Program: Religion (BA)
Degree: Bachelor's
Date: Mon Nov 26, 2012 - 12:09:36 pm
1) Below are your program's student learning outcomes (SLOs). Please update as needed.
1. Students acquire basic knowledge and understanding of the history, scriptures, doctrines, rituals and other practices of the major world religious traditions.
2. Students become acquainted with major themes in the study of religion.
3. Students read and analyze primary source material, including scriptures, faith statements, etc.
4. Students read and analyze scholarly articles and monographs in the field.
5. Students begin the process of learning to write scholarly materials in genres appropriate to the field of Religion, including research papers, exegetical essays, etc.
2) Your program's SLOs are published as follows. Please update as needed.
Department Website URL: www.hawaii.edu/religion/major-minor.html
Student Handbook. URL, if available online: Information Sheet, Flyer, or Brochure URL, if available online: UHM Catalog. Page Number: Course Syllabi. URL, if available online: Other: Other: 3) Select one option:
- File (03/16/2020)
4) For your program, the percentage of courses that have course SLOs explicitly stated on the syllabus, a website, or other publicly available document is as follows. Please update as needed.
0% 1-50% 51-80%
81-99% 100%5) Did your program engage in any program assessment activities between June 1, 2011 and September 30, 2012? (e.g., establishing/revising outcomes, aligning the curriculum to outcomes, collecting evidence, interpreting evidence, using results, revising the assessment plan, creating surveys or tests, etc.)
Yes No (skip to question 14)6) For the period June 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012: State the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goals. Include the SLOs that were targeted, if applicable.
1) How do you define 'outreach' and what do you think it ideally consists of?
2) Have you carried out any such outreach during the last academic year, 2011/2012?
3) If the answer to 2) is yes, please give a few examples.
7) State the type(s) of evidence gathered to answer the assessment question and/or meet the assessment goals that were given in Question #6.
Responses from all faculty to the questionnaire about outreach
8) State how many persons submitted evidence that was evaluated. If applicable, please include the sampling technique used.
8
9) Who interpreted or analyzed the evidence that was collected? (Check all that apply.)
Course instructor(s) Faculty committee Ad hoc faculty group Department chairperson Persons or organization outside the university Faculty advisor Advisors (in student support services) Students (graduate or undergraduate) Dean/Director Other: Meeting of all faculty10) How did they evaluate, analyze, or interpret the evidence? (Check all that apply.)
Used a rubric or scoring guide Scored exams/tests/quizzes Used professional judgment (no rubric or scoring guide used) Compiled survey results Used qualitative methods on interview, focus group, open-ended response data External organization/person analyzed data (e.g., external organization administered and scored the nursing licensing exam) Other: 11) For the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goal(s) stated in Question #6:
Summarize the actual results.
Given the fact that outreach is a contractual obligation there was a consensus that this term ought to be more clearly defined, and that it was desirable to have broadly shared standards in this regard. There was general agreement that outreach by and large is solicited activity, and that traditional academic activity such as attending scholarly conferences and being invited to give talks at academic institutions falls aoutside the scope of outreach. The answers to the question, What is outreach? divided themselves into three groups:
1. Outreach is service to the local community, which is based on our expertise as scholars of religion, and which is not academic in the narrow sense. Examples were assistance to the judicial system, including prisons, assistance to the elderly, temple tours for groups of students from the mainland, various endeavors to reach and draw in non-traditional students such as seniors, and responses to requests for interviews at local TV stations, and articles in local newspapers.
2. Outreach is essentially the same kind of activity as mentioned in 1), but conceived as more global in nature. It would include also invited talks, for instance, at temples in Asia, or responses to questions within our expertise, received from the general public via e-mail.
3. Outreach is any kind of professional activity, including traditional academic activity, conducted outside the department. Examples might include seminars given at other departments.
The discussion among the faculty led to the conclusion that we probably would exclude the last mentioned type of activity from the category of outreach, but that both 1) and 2) should be considered forms of outreach. The discussion demonstrated that an extremely large amount of outreach activities are being conducted by the faculty at our department.
12) State how the program used the results or plans to use the results. Please be specific.
No action recommended
13) Beyond the results, were there additional conclusions or discoveries?
This can include insights about assessment procedures, teaching and learning, program aspects and so on.
The meeting was preceded by a visit of Ms. Lei Wakayama from the UH Outreach College, who was asked to explain aspects of the workings of online courses. It became clear from the subsequent discussion that there was a large interest among our faculty in offering such courses as a form of outreach.