Departmental Assessment Update - Languages, Linguistics and Literature Report
Department: English
Program: MA/PhD
Level: Graduate
1. List in detail your graduate Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for each degree/certificate offered.
The English Department offers both the M.A. and the Ph.D. degrees. We currently have about 120 graduate students, about 75 in the Master's program and 45 in the Ph.D. program. While students in these two programs take many of their classes together, the two programs have very different purposes.
The M.A. program is designed to give students a broad overview of the changing field of contemporary English Studies while also allowing them to work within an area of concentration of their own choice: Literary Studies in English, Composition and Rhetoric, Cultural Studies in Asia/Pacific, Creative Writing. Students take courses both within and outside their concentration.
The Ph.D. program is intended for highly motivated students who have a clear sense of their own direction and who are likely to make a significant contribution to the field. Therefore, our admissions to the Ph.D. program each year are necessarily small and select. Ph.D. candidates are given a great deal of freedom to create an individualized program around their own interests and objectives. Students are required to take a small number of courses, both within the department and outside of it, but the focus of their study is determined by the students themselves in consultation with their advisors, and their preparation for their examinations takes place largely outside of class. The two principal formal requirements are the area exams and the dissertation.
2. Where are these SLOs published (e.g., departmental web page)?
An online version of the requirements and expectations for our M.A. and Ph.D. students is available on our department website: www.english.hawaii.edu
3. Explain how your SLOs map onto your curriculum, i.e., how does your program of graduate studies produce the specific SLOs in your students?
M.A. Students take courses both within and outside their concentration (Literary Studies in English, Composition and Rhetoric, Cultural Studies in Asia/Pacific, Creative Writing). They are encouraged to explore the ways in which methodologies and assumptions are evolving in their own area of interest and how each part of English Studies is being affected by developments taking place throughout the discipline. Students in Creative Writing complete their M.A. with a creative thesis, which they are then asked to place, in their oral thesis defense, within the context of other works in the same genre. For students who choose other concentrations, the culmination of their studies is provided by their Master's project, in which they are encouraged to apply the theoretical and methodological perspectives of more than a single course to the study of a particular group of texts, to other forms of cultural production, or to a particular theoretical problem.To prepare methodologically, all M.A. students take two required courses. English 620: The Profession of English introduces students to the methods and questions germane to postgraduate study and to the historical development and current issues in the field. Students must also take at least one of the 625 alpha courses, which give them an overview of the specific methods as well as the critical problems and vocabularies of a given concentration.
Ph.D. candidates must take the following to ensure that the SLOs are met: 1. At least seven graduate-level courses in the Department of English. At least two courses, normally at the 400-level or above, in a field outside of English but related to the student's research interests. Students who have completed a graduate degree or who have done extensive work in a field outside of English may be considered to have fulfilled this requirement. 2. One course with substantial content in Asia/Pacific, to be fulfilled at the 400-, 600-, or 700-level, in or out of the English Department, while in residence at UH Mânoa.3. At least two of these nine courses [seven in our program, two out] must relate to the intended, or likely subjects of the student’s dissertation. Also, at least two of these nine courses (not necessarily the same as those relating to the dissertation) should bear directly upon the choice of each area examination subject. One course can serve for more than one area exam. On the area exam proposal, students should list the two or more courses that bear directly upon each of their area exam topics.
4. What population(s) is covered by your assessment(s)?
All MA and PhD students.
5. Please list/describe all the assessment events and devices used to monitor graduate student progress through the program. Consider the following questions:
Graduate level courses are almost all seminar courses. Students are expected to participate actively in the class, to prepare oral presentations for class, and to write extended papers.
The MA culminates in the writing of a project or creative thesis, which is then defended orally.
PhD candidates are required to take (and pass) three area exams before moving on to their prospectus defense. These exams have a substantive written component, followed by an oral exam.
Each year the graduate program director reviews the progress of each student in the graduate program. The Associate Chair also monitors the students’ teaching if they are Graduate Assistants.
6. Please list/describe how your graduate students contribute to your discipline/academic area? Consider the following questions:
We encourage students to submit papers for professional national and international conferences and each year several are successful.
We also encourage them to submit essays to professional journals but this is an area that needs improvement. Creative writing students submit their work for publication in national and local magazines and participate in writing contests. A few of our graduate students are involved in editing journals or assisting with such editing.
Our graduate students have actively participated in our annual Festival of Writers and in our Colloquium & Reading Series. English Department students also participate in the annual LLL student conference.
