Departmental Assessment Update - Languages, Linguistics and Literature Report

Department: Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas
Program: BA, Certificates
Level: Undergraduate

1. List in detail your undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for each degree/certificate offered.

Assessment and evaluation activities have been an integral part of the Department of Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas (LLEA, formerly called the Department of European Languages and Literature, ELL). LLEA offers the B.A. degree for each of its five language divisions: Classics, French, German, Russian, and Spanish, as well as Certificates for Classics, French, German, Russian, Russian Area Studies, Spanish, and Latin American and Iberian Studies. Our graduating majors should understand the fundamental concepts of linguistic analysis, syntax, and phonology. They should also have acquired a broad knowledge of the literature, history, and culture of the language (classical or modern) in which they have concentrated. They should understand as well how LLEA courses relate to a the larger educational and sociopolitical context in order that they have a global understanding of the world around them.

2. Where are these SLOs published (e.g., department web page)?

The LLEA Department has not yet published its Student Learning Outcomes. The Department Chair recently formed a Department Assessment Committee, which, as part of its agenda for the 2006–2007 academic year, will discuss and refine its Student Learning Outcomes and arrange to publish them on the department web page and possibly in other venues.

3. Explain how your SLOs map onto your curriculum, i.e., how does your curriculum produce the specific SLOs in your students?

In order to achieve the Student Learning Outcomes of our undergraduate majors, LLEA’s five language divisions have developed a carefully planned curriculum that builds, expands, and refines the skills acquired by the students from the lower-division to the upper-division levels. At the lower-division level for the modern languages, the students learn to understand the concepts of linguistic analysis, syntax, and phonology through implementation of the four skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening). At the lower-division level for the classical languages, the students achieve an understanding of the same learning outcomes by having as their central goal to read and understand classical literary texts in the original languages. At the upper-division level for all five language divisions, the students sharpen, develop, and strengthen the analytical and interpretive skills acquired at the lower-division level by studying standard literary texts in a critical manner, by studying the literature, history, and culture of the language, and (for the modern languages) by studying the target language in the country in which the language is spoken.    

4. What specific methodologies were used to collect data? In developing your response, consider the following questions:

The Department Chair and the Department Assessment Committee are carefully considering how best to assess all undergraduate programs in the department in a variety of ways—in relation to the General Education Core, the undergraduate majors and certificates, and the strategic plan in general—in order to develop collaborative behaviors and strategies that will benefit students’ learning. Because we understand that assessment is an ongoing challenge and that our language programs have different goals and objectives, the LLEA Department will be developing multiple assessment approaches and instruments. These will include student surveys, faculty questionnaires, intern surveys in large lecture courses, assessment questions embedded in individual courses, and the articulation of learning goals in syllabi and program descriptions. In this regard the LLEA Department has long conducted student evaluations of teachers and courses, and has long followed the practice of having faculty evaluate the teaching of other faculty through scheduled visits to their classes. Just this year the Department Assessment Committee developed two questionnaires—one, an exit survey for candidates for B.A. degrees and Certificates, the other, a survey directed to alumni to determine the effectiveness of our programs. Nevertheless, at this point the greatest challenge that the LLEA Department has identified in developing the above assessment mechanisms is finding a way to conduct meaningful assessment without disproportionately affecting faculty workload.

5. How were the assessment data/results used to inform decisions concerning the curriculum and administration of the program?

The Department Assessment Committee is (as stated above) in the process of developing and evaluating appropriate assessment materials.