Saint Vincent College History Department Goals and Assessment

This resource was developed as part of the AHA’s Tuning project.

Institution: Saint Vincent College
Location: Latrobe, PA
Year: 2014

In order to better share what the Saint Vincent College History Department has accomplished relative to the Tuning project goals, this report conveys important information, documents, and data. The History faculty have moved cooperatively, though often with grumbling and consternation, through this long-term project of making sense of what we do and studying it in a formal way so that we can improve our efforts. The AHA Tuning project came along at just the right time to inform and affirm our efforts.

This document contains the following:

 

Table 1

This table contains two columns. The first column lists the goals for our majors that have existed for many years. We revisited them in light of the goals that the Tuning Project developed and found them to be consistent with that set. Rather than switch wording to match up exactly with specific Tuning goals, we determined to keep the uniquely Saint Vincent language. (This also provided the benefit of maintaining a consistent assessment mechanism.) The second column identifies the ways that the department assesses the goals. (I have included additional material on the assessment later in this document.)

 

History Department Goals and Assessments Measures

Goal	Assessment mechanism for majors
Awareness of forces that shape societies and institutions in order to better understand a particular institution's or idea's rise or fall.1
a. "Identify the particular forces most relevant to the development of an idea or institution, and trace the interactions of those forces through inception, development, transformation and decline"	Senior Thesis (The thesis argument and structure)
b. "relate historical forces to one's own growth and"	Portfolio Reflection
c. "understand a work of literature in relation to literary and cultural history."	Historiographical essay in each of the three seminars
Develop students' "intellectual understanding of both the facts of historical events and their broader significance;"	Senior thesis (The thesis argument and structure)
nurturing [students'] skills in critical thinking and..."	Article review thesis Book review thesis Historiographical essay argument and structure
effective oral communication" and...	Presentations of work in HI 300, HI 301, and conferences
effective written communication"2	Article review Book review Historiographical essay Prospectus Senior Thesis
Students can more fully appreciate the complexity of human experience."3	Transcript evaluation: have students taken three pairs of introductory sequences?
Develop the "ability to weigh evidence and arguments that are essential for those who live in a rapidly changing world."	Historiographicial essay; thesis argument; thesis evidence/sources
By the time of graduation a history major will be prepared to enter a graduate or professional program, or pursue a career broadly construed as being related to history.	Survey of graduating history majors' plans for after graduation. Survey of alumni five years out (not yet developed.)

1. These forces include, "but are not limited to, political, economic, scientific, philosophic, military, religious, and cultural" phenomena.

2. "Effective" in this case is defined as meeting the criteria that we set out for each of the separate assignments listed: book review, article review, historiographical essay, prospectus, and thesis.

3. "Complexity" here is defined as "variety" of human experiences, so that students who take three sets of 100 level sequences and one non-Western course will satisfy this goal.

Table 2

Senior Thesis Rubric (PDF)

Table 3

Thesis Rubric aligned with Department Goals (PDF)

Table 4

History Major Portfolio Description

Portfolio Component	Course	Year First Submitted	Description/Notes
Cover Letter	HI 300 Historian's Profession	Sophomore or Junior	Students write a cover letter that would accompany their application for a job. (Updated in the Junior Seminar)
Cover Letter	HI 300 Historian's Profession	Sophomore or Junior	Students write a cover letter that would accompany their application for a job. (Updated in the Junior Seminar)
Resume/ CV	HI 300 Historian's Profession	Sophomore or Junior	Students draft their resume to accompany their letter of application. Faculty give feedback on multiple drafts. (Updated formally in the Junior Seminar, and faculty urge students to update it further in the senior year.)
Article Review	HI 300 Historian's Profession HI 301 Junior Seminar	Sophomore Year Junior Year	Students write a review of an article in a professional historical journal, with an aim toward identifying and critiquing the central argument and sources.
Book Review	HI 300 Historian's Profession HI 301 Junior Seminar	Sophomore Year Junior Year (Spring)	Students write a review of a book written by a professional historian, with an aim toward identifying and critiquing the central argument and sources.
Historiographical Essay	HI 300 Historian's Profession HI 301 Junior Seminar HI 302 Senior Seminar	Sophomore Year Junior Year (Spring) Senior Year	Students write an historiographical essay in the Historian's Profession (usually taken in the sophomore year) that addresses at least six secondary sources, then write one in the Junior Seminar that addresses ten sources. Students then revise and expand their historiographical essay from the sophomore year as part of their senior thesis.
Prospectus	HI 301 Junior Seminar	Junior Year (Spring)	Plan for the senior thesis that includes: 1) a general introduction to the topic, 2) historiographical essay on subject, 3) Student's anticipated argument and plan of study
Senior Thesis	HI 302	Senior Year (Fall)	Students write a thesis on a subject of their choosing (25 page minimum) as the central component of their Senior Seminar.
Reflection Essay	HI 302	Senior Year (Fall)	Students reflect on their experience in the major, highlighting what they found most and least useful to them (at this point).

Table 5

This table tracks the department’s success for each of the goals over the four most recent years for which we have data. (We are still processing the data for the most recent academic year.) The scores suggest that we have been relatively successful across time, with a slight improvement over the four years. This improvement likely results from our greater attention to the goals and our determination to focus on them in our teaching and in the ways that we structure the courses. We made a deliberate effort to convert our scores into common academic conventions, so that we can determine readily how we are doing. Every department member is comfortable with the numeric score and the way that this score transfers into a “letter grade” for the year. Even the least quantitatively inclined among us can read and understand the score’s meaning for each goal in any individual year, and the overall scores for the year.

The faculty have been mostly compliant in using the rubrics and reporting data from them. A few faculty have neglected to retain records in any given year, but we are confident that the data trends are reliable and accurate.

History Program Assessment of Program Success

Saint Vincent College Major Competencies	2009-10	2010-11	2011-2012	2012-13
1. Awareness of forces that shape societies and institutions in order to better understand a particular institution's or idea's rise or fall	88	93	97	86
2. Identify the particular forces most relevant to the development of an idea or institution, and trace the interaction of those forces through inception, development, transformation and decline	89	95	84	92
3. Relate historical forces to one's own growth
4. Understand a work of literature in relation to literary and cultural history.	78	86	86	92
5. Develop students' intellectual understanding of both the facts of historical events and their broader significance	82	93	90	93
6.Nurtuing students' skill in critical thinking.	85	86	93	86
7. Effective oral communication		90	89	90
8. Effective written communication	87	87	81	88
9. Students can more fully appreciate the complexity of human experience.	86	92	92	92
10. Develop the ability to weigh evidence and arguments that are essential for those who live in a rapidly changing world.	81	85	88	89
Overall Average	84.5	89.6	88.8	89.9
Letter Grade	B	B+	B+	A-