Economics Third Year Review Written Report

Evaluation Rubric

A. Assessment Contact Person:

Fred Herschede, Chair and Professor of Economics, 202B
Administration Building, 520-4303, fhersche@IU South Bend.edu

B. Changes in Educational Goals since the 2003 Assessment Report:

Over the past several years the economics program has undergone a significant change of personnel. One economist retired in 2004 and this person's line was reassigned to the finance area in the School of Business and Economics (SBE). Another faculty member resigned in 2004 to take a position in England, and was replaced by a fairly new PhD, who began in August, 2004. Another economist retired in 2005, and was replaced by a new PhD, who began in August, 2005. Finally, another economist will retire in May, 2008. The remaining faculty members include the two recent hires just mentioned as well as one senior economist.

Besides the sizeable change in the number of economics faculty members the program has also experienced major changes in its administrative structure. For many years curricular, administrative, and assessment activities of the economics program were carried out by an area coordinator. Beginning in the early 2000s under the previous former Dean, however, economics was administered by an Assistant Dean who was not an economist. This person prepared the 2003 Assessment Report. With the appointment of another new Dean, who began his duties during the summer, 2005, there was another reorganization of the administrative structure of the SBE. Beginning in August, 2005 the Dean appointed a chair of economics program and this person is responsible for the administrative affairs of the economics program. The chair reports to the Dean and sits on the SBE's Executive Committee.

There have been two significant ramifications of these personnel and administrative changes upon the area's educational goals and assessment activities. The first major ramification is that there have been no significant changes in educational goals since the last assessment report. Going forward this will change. Recently the Dean of the SBE has requested that the economists develop a growth strategy for the economics program in light of the fact that the program will be hiring possibly two persons over the next few years. The economists have begun this process and have a draft outline of such a strategy. This strategy addresses the three missions of the program:

1. Offering a quality program to students with a major or minor in economics, as well as providing introductory economics courses to the university community
2. Providing advances in economic understanding through scholarship
3. Serving as a source of economic expertise and leadership in the communities that IU South Bend serves

C. Assessment Techniques used for measuring goals added or discontinued since the 2003 review:

The economics faculty during the mid 1990s set out nine activities to assess economic education: survey business faculty, administer the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE), assess oral and written communication skills, carry out exit interviews of economics majors, review the results of the economic questions on the Educational Testing Service (ETS) exam of graduating business students, survey alumni, monitor success rates of economics graduates who go on to graduate school, give ETS and IU South Bend designed exams to all graduating seniors in economics, and solicit outside peer reviews of the economics program. Some of these activities are to be conducted on an annual basis, whereas others are to be carried out once every five years.

The second ramification of the administrative and personnel challenges faced by the economics program is that the some of the program's assessment instruments have not been utilized as scheduled over the past three years, although some have been. The following table indicates which instruments were planned for the 2004-2006 period as laid out in the 2003 Assessment Plan and the status of each one.

Economics Assessment Schedule (as Reported in the 2003 Assessment Report)

D. New Data: what was done with it, what conclusions were drawn, what changes have been made to the program as a result; how did assessment data support these changes:

The data collected as indicated in the above table are circulated among the faculty and discussed at the meetings of the economics faculty.

E. What changes does the department plan on in coming years to program and assessment
techniques:

After the economists complete a growth strategy for the program, the next major task will be to revisit the economics assessment plan and schedule to ascertain which activities need to be retained, amended, or which alternative instruments could be utilized.

F. How faculty, students, administrators, alumni and others involved were: see Section D.

G. How were assessment data and results shared with faculty, students, administrators, and alumni: see Section D.

H. One paragraph-summarize the most important impacts of the assessment of student learning.

One of the most important impacts of the assessment process is that students and faculty know that each will be held responsible for learning and teaching, respectively, the subject matter. Another important aspect is that we use external performance standards, especially the ETS test results, to judge the success of the economics program.

Attachments:
ETS Results for Business Students (Spring, 2004 - Fall, 2005)

Economics Exit Exam Results for Economics Majors
(Results reported here come from exams given only to economics majors.)

Faculty Evaluation of the Oral and Written Communication Skills of Economics Majors

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