Service Activities
The number of professional service activities--local, state, regional, national, and/or international--by the Department's tenured and tenure-track faculty will indicate engagement in professional service.
Criterion
Professional Service
Each faculty member will engage in an aspect of professional service at the department, college, university, profession, and/or community level.
Finding
Service Activity
The following numbers of service tokens were recorded: -Department service: 100 -College service: 23 -University service: 77 -Service to the profession: 20 -Service to community: 16 4 faculty members were officers in state/regional organizations, 2 were board members in state/regional organizations, 2 were officers in international organizations, and 1 was a board member in an international organization. 1 faculty member was an editor of a journal, 7 were associate editors or review board members, and 11 tokens of ad hoc journal reviews had been completed.
Action
Promotion Of Faculty Visibility
It is difficult to promote service directly because one is usually invited to serve as an outside evaluator, an editor, a reviewer, a presenter, a committee member. To increase faculty involvement especially nationally and internationally, faculty will engage in quality publication in peer-reviewed, internationally recognized journals and other high-impact outlets; this, in time, will lead to increased service involvement.
Goal
MA In English Program Development
We will continue to develop the existing English MA Program by periodically reviewing the curriculum and introducing new courses that reflect developments in the field and best serve the needs of our students; by encouraging English graduate faculty to provide the best professional models as researchers, writers, and teachers; and by recruiting qualified students.
Objective
MA Curriculum
The English MA Program will demonstrate that it is both current in its course offerings and responsive to student curricular needs and to developments in the profession of English literature, language, and writing disciplines.
Indicator
MA Program Review
The English MA program will assess graduate catalogue descriptions and the existing MA curriculum in light of student curricular needs and developments in the profession of English literature, language, and writing disciplines. The Graduate Studies Committee (comprising the Director of Graduate Studies in English and four other members of the graduate faculty) will periodically review the existing curriculum and will report its finding to the Chair of the Department of English and the collected graduate English faculty.
In addition, the Committee will undertake a comparative review of the English MA Program with graduate programs at peer and aspiration institutions. Each member of the Graduate Studies Committee will compare a range of program features with those from three institutions, one in the state of Texas and two from out of state. The Graduate Director will report the Committee's findings to the collected faculty.
Criterion
Comparability Of MA Curriculum And Responsiveness To Student Needs
The Graduate Studies Committee and the English faculty will agree that the curricular needs of English MA students are met by the existing curriculum and that the SHSU MA curriculum is comparable to, or more comprehensive than, English MA Program curricula at peer and aspiration institutions.
Finding
Program Needs
(1) As a result of the internal and external comparative reviews conducted by the Graduate Studies Committee, the Department of English determined that installing an MFA program would serve creative writing students by giving them the opportunity to pursue a terminal degree in their discipline and also serve as a means of recruiting more graduate students.
(2) The comparison of the SHSU English graduate curriculum with the curricula of several peer/aspiration institutions determined that SHSU lacks a variable topics course.
(3) The graduate faculty agreed that the number and title of the existing research and bibliography methods course (ENG 697) do not reflect the fact that this class is a required introduction to discipline-specific research and English studies, to be taken during the first semester of a student's graduate career at SHSU.
(4) At the beginning of the assessment period, the Department found that almost no other graduate English program uses ITV (interactive television) as a method of distance education; the graduate faculty agreed collectively that ITV is a clumsy and largely ineffective instructional method.
Action
Response To MA Program Needs
(1) The English Department has proposed an MFA program as a significant development in its creative writing concentration; the program proposal is now working its way through College, University, and Coordinating Board curriculum review.
(2) A recently proposed special topics class (ENG 630) was approved by College, University, and Coordinating Board curriculum review committees and will be offered for the first time in Fall 2010.
(3) The course number and title of the research methods class were changed to align it to its purpose as an obligatory first-semester graduate course: ENG 530 (Graduate Research: Methods and Theories).
