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The Departmental Self-Study Process, Part II
Michael J. Galgano, Editor This issue completes the discussion of the forthcoming OAH self-study guide for departments of history. It contains essays on Faculty by Professor George P. Antone, Chair of the Department of History at Appalachian State University, Computers by Professor Raymond M. Hyser, History De- partment Computer Coordinator at James Madison University, and Enrollment by the editor. As in the last issue, a draft copy of the specific section was sent to a reviewer who was asked to comment on its strengths and limitations. Drafts range from outlines to detailed accounts. Your comments are welcome as we seek to assist Bill Williams in preparing a common manual for departments everywhere. Please address them either to the OAH or to me for inclusion in a subsequent Newsletter. The October issue will inaugurate a series directed to faculty evaluation. Teaching, research, and service will be treated broadly as colleagues share the current practices of their institutions and offer insights for improvement. In December, attention will turn to the specific issue of teaching. What are current practices? Do departments simply measure teaching ef- fectiveness for purposes of promotion and annual raises? Do our evaluation procedures help faculty to improve? How might present practices be altered? If you would like to contribute to that discussion, please phone me (703) 568-6132 by October 1. All assignments have not been made. For February, the Newslet- ter will explore departmental fund raising. What are departments doing? How are efforts constrained by institutional policies and procedures? What works? What does not? Once again, if you wish to share your thoughts on this topic, phone or write to me by December 1. I look forward to your participation and ideas. Faculty George P. Antone When a department sets out on the wearisome road of self-examination, whether it be self-imposed or externally generated, it does so with a cartload of baggage. Unless the department is facing change mandated from above, perhaps the loss of a required general education course or faculty position, there is an inevitable commitment to the status quo and an inclination toward inertia that is based on the elemental conviction that ``what we have been doing is pretty good and does not need drastic change.'' Moreover, if the evaluation involves external reviewers, there is the lingering belief that visiting experts really do not understand ``our situation,'' and will probably misinterpret and misconstrue the strengths and weaknesses of the department. Having participated in an OAH/FIPSE Project evaluation I speak with the conviction of experience! The point of all this is to caution departments that are about to embark on this road that they should begin with prudence and care, having beforehand some sense of the problems they may encounter. Evaluation and review, as an engine for change, cannot be a sometime thing imposed upon the department by external agents. It must be on-going and internally generated, and must have the full support of the department. In evaluating a department's program, and for assessing its potential for the future, the faculty is where it begins and ends. A competent and engaged faculty, committed to well-defined and clearly stated institutional goals and objectives, can achieve a high level of productivity in all areas of professional activity. This is to emphasize that good faculty may find it possible to overcome many of the problems that emanate from outside sources. Knowing the strengths and limitations of the faculty, then, is the most critical component in evaluating the potential of the department for future development. The draft of the Faculty section of the OAH self-study guide for departments is divided into at least five, and perhaps as many as eight distinct sections with numerous subsections. At the outset it must be said that the draft is poorly organized and does not appear to follow any logical progression. Despite this, the individual sections are important and appropriate to the task. The draft makes a good start in the right direction with the collection of data relating to staffing. The department is asked to seek and collect information on institutional and departmental policies and practices that relate to employment, including ``hiring'' and salary. This is followed by an overview that encompasses a detailed staffing history. The guide also re- commends the creation of a standard format faculty profile. This is in addition to the usual collection of faculty resumes. The narrative portion of the evaluation begins in the sub section, entitled ``Hiring Procedures.'' A series of questions, presumably to be answered by a departmental committee, seeks details on institutional employment practices, including degree of planning by the department, faculty involvement, and level of financial support provided for the search process and for relocation expenses of new faculty. The next subsection is entitled ``Evaluation'' and is the longest single subsection. It consists of eighteen questions, some of which are really ``loaded.'' ``What is the rationale for current composition of faculty?'' ``Is there a formal or informal division between `teaching' faculty and `scholars'?'' ``Have standards for faculty changed over the past decade?'' The answers to the questions in this section are very important, but they are also likely to be quite subjective. To entitle this subsection ``Evaluation'' is misleading. It is really concerned with how faculty perceive themselves and their situation. The ``Professional Standing of the Faculty and its Record of Service'' is the subject of the next section, and it follows the pattern of the first, as does each succeeding section. The collection of data focuses heavily on the scholarly productivity of the faculty, seeking numbers on publications, papers, conferences, etc. There is just one question on teaching but four on service. The deficiency here is obvious, and typical of the entire draft. The third section deals with the ``Reward System.'' The data gathering is done with a series of questions