Political Science Department Chair

Program Assessment

Our last report on matters concerning accreditation and assessment was a revision to the accreditation self-study report, filed on February 14, 2001. Since that time, we have made the following changes:

• Short-term goal #1. Faculty have decided to develop a concentration of courses in the M.A. degree program in Northern Studies, focusing on “The North and Global Environmental Policy.” This proposal is now being drafted to meet the early October curricular council deadline, and will consist of four new courses, one revised course, and two existing courses. This curricular change is supported by:
1. Work with consultant Dr. Oran Young, a globally recognized expert on the North and global environmental policy, in late April, early May 2001, supported by the President’s Special Project Fund;
2. Assessment of needs for graduate education in environmental policy, including an e-mail survey of resource managers in four state government agencies (ADFG, DEC, DNR, DOTPF); phone surveys and data analyses of federal government resource agencies; phone surveys and interviews with environmental non-governmental organizations; and investigation of internship opportunities with U.S. national and global environmental and financial organizations in New York and Washington, D.C. This work occurred over the summer and was supported by a grant from the Natural Resources Fund.
3. Evaluation of needs assessment and development of program ideas, for both M.A. and interdisciplinary doctoral work.
• Short-term goal #2. Faculty have decided to postpone changes to the political science major until the spring 2002 and early fall 2002 semesters. Our work to date indicates no need to make substantial revisions to the major. Moreover, we have one new faculty member in the 2001-02 academic year and a tenured faculty member is on sabbatical.
• Long-term goal #1. The BAS program, mentioned in the original report, has not been implemented, making unnecessary our proposal to support it by increasing distance education offerings. However, our needs assessment indicated that the concentration of graduate courses would be most attractive if available online. Thus, during summer 2001, McBeath and Rosenberg, supported by Graduate School funds, developed a new online course, Comparative Environmental Politics, available now for delivery online as well as face-to-face. Contingent on Graduate School or other support for course development, we intend to develop online versions of remaining graduate courses in the Global Environmental Policy concentration over the next three years.
• Communications. We made reference to communication of expected learning outcomes in previous reports. Our new faculty colleague, Prof. Lovecraft, who has expertise in web design, will be revising the department’s web page in spring, 2002. We also are communicating expectations as well as information on departmental programs to majors and students in political science courses through a gathering sponsored by Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honor society, on September 20^th.

We have no other changes in curriculum or assessment timelines to report.