(4) Beginning in Spring 2010, the English MA program abandoned ITV as an instructional method of distance education.
Objective
Graduate Faculty Credentials
English graduate faculty will demonstrate their professional competency and credentials for teaching graduate courses and serving as models for students continuing their graduate education, entering the teaching profession, and entering other professions that require graduate-level training in English language and literature.
Indicator
Graduate Faculty Credentials
English graduate faculty will demonstrate that they are current in their fields and are qualified to teach graduate courses and to serve as models for students entering the profession.
Criterion
Graduate Faculty Currency
As demonstration that they are current in their fields and are qualified to teach graduate courses, all graduate English faculty will show that they are actively engaged in the profession by one or more of the following means: one article or significant creative work published in a peer-reviewed publication every three years; one book published by a recognized press every seven years; one conference presentation every two years; one significant editorial project every three years; a leadership role in a professional organization. As part of the faculty research colloquium established to encourage scholarly and creative production, at least two graduate faculty members will present their work to the Department during each assessment period.
Finding
Scholarly Impact
Graduate faculty must be able to show, three years after their tenure has been achieved, a minimum of five citations from a normal Google-book search on their name to works in their field of expertise/teaching. These citations cannot be merely a list of their own works or advertisements of their work; they must be references by other scholars citing the SHSU faculty member. Currently, few faculty members have had this kind of scholarly impact in their fields of expertise.
Action
Increased Focus Of Scholarly Impact
Faculty will focus on publishing in quality, peer-reviewed, journals and other high-impact outlets in order to enhance the visibility of Sam Houston State University.
Objective
Graduate Student Recruitment
The English MA Program will continue to recruit qualified graduate students. There is a conscious effort to increase the numbers of graduate students also.
Indicator
Graduate Student Recruitment
The English MA Program will demonstrate its commitment to recruiting qualified graduate students by continuing to identify graduate prospects with promise, advertising the program, and inviting qualified individuals to apply. Without compromising the high admission standards, the graduate faculty will contact larger numbers of qualified students with the aim of recruiting them.
Criterion
Graduate Student Admissions
As demonstration that the English MA Program has been successful during the assessment period in its efforts to recruit qualified applicants, the number of graduate students accepted in regular admission status will increase from the previous academic year or at least remain equal to graduation rates.
Finding
Incoming Graduate Students
At the end of Spring 2010, the English MA program totaled forty-six students: forty-one regular admission students, one conditional student, and four probationary students. In May 2010, three students graduated; pending completion of degree requirements, eight more are scheduled to graduate in August. The program will have lost an estimated eleven of forty-six students by August.
Eleven students qualify by GRE scores and undergraduate GPAs. They have already been accepted officially for regular admission in the fall of 2010 to replace the students who will have graduated; of these, eight have already been awarded graduate assistantships.
Applications for at least five other prospective students (and as many as ten) are working their way through the application process and will be completed by July. If all of these students qualify, the English MA Program will enjoy a net gain of between five and ten new students for Fall 2010.
Having satisfied the requirements for full admission to the program, three of four students admitted in probationary status were "translated" into regular status at the end of the Spring 2010 term. This leaves a single student in probationary status and a single student in conditional status; pending completion of requirements, their status will be changed to regular admission by Fall 2010.
Action
Increased Visibility Of The Graduate Program
To recruit more qualified English MA students, the English Department will undertake the following actions:
(1) The MA Program will establish a more visible web presence. Among other initiatives, the Department has already posted on line a list of recent graduate success stories. It has also begun to record a series of video interviews with graduate faculty and students, which will be posted on the graduate web site.
(2) Graduate faculty will contact undergraduate English majors with high GPAs, and the Director of Graduate Studies will conduct an information session for them and their families.
(3) The Director of Graduate Studies will continue to visit 300- and 400-level classes to give information about the English MA Program.
(4) The Department Chair and the Director of Graduate Studies will work closely with the newly hired Graduate Recruiter to increase the numbers of quality applicants.