on promotion, tenure, and merit salary increases. The draft asks ``are only refereed articles counted?'' but makes no assumptions about teaching by asking, ``if excellence in teaching is rewarded . . . ?'' Additional data is sought through the use of the question- naire to be completed by members of the department, the main thrust of which is to determine acceptability of the reward system to the faculty. ``Faculty Development'' is the subject of the fourth section. The background section seeks to determine the level of departmental and institutional support for professional activities of faculty, including teaching and scholarship. This section also calls for a questionnaire, but one that deals only with support for scholarship and attendance at professional meetings. Procedures governing the granting of sabbaticals is important to some faculty, but procedures governing the use of funds to develop new or revised courses is at least of equal importance, and probably to a far larger number of faculty. The draft guide does not sufficiently explore this essential area of faculty development. Additional sections of the draft deal with ``Salaries,'' ``Support of Faculty: Resources,'' ``Department Environment Facilities and Equipment,'' and ``Department Funding.'' These sections are relatively brief and appear to be afterthoughts. The only in question under the evaluation subsection of ``Department Funding'' asks, ``does the department have adequate funding to allow it to achieve its mission?'' The question is fundamental, but seems out of place as the last question in the faculty section of the guide. The faculty section of the OAH self-study guide can be very useful to all departments, but not in its present form. The format and organization of the draft can be greatly improved. Fewer sections and more fully developed questionnaires would help. Questions regarding the mission of the institution, and the role of the department within that institutional mission would be most appropriate. The substantive criticism concerns the relative paucity of questions and data gathering on the teaching function. Most faculty accept teaching as their primary mission, with research and publication as complementary. The importance of the teaching mission must be recognized in the construction and development of the self-study guide if it is to be useful to most departments. Computers Raymond M. Hyser Computers are no longer within the specific realm of political and social scientists, mathematicians, scientists and a few historians interested in quantitative history. The computer has become a useful, and increasingly indispensable, tool for most disciplines, and its usefulness is rapidly expanding. Computers can assist faculty and students in grasping abstract ideas, in editing written assignments to improve writing style, in researching both primary sources and secondary works, and in performing statistical analysis on large sets of data. Historians and history majors must have some computer literacy a working knowledge of the computer and its application to scholarly endeavors in order to perform the most simplistic research and writing functions in the coming years. For this reason alone, the inclusion of a section on computers in the OAH pamphlet is entirely appropriate. Institutions of higher learning and, more specifically, departments of history, should establish policies to provide computer services to both faculty and students. The policies should allow for considerable flexibility, as the services can take a variety of forms and can operate on different levels. The institution should be committed to providing access to mainframe computers and remote international research databases, purchasing personal computers and printers for the faculty, and creating student computing labs or clusters. In addition, there must be institutional support to repair and update hardware, purchase software appropriate for each discipline, and provide software support in the form of training and trouble-shooting. Departments can support the institution's policies by promoting faculty and student computer use and by helping determine the appropriate software and hardware. Such departmental involvement will help remove the stigma that historians are mired too deeply in the past to employ new technology. The task of history departments should be to commit its entire faculty and all majors to using computers. In the event that an institution does not have a computer policy or a program that does not benefit historians, the history department should actively work to establish such a university policy or alter the existing one. The lack of institutional commitment is not an excuse to ignore computer literacy; rather, it is an opportunity for the faculty to formulate policy. The department should draft a proposal that adequately details the cost, intended use, and benefits of computers in teaching and historical research, and present the proposal to the administration. If the department is committed to computer literacy and backs its proposal, an inadequate institutional computer policy should prove only a temporary deterrent. At James Madison University the process of computer usage began slowly on both departmental and university levels. We found that several department members had some computer proficiency, having purchased their own machines, or they acquired computer knowledge at another institution. This small base became the cornerstone of the department's computer operation. Realizing the merits of computer use, these department members drafted a proposal for the university to purchase machines for faculty offices and to create a student laboratory. At the same time the institution began a program to promote computer literacy among students and faculty, and this proposal was accepted. Personal computers were phased into faculty offices over a three-year period and a lab was established in the history department. Such a course of action committed the entire department to using the machines and promoted student use. Having achieved this success, new challenges and larger decisions loomed ahead. As a department begins to purchase computers, compatibility becomes important on