PART B: Planning for Assessment in 2011-2012 Required by October 10, 2011

1) Describe the proposed PSLO activities for AY 2011-12. (Note that assessing PSLOs can take many forms. Programs may find the attached list of sample assessment activities helpful. Please check the Assessment website for additional resources at www.csusm.edu/assessment/resources/).
Development (or review and refinement) of measurable program student learning outcomes.
The information provided by our AY 10-11 assessment is proving invaluable in helping us to refine the current SLOs to make them more measureable, but also providing the GBST Steering Committee members with food for thought about what it means to meet the SLOs. In our initial review of the SLOs, the assessment team was persuaded that more than one of the outcomes would benefit from revision and/or integration with another. Thus one of our assessment priorities in the AY 11-12 to work closely with the Steering Committee to revisit current SLOs.
Given that in our assessment for AY 10-11, we found greater participation by Political Science, History, and Modern Language Studies than other disciplines, we intend to discover why. We will begin by exploring whether there are fewer eligible courses in less represented disciplines (such as Economics or Visual and Performing Arts). If we find that, in fact, those areas are represented equally well in the schedule, we will explore other explanations for the “lop-sided” feedback regarding Student Learning Outcomes.
One possible explanation that we raised in our AY 10-11 assessment is that perhaps faculty merely failed to fill out the survey (for whatever reasons). This year, the Global Studies Assessment team will thus make a concerted effort to strategize about other ways to get assessment information.
After having met with the Global Studies Steering Committee (which, by the way, included representatives around the table from nine different disciplines) it was unanimously agreed that the assessment plan for AY 11-12 would focus on three objectives, in particular:
1) Strategize about new ways to get assessment information
2) Grapple with the SLO regarding research methods
3) Explore standardizing assessment tools (assignments and corresponding rubrics) for Global Studies 100 and 300.
2) What specific assessment activities will you conduct this year in order to measure student achievement of these outcomes?
NEW WAYS TO GET ASSESSEMENT INFORMATION
In addition to continuing conversation with Global Studies faculty with respect to meeting Global Studies SLOs in their respective courses, in AY 11-12 the assessment team will rely upon student evaluations in Global Studies 100 and 300 as another tool to assess a specified selection of Global Studies SLOs. Thus, we will add specific questions to the evaluations in these courses that get to the heart of the purpose of the SLOs.
RESEARCH METHODS FOR GLOBAL STUDIES
In our AY 10-11 report, the Assessment Team recognized that an important GBST SLO—“Students will use social scientific techniques to conduct research”—was not being met to the extent that the committee would wish.
We will work to consult with Global Studies affiliated faculty (please find attached the most up-to-date list) who teach courses that do—or do not—meet this SLO to brainstorm about ways to fulfill this objective in a wider range of Global Studies courses.
We will also continue to address this issue with the Global Studies Steering committee, facilitating a “philosophical” discussion about the research methods that are deemed to be “appropriate” for a Global Studies program. Since not all classes offered in Global Studies are from the Social Sciences, why are these methods highlighted in the SLOs? Further, the Steering Committee has already begun a discussion about the creation of a GBST methods course (right now, the methods component is filled by courses in History, Political Science and Women’s Studies). We anticipate this discussion and the eventual creation of the course to take some significant time.
Developing Standard Student Learning Outcomes
In AY 11-12, we will aim to identify commonly agreed upon “signature assignments” (ideally, for both GBST 100 and 300) that are designed to assess mastery of SLOs. We will, of course, work closely with the Global Studies faculty (especially with faculty who teach those courses) to develop signature assignments as well as model rubrics for assessing them.
3) Please describe how the assessment support of $750 will be used.
The assessment team will write a set of questions to be implemented on student evaluation forms in the Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 semesters.
Regarding Global Studies research methods and development of a methods course, the Global Studies assessment team will develop and administer a written survey to gather data regarding the challenges and potential solutions to this inherently “interdisciplinary dilemma” in the program. We will also conduct pointed conversations with both the Global Studies Steering Committee and with affiliated faculty on this matter.
The team will also work to explore potential signature assignments and corresponding rubrics for GBST 100 and 300. We believe that the faculty who undertake these tasks should be compensated and that the GBST program budget should not bear the costs of reproducing the assessment instruments and documentation. Towards that end, we would request the full $750 available to support these efforts.

Affiliated Faculty in the Global Studies Program

Anthropology

Bonnie Bade, Ph.D.

Konane Martinez, Ph.D.

Laurette McGuire, Ph.D.

Aníbal Yañez-Chávez, Ph.D

Communication

Joonseong Lee, Ph.D.

Economics

Ranjeeta Basu, Ph.D.

History

Ibrahim Al-Marashi, Ph.D.

Reuben Mekenye, Ph.D.

Carmen Nava, Ph.D.

Kimber Quinney, Ph.D.

Patty Seleski, Ph.D.

Alyssa Sepinwall, Ph.D.

Zhiwei Xiao, Ph.D.

Liberal Studies

Vivienne Bennett, Ph.D.

Greig Guthey, Ph.D.

Kimberley Knowles-Yanez, Ph.D

Literature and Writing Studies

Salah Moukhlis, Ph.D.

Modern Language Studies

Veronica Anover, Ph.D.

Marion Geiger, Ph.D.

Michael Hughes, Ph.D.

Alberto Ribas-Casasayas, Ph.D.

Darci Strother, Ph.D.

Philosophy

Manuel Arriaga, Ph.D.

Political Science

M. Kent Bolton, Ph.D

Scott Greenwood, Ph.D.

Cyrus Masroori, Ph.D.

Elizabeth Matthews, Ph.D

Cynthia Chavez Metoyer, Ph.D.

Pamela Stricker, Ph.D.

Sociology

Marisol Clark-Ibáñez, Ph.D.

Richelle Swan, Ph.D.

Visual and Performing Arts

Kristine Diekman, M.F.A.

Mtafiti Imara, Ph.D

Andrea Liss, Ph.D.

Deborah Small, M.F.A.

Women’s Studies

Sheryl Lutjens, Ph.D.

Linda Pershing, Ph.D.