a. Program Name - English Major
b. Report prepared by – Rebecca Brittenham Interim Associate Chair English Department
c. Who is the current assessment contact for your program? Rebecca Brittenham
d. Should assessment information be sent to anyone else in your department? Margaret Scanlan, upcoming Associate Chair Elaine Roth, Chair

1. What are the program’s educational goals? (Please take goals directly from your program’s assessment plan, and highlight any changes made this year.)

Educational Goals for Majors

Students completing the English major must demonstrate in reading:
1.                  The ability to analyze and interpret literary text
2.                  The ability to apply literary and rhetorical theories to reading and writing
3.                  A sense of social and literary history as context
4.                  A knowledge of the concept of genre

Students completing the English major in literature must demonstrate in writing:
1.                  The general skills of college-level exposition
2.                  Skills associated specifically with analysis and interpretation of literary texts
3.                  Research and documentation skills
4.                  The ability to marshal an argument
Students completing the English major in creative writing must demonstrate in writing:

1.                  Facility with language
2.                  Style and voice
3.                  A sense of genre and tradition
4.                  Creativity/imagination

Additional Program Goals: 1) to develop curriculum aimed more directly at preparing students for writing in the workplace and in the computer age; 2) to develop the Creative Writing component of our curriculum; and 3) to build a stronger student community of English Majors.

2. What assessment techniques did the program use? (Please take assessment techniques directly from your program’s assessment plan and highlight any changes made this year.)

•                     Portfolio review
The portfolio consists of ten analytical and creative papers, the final one to be a reflective essay on the portfolio itself,  that the student has written for each course in the major from the sophomore to senior years. Each advisor evaluates papers for their success in meeting the seven reading and writing goals or the four creative writing goals according to the three-point scale of strong, competent, or weak. This year we have updated the rubric used to score student portfolios in order to reflect the greater number and sophistication of professional and creative writing papers being generated by students. These changes reflect positive growth in both aspects of the curriculum.

•                     Assessment of faculty assignments
Beginning this year, faculty assignments are assessed according to the same rubric used to assess student portfolios in order to evaluate the extent to which faculty are incorporating program objectives into their course objectives within the major. Faculty assignments will be read and scored by the Associate Chair or in the general assessment meeting attended by all faculty teaching courses in the major.
•                     Student survey completed annually

•                     Alumni survey completed every 5 years. We have added an Alumni Survey to supplement the English Major Survey in order to keep better track of our graduates’ chosen professions and the role the English major has played within and beyond those professions. We feel this will be useful not only in assessing program outcomes and developing curriculum that addresses students’ career objectives but also in improving our recruitment and advising of majors. Along with the Alumni Survey, we sent out a departmental newsletter to keep alumni informed about changes in faculty, career trajectories of graduates we’ve heard from, and recent and upcoming departmental events.

•                     External review every five years

3. What has your program done with assessment information this year? (i.e. communicated results to faculty, staff, alumni and students, made changes in the curriculum, made changes in the budget, added new courses. . .)

We have improved faculty education by devoting departmental meeting time and follow-up e-mail exchanges to a continuing discussion of our assessment data, by focusing their attention on the correlation between their assignment objectives and the objectives used to evaluate student portfolios, and by making the results of our surveys and our assessment reports available to faculty on a shared “h” drive. Many of these objectives and assessment tools were also shared with the administrative committee preparing our campus for Higher Learning Commission re-accreditation.
We have created a new range of W231, W232, and W234 professional and business writing courses which allow student within and beyond the major to prepare themselves for the workplace, to practice the kinds of writing that will strengthen their employment opportunities and will improve their success in workplace writing. We have also reinvigorated W315, Writing for the Web, again to give our majors a greater variety of writing-based options, but also to better prepare them for writing in the computer age. We are currently searching for a full-time lectureship position with expertise in web-based and technical writing.

The Creative Writing Program has improved the curriculum being taught in creative writing classes by developing a set of shared goals for the introductory-level courses. The Program committee has also offered numerous creative writing events–visiting poets and writers giving readings and offering student workshops, performances showcasing our own creative writing faculty’s recent work, “Open Mic” nights where students have the opportunity to perform their work, and a public gallery presentation of student projects. In addition to the inclusion of past and upcoming events on the English Department Website, the Creative Writing Committee Chair has also created a Blog that incorporates student photos, quotations, and comments while keeping them informed about conference, workshop, contest, and publication opportunities, upcoming readings and performances, and links to related Websites: http://iusbcreativewriting.wordpress.com/. Student responses to this influx of talent and energy have been very positive in terms of increasing enrollments in creative writing courses and in demands for new courses. This is an area of growth that students requested in response to previous and current English Major Surveys, so we are particularly delighted to see this development.

Also in response to previous year’s student surveys, we have worked on building a stronger student community of English Majors through the English Major Club, through the Creative Writing Events detailed above, and through a number of Film Series jointly organized by the Film Studies Program.

4. After reflecting on assessment activities in your unit, as a result of assessment what are two issues you would like to address?

1. Continue to improve faculty involvement: We plan to use more of our assessment meeting to analyze faculty assignments in relation to the core objectives demonstrated in student portfolios. We also plan to use more of the follow-up meetings to analyze student and alumni surveys as an entire faculty. This will improve faculty education and advising regarding the implementation of our core goals and the ramifications of those goals for students’ experience entering and succeeding in the workplace.
2. Broaden our communication of assessment results: We plan to circulate copies of our assessment tools, the resulting data collected, and our conclusions about the data on the departmental Website to better inform current and prospective students and staff about the program.