several levels. First, the department must decide the long-term use(s) of the machines: Will it be word processing? Statistical analysis? Database creation and manipulation? Access to remote research databases, library card catalogs, or mainframes? Obviously, the department should purchase machines that best suit the determined needs and also plan for expansion, hardware enhancement, and the addition of sophisticated software packages. These computers should also be compatible within the department to better promote computer literacy among students and faculty. Second, the machines in faculty offices should be similar to those in the student lab. This will facilitate better instruction for students (and the faculty, for students can also help train faculty in new procedures) and it can facilitate exchanges or reviews of material submitted on diskette instead of paper. Third, the department machines should, whenever possible, be compatible with institutional support and with other computer labs on campus. Will the university provide repair and maintenance, assist in the purchase of software, or offer quantity discounts on hardware purchases? Probably more important than the hardware are the software purchases. The Department of History at James Madison University began with a modest goal of using the computer to prepare documents, hoping that the easy editing capabilities would result in better student papers, while also assisting faculty in their scholarly writing. We searched for a software that was powerful enough to suit the needs of scholarly work (footnoting at the bottom of the page was important), yet easily understood and learned (``user friendly''). We sampled several software packages and determined that WordPerfect 5.0 and Nota Bene were the best choices for historians, although Nota Bene is intended for scholars and might be too cumbersome for student use. Another consideration in software purchases is again, institutional support. Will the institution provide technical assistance when difficulties arise? Will it train faculty and students in using the software, or is that under the purview of the department? From this word processing foundation other components were added to expand computer literacy. Database (dBase III) and statistical analysis software (SPSSx, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) were purchased to enhance student and faculty research, while historical simulations were incorporated into classroom teaching as self-paced studies. Modems were installed in faculty computers to link with the mainframe computer and to provide access to the library card catalog. This link also enables faculty to use larger research databases such as the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research and to access library research networks like Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) and Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). These networks require a substantial user fee, so institutional support is imperative. The student lab will soon be equipped with modems and communications software to allow student access to these research tools. At present, only the general university labs provide these services. Some faculty members use the mainframe computer to make class assignments and resolve student problems. Another important area of computer use is training, and who should provide the instruction. Since software manuals are notoriously obtuse, personal training is vital. Initially, JMU history faculty taught our majors word processing in a series of workshops conducted in the late afternoon and evening. Some departments developed a required one credit hour course to teach simplistic computer applications to their majors, but these approaches can strain limited department manpower since faculty members taught the course or workshop. This faculty-based computer instruction was imperative because the university did not offer any training programs at that time. In recent years, the university has provided such workshops for all faculty and students, an absolute necessity for the more sophisticated packages, particularly those involving the mainframe computer. Such instructional workshops, taught by knowledgeable computer personnel, should be part of the institutional commitment to computer literacy. We have found, however, that computer instruction workshops are sometimes too generic and do not provide much specific information, particularly for history majors. Class enrollments are too large (virtually eliminating individual assistance) and the instruction is frequently inconsistent (students often teach the classes). To offset these training problems, the department developed elementary instruction sheets for some software and supplemented the university instruction with a one-hour workshop specifically designed for history majors. A word processing manual for thesis writers was also developed. The more computer proficient faculty members help resolve problems for colleagues and students, resulting in an ever-expanding knowledge base of computer literacy within the department. Even with excellent training, the best method of learning a new software or procedure is to do it yourself. The student lab should be an integral part of the computer literacy program, and should contain the appropriate software and modems necessary for students to work on assignments in history. Control of the lab, training, support, and availability to students are also important. Does the institution operate all student computer labs, or does the department share or have its own? Institutional labs are excellent, but they must cater to such a broad audience that often software for history majors is unavailable. These labs frequently have numerous machines and can serve as excellent training centers, or they can be reserved for specific classroom instruction. Department labs present different situations, since they are discipline specific. Often they are small (usually containing less than twenty machines), or have to be shared with another department, but are convenient for student use or for small group instruction. Since the department (or departments) support the lab, typically the small hardware and