7. What attempts are made to monitor student post-graduate professional activities?
Most of our students in the MA program are pursuing their degrees for one of two reasons. First, receiving an MA in English further credentializes those students who come to us already employed in secondary education, whether through the DOE or the many private schools throughout the State. Receiving an advanced degree allows secondary education teachers the chance to advance within their schools, and the studies that they undertake with us provide a grounding in the most recent theories and practices of the teaching of writing, and the examination of literature and other forms of cultural production, particularly as these relate to Hawai‘i and the Pacific. A number of our MA students also go on to teach with the UH system of Community Colleges after graduation. Some of our recent MA graduates are teaching at public universities in the continental USA (Portland State University) and here in Hawai‘i at UH-Hilo, Chaminade U, HPU, Windward and Kapi‘olani Community Colleges; others are teaching in public and private high schools here in Honolulu.
Another objective of many of our MA students is to gain admission to a PhD program elsewhere, and our MA program well prepares students for the rigors of graduate study in both our PhD program and other excellent programs. Recent MA graduates have gained admission to our PhD programs at, e.g., the University of Michigan, Purdue University, and Ohio State University. Many of our best MAs are staying in our program for the PhD. Some of our MA graduates who went on to get their doctorates are now tenure-line faculty at institutions such as Miami U (Oxford, Ohio), U of Michigan, and Utah State U.
Most of our PhD graduates are teaching in institutions of higher education in the USA(e.g., Indiana U, SUNY at Brockport, College of the Campus CA) and abroad (e.g., Okanagan University College, BC, Canada; National Central University, Taiwan; Kenyatta University, Kenya; University of Peeradeniya, Sri Lanka). Two are tenure-line faculty members at UHM and several others are at Hawaii Pacific University, where they chair the literature and writing departments, and several others have tenure-line positions in the UH community colleges.
Starting in 2006 we have made a more concerted effort to keep in touch with all of our graduates, but especially our MA and PhD alumni. We produce an electronic newsletter, TRADEWINDS, with faculty and alumni news and awards. We also involve successful graduates who reside in HI in our Career Day activities.Our creative writing alumni have been particularly successful in publishing and garnering awards.
8. How were the assessment data/results used to inform decisions concerning the curriculum and administration of the program?
A Graduate Program survey--devised and distributed by the Department's Assessment Committee in Spring 2004 to faculty, graduate students, and alumni (211 total)--consisted of 12 questions allowing for quantitative data analysis (1-5 scale) and for qualitative analysis based on written comments. The results measured students’, faculty’s and alumni’s perceptions of and experience with the Graduate Program in relation to its goals and means. We examined the 80 surveys that were filled out--a 37.91% response rate. The data showed 79-90% responses in the 5-3 scale (strongly agree-agree-neutral; majority of 5 and 4) indicating the strongly positive assessment of the ways in which the Ph.D. and M.A. programs in the English Department fulfill their stated goals.
Discussion of weaker areas (career placement, range of courses in relation to exam preparation) took place in 2004-2005 on the Department’s Assessment Committee (DAC) and was extended to include graduate faculty and graduate students at separated meetings. The DAC made recommendations to the Graduate Program committee in May 2005; the GPC had them on its agenda for Fall 2005; in November 2005, the Department voted to approve proposed changes concerning: the articulation of area exams with course work; articulation of common learning goals for courses introducing students to M.A. concentrations; possible plagiarism on area exams; career placement. We are implementing new workshops for preparing conference abstracts and academic job applications.
Following listening sessions with graduate students in our program who are concentrating on Creative Writing and expressed interest in building stronger foundations to their training, the Graduate Program Committee proposed the introduction of a new graduate-level introductory course, English 610, focused on the form and theory of creative writing. The course was approved by the Department at large and we are awaiting for university wide approval.
9. Has the program developed learning outcomes? Please indicate yes or no.
YES
10. Has the program published learning outcomes? Please indicate yes or no.
YES
11. If so, please indicate how the program has published learning outcomes.
General SLOs are published on the departmental website www.english.hawaii.edu
Specific SLOs are listed in syllabi every semester. Descriptions of all of our courses are published every semester to help students make informed choices during registration.
In the MA and PhD Program brochures, each program’s SLOs are also presented.
12. What evidence is used to determine achievement of student learning outcomes?
Course grades, progress in the program, and awards. Furthermore, for PhD students specifically, positive outcome of area exams, approval of dissertation prospectus, ability to teach courses in their areas of specialization, presentations of research at conferences, awards. For MA students, approval and development of a Master’s project from research conducted in at least two different courses in the program or approval and development of a creative writing thesis.
13. Who interprets the evidence?
Faculty members who are on the Graduate Program Committee as well as the Program Directors of reated programs (Composition and Creative Writing), the Chair and the Associate Chair of the Department.Individual faculty members are not involved in the assessment of their own courses and SLOs.
14. What is the process of interpreting the evidence?
It depends on the methodology for assessing specific parts of our program. See answer to question 4.
15. Indicate the date of last program review.
The English Department produced a Self-Study for the purposes of Program Review in 2005-2006; COPR conducted its review during 2006-2007; we are expecting a report and recommendations in Fall 2007.The PhD program alone was also evaluated in Spring 2006 for enrollments and graduation rates.