software budget precludes expansion or needed upgrades. Training and support is partially provided by the department, usually a faculty member, and access is typically limited to a specific major or majors. In short, while departmental labs can be initially practical, they should ultimately be absorbed into the campus-wide system, with complete institutional support, as long as the history faculty have some influence on new software purchases and uses for the machines. Maintenance of the student labs is critical. The labs must be open during hours when the students will use them, and they must contain sufficient numbers of machines, with an acceptable computer-to-printer ratio, as well as copies of the appropriate software for every machine in the lab. While each institution or department should establish the lab hours to maximize use, specific times for group instruction or class presentations should also be built into the schedule without disrupting student needs. Linking four computers to a single dot matrix printer is a manageable ratio for a computer lab. Supervision of the lab is imperative to prevent theft and destruction and to provide assistance. We have employed graduate students on modest stipends, although reliable student assistants could also be used to oversee the lab. These students receive training in the various software, with particular emphasis on problems that users typically encounter; they operate a check-in/check-out system and they provide individual instruction and trouble-shoot when necessary. Beyond the initial purchase of hardware and software for the lab and faculty, there are other budget factors. Funding for lab supervisors, supplies, new software or updates, maintenance contracts and the purchase of additional computers and printers must be considered. Graduate stipends or student assistant monies could be used to compensate lab supervisors. Supplies, such as diskettes, printer ribbons or toner cartridges and paper, should be institutionally provided, although the department might have to purchase them through its own budget. Some labs allow students to print on dot matrix printers without cost, but charge a per-page fee for letter-quality printers (usually laser printers). Some software companies will distribute updates for existing software to institutions and charge a small copying fee which significantly reduces update costs. New software, par- ticularly discipline specific, might have to be purchased through the departmental budget. Repair of computers and printers should fall under the institution's jurisdiction, but if not, then maintenance contracts must be funded through the department. Finally, the institution should be committed to purchasing additional computers for the faculty and the various student labs, although such acquisitions might come through departmental budgets. In summary, there are several areas in developing computer literacy in any department that need to be identified and considered:
The intent of this brief article was to make history faculty aware of some practical uses of the computer and how to promote computer literacy in the major. A commitment from the faculty and a sense of cooperation between the department and the institution are important to achieve these goals. Bill Williams' outline is a good beginning; however, departments must determine their own objectives within the constraints of institutional resources. Enrollment Michael J. Galgano Enrollment concerns among academic historians sometimes appear to focus more on what might be termed their ``flight pattern'' than the substantive issues raised by Bill Williams. Stated simply, in those few moments of curiosity, we ask whether a department's enrollments are rising or falling? If the former, we nod approvingly, our interest satisfied. If the latter, there may be a wringing of hands and perhaps some movement to define strategies that reverse the flight path. Few departments examine enrollment as reflectively or systematically as this section of the self-study guide proposes; yet, as Donna Spindel noted in the last issue, the compilation, maintenance, and review of such detailed records is well worth the effort. The proposed guide poses penetrating questions about enrollments to assist departments trying to map their futures and plan the best use of resources. Organized under three principal headings, it addresses enrollment patterns, student profile, and recruitment. The initial section is largely concerned with statistical information. Williams correctly recommends grouping courses according to categories that make most sense to the particular department. For instance, at the undergraduate level, they might best be divided into service and major courses, lower and upper division, or lecture and seminar. Once these divisions are made, data, including attrition rates, should be charted over a ten-year period to reveal trends more fully. Though I see the value of examining decennial developments, shorter periods (a five-year maximum) are equally enlightening. Curricula may change so sharply in the extended period that earlier information is no longer useful. To evaluate the data effectively, the packet stresses comparisons with overall institutional enrollments as well as those in other disciplines in the social sciences or humanities. The resulting patterns should assist the department in monitoring how effectively it is meeting its mission and goals, as well as illustrating how resources are allocated. The section further calls upon departments to consider comparative attrition rates. In my view, the questions relating to attrition require substantial modification and extension. For these figures to be meaningful and help departmental planning, they must be reviewed against a number of institutional variables. How long is the free course drop-and-add period? Is the course an externally mandated graduation requirement for all students and therefore taken under duress? May students repeat a class in which low grades are earned without penalty? Is a course offered in a format different from the institutional norm? For instance, do students avoid large lecture courses? Are some courses taken more often by freshman than others? By contrast, the student profile section is quite complete in its present form. It asks departments to once again divide their students into special groups core students fulfilling university-wide requirements, majors, evening students, students in special programs, and graduate students for the purpose of analysis. Another useful group might be transfer students. There may be others peculiar to individual colleges. These categories may then be used to develop a student ``profile,'' which includes data on numbers of students, as well as their grade point average, gender, ethnic and racial background, and age. The profile should also contain information about majors and minors, alumni, graduate specialties, and financial assistance. From this detailed database, which Williams again recommends col- lecting for a ten-year period, departments can gain a deeper knowledge of their own students and search for trends. Are minorities attracted to history? Does the department enroll more women than men? How many of the institution's best students become majors? These and other questions help a department to examine the degree to which it is meeting student needs and may suggest redirection of effort. To aid the department in ``fleshing out'' the profile, the packet recommends administering a rather sophisticated student opinion questionnaire at different times of the academic year. Why do students take history courses? What do they like and dislike about them? What factors attract or repel them from the major? What are students looking for in elective courses? Are there sufficient course offerings in the program? How do students perceive advising in the department? What are their career goals? Is the program assisting them in approaching their goals? At James Madison, variations of these questions have been asked during senior exit interviews for the past two years and have helped the department to refine curriculum and improve advising. During an OAH/FIPSE Project Team evaluation in 1986, we employed a series of questionnaires following the model suggested. While the information yielded was valuable, we learned an important lesson: opinion surveys cannot be given on a regular basis to the same pool of people. Departments should plan carefully and maintain precise records of the groups they have surveyed to avoid duplication. Recruiting students, the final element in the enrollment section, is also detailed and thorough. While some departments have active recruiting programs, others do not. According to Williams, both should study enrollment statistics and the student profile to determine either the effectiveness of the current effort or the feasibility of beginning one. Has the department prepared any relevant literature for recruiting purposes? For instance, are there brochures or letters to students? Is the department actively involved in National History Day? Are there formal policies, either departmental or institutional, which govern recruitment? Are individual faculty members inclined to assist in recruitment? Do they seek out promising students? Not all faculty are willing or skilled in recruitment. If the department selects particular faculty to become more active, care must be taken to involve only those interested department members. The crucial point raised in this section is that such matters must be discussed and considered at the departmental level. Present policies and practices should be scrutinized objectively. If the department has recruiting materials, do they communicate to the students or to itself? Does the material accurately represent the faculty and curriculum? Does it make the most of what the department has to offer? Throughout, Bill Williams directs attention to the need for departments to use all available resources to plan their future. Meticulous analysis of enrollments, the establishment of a complete student profile, and a well conceived recruitment program give the department vital information to understand its place in the university or college and to better present its case to administrative and governing bodies. Miscellany Renewal Campaign: An Update Our thanks to those subscribers who renewed after seeing the call for renewals in the April, 1989 issue! However, there are many who have still to renew. Please take a moment to look at the your mailing label. If the date listed on the label has passed, you are recieving this issue with our compliments. We don't want to lose you. Please renew today! Plan Now to Attend the 1990 OAH Annual Meeting Plans are well underway for the Organization of American Historians' eighty-third Annual Meeting that will be held March 22-25, 1990 at the Washington, D.C. Hilton and Towers. This year the OAH is meeting jointly with the Society for History in the Federal Government and has planned over 115 sessions and activities. The 1990 Program Committee, chaired by August Meier of Kent State University, has chosen two interrelated themes for the 1990 program: the experience of ethnic and racial minorities in the United States, treated as far as practicable in a comparative context; and the comparative study of freedom movements, that is, discussion of protest and reform in United States history among racial and ethnic minorities, women and the working class. For more information about the 1990 OAH Annual Meeting, please contact the OAH Convention Manager, 112 North Bryan Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47408-4199. OAH Lectureship Program It is not too late to arrange for an OAH Lecturer to visit your campus during the 1989-90 academic year or too early to be thinking about next year! The Lectureship Program was established by the OAH Executive Board in 1981. Approximately seventy present and past Executive Board members as well as Organization members appointed by past OAH presidents currently participate in the program. The lectureship fee of $750 is paid directly to the OAH; the host instutition also pays for the lecturer's travel and lodging. A list of lecturers and additional information may be obtained by contacting the OAH Lectureship Coordinator, 112 North Bryan Street, Bloomington, Indiana, 47408. |
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