Evaluative criterion 1—Program quality Committee: Michael (chair)



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Committee: Glass (chair), Fried, Mirmotahari
1) Describe enrollment trends for the preceding 5 years; demographics for enrolled students by class/degree level, race/ethnicity and gender, retention and graduation rates.
All demographic information has been collated from the Duquesne University Fact Book 2010, which is produced by the Office of Institutional Research and Planning.* This information reflects data as of the end of the 2009-2010 academic year. The total undergraduate population of Duquesne University as of Fall 2009 was 5858 students.

  • 75% of Duquesne’s total undergraduate population is from Pennsylvania, with 51% of this figure from Allegheny County.

  • 56% of Duquesne undergraduates are women

  • 2.4% of undergraduates are “non-traditional,” which signifies undergraduates over the age of 25.

The racial/ethnic break down of Duquesne’s 5858 undergraduates is as follows:



  • 3.5% Black/African-American (1.7% women)

  • .2% Native American (.13% women)

  • 1.8% Asian/Pacific Islander (.9% women)

  • 1.6% Hispanic/Latino (.8% women)

  • 81.6% White (47% women)

  • 8% Unknown/Other (4% women)

  • 3% Non-resident Alien (1.3% women)

  • 7.3% International/visiting/study abroad/exchange students. Of these, most are from China, People’s Republic, followed by Saudi Arabia.

*There is no information available for enrollment along demographic lines for the English department specifically.


Demographics for McAnulty College of Liberal Arts

  • 55% of total are women

  • The racial/ethnic breakdown of McAnulty’s 1546 undergraduates follows:

    • 4% Black/African-American (2.5 % women)

    • One male Native American student

    • 2% Asian/Pacific Islander (1.1% women)

    • 1.7% Hispanic/Latino (1% women)

    • 83.3% White (46% women)

    • 6% Unknown/Other (3.3% women)

  • 2% Nonresident Alien (.9% women)



Retention

  • Duquesne ranks 6th of 15 local/regional universities in its immediate competitor bracket in freshman retention, which is 88%. Duquesne ranks behind Pennsylvania State University and University of Pittsburgh.

  • Duquesne ranks 6th of 15 local/regional universities in its immediate competitor bracket in overall undergraduate retention, which is 61% after four years of study, 72% after five years of study, and 74% after six years of study. Duquesne ranks behind Pennsylvania State and University of Pittsburgh.

  • There is no information available about retention along demographic lines for the English department specifically.


2) Describe quality and type of advising and mentoring activities for students.
Each tenured/tenure-track faculty member:

  • meets with 10 to 15 English majors at least once a semester to discuss selection of English classes for the upcoming semester. These meetings involve an assessment of what the student needs to fulfill his or her course requirements for the English degree.

  • holds office hours, at least an hour a week per course every semester. In addition, most professors/instructors offer the option of setting up appointments outside of office hours to accommodate student schedules.

  • offers informal advisement, particularly in relation to career opportunities associated with a degree in English and/or opportunities to pursue further higher education. This includes online advisement/mentoring.

In addition, many faculty members:



  • write references and recommendations for students

  • lead or participate in workshops for undergraduate students, such as those on how to apply to graduate school, scholarship opportunities, and career opportunities for English majors

  • act as faculty advisors for events and organizations within the English department and/or University. These activities require regular meetings with students and attendance of events/performances as part of their responsibilities. Recent advising includes:

    • Red Masquers (John Lane)

    • Duquesne Medieval and Renaissance Players (Anne Brannen)

    • Asian Culture and Anime Club (Anne Brannen)

    • Encore Show Choir (John Lane)

    • :lexicon Literary Magazine (John Fried)

    • Sigma Tau Delta: Duquesne chapter of National English Honors Society (Stuart Kurland)

    • Lambda (Gay Straight Alliance) (Anne Brannen)

    • Alpha Delta Fraternity (Frederick Newberry)

    • Duquesne Quidditch Team (John Lane)



3) Discuss any notable diversity initiatives, outreach for minority students and faculty, efforts to support recruitment and retention.
Please see the following faculty profiles in the Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 1, for relevant research and teaching in diversity: Callanan, Engel, L. Kinnhan, Michael, Mirmotahari, Suh

The English department’s commitment to diversity is evident in recent faculty hires; faculty course offerings; faculty research interests; and faculty service to the department and University.



Faculty Hires: Recent faculty hires have reflected the Department’s commitment to diversity (See Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 1, for more information on these faculty members’ research and teaching areas)

  • Kathy Glass (African-American), specializing in 19th Century African American Literature, 2004

  • Judy Suh (Korean-American), specializing in 20th Century British and Postcolonial Literature, 2004

  • Emad Mirmotahari (Iranian American), specializing in African Literature and Literatures of the Diaspora, 2010


Diversity in the Curriculum: The English Department defines a commitment to diversity in the English curriculum by teaching “texts by authors from groups that have been historically excluded from, or minimally represented in, the study of British and American literature.” These include texts by women, by authors who focus on national minorities or refugees, and by sexual minorities. Courses fulfilling the “Literature and Diversity” 400-level requirement include:

Spring 2005

  • 403 W American Women Writers (Leader)

  • 424W Literature of the British Empire (Suh)

  • 450W Contemporary American Ethnic Literature (Michael)

Fall 2005

  • 403 W Film Genres: Melodrama (Suh)

  • 403 W Literature and Spirituality (Glass)

Spring 2006

  • 426W 19th Century African American Novel (Glass)

  • 450W 20th Century British Travel Lit (Suh)

Fall 2006

  • 432W Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Theatre (Brannen)

Spring 2007

  • 403W-02 Black Women Writers (Mollis)

Fall 2007

  • 403W Black Women Writers (Glass)

  • 416W Transatlantic Voyages: Gender, Travel, and Colonialism (Howard)

Spring 2008

  • 403W Women’s Autobiography (Vaccaro)


Summer 2008

  • 428W 20th Century Irish Lit (Brannen)

Fall 2008

  • 450W-01 The Country House in Modern Brit. Lit. (Suh)

  • 450W-02 Myth and Memory in Twentieth-Century Southern Lit (T. Kinnahan)

Spring 2009

  • 426W American Autobiography (T. Kinnahan)

  • 450W 20th Century British Poetry and Beyond (L. Kinnahan)

Fall 2009

  • 422 W Popular Genres in 20th Century British Lit and Film (Suh)

  • 450W King, Baldwin, and Malcolm X (Glass)

Spring 2010

  • 432 W 20th Century American Ethnic Literature ( Nowacki)

Fall 2010

  • 403W American Women Poets 1700-Present ( L. Kinnahan)

  • 424 African and European Novels in Dialogue ( Mirmotahari)

The English Department has also had a close relationship to the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. In addition to launching this interdisciplinary certificate program (Linda Kinnahan and Magali Michael), English faculty have held the following positions.



  • Kinnahan, Acting Director, 2010-2011

  • Engel, Assistant Director, 2010-2011

  • Callanan Assistant Director, 2009-2010

  • Michael, Co-Director, 2005-2007


Evaluative criterion 3—Student Learning Outcomes

Committee: Suh (chair), Howard, Beranek, Brannen
1) Describe your assessment processes and show how assessment of student learning outcomes has resulted in changes in the curriculum, teaching methods, or resource allocation (budget, personnel, staff or faculty time).
Since 2004, the English undergraduate curriculum has undergone dramatic changes. At that point, the curriculum had not been substantively revised for years; new courses had been simply added to the existing structure on an as-needed basis, while old courses that had not been taught for years--sometimes decades--remained on the books. Further, there was no clear distinction between 200- (introductory) and 300-level (intermediate) courses, and often no distinction drawn between these and some 400-level (advanced) courses. Moreover, the existing curriculum did not reflect the teaching interests and abilities of the recent new faculty hires.
With this in mind, the Undergraduate Studies Committee then in place sought to bring some form to the major and English curriculum. The aim was threefold:

  • to create a clear structure of course offerings.

  • to create course headings broad enough to accommodate the teaching skills of newer and older faculty alike.

  • to bring the curriculum into line with the contemporary discipline of English studies.

In order to meet these goals, the committee:



  • created a set of core courses for the major (English 300W, British and American Survey courses at the 200-level)

  • created various tracks of study within the major (literary studies, writing, and film studies)

  • constructed new requirements at the 400 level—Literature and Diversity, and the Senior Seminar

  • drew distinctions between the various levels of study

    • 200 level—often taken by non-majors to fulfill the University core requirements, the most popular being the introductory genre courses (poetry, fiction, and film). and the Surveys of American and British literature, taken by both non-majors and English majors (for the latter, as part of the English curriculum for all tracks).

    • 300 level—intermediate courses, taken by non-majors to fulfill University core requirements and by English majors to fulfill elective requirements.

    • 400 level—advanced courses, often with specialized topics, taken by English majors to fulfill requirements and requiring advanced research skills. English majors must take 300W (Critical Issues in Literary Studies) before they can enroll in advanced 400-level courses.



English 300W (Critical Issues in Literary Studies)
The primary aim of this course is to provide a gateway or transition course from introductory to advanced-level studies in literature. By design, the course description was left rather broad, so that individual faculty members could bring to the table the sorts of issues and texts that they felt were best suited to their own expertise. English 300W introduces students to literary study as a critical discipline, and its rationale is rooted in the Department’s belief that students entering the major must develop the skills required to pursue literary study as an intellectual discipline. While each individual professor may use different strategies in teaching the course, the general guidelines and objectives are consistent from section to section. The course requires students to:

  • read and examine a limited number of texts in Anglophone literature.

  • study a variety of critical articles that focus on these works from various theoretical perspectives.

  • develop a command of the major research tools (print and electronic data bases and bibliographies) used in the field of literary study.

  • prepare for work in advanced (400-level) English courses and for work typical in graduate studies, should they choose to pursue a career in academia.


Literature and Diversity, 400-level requirement

This requirement was added to the 400-level American and British requirements already in place. The idea that students should take a course in literature and diversity arose from the faculty’s belief that understanding of the discipline necessarily entails knowledge of texts by authors from groups that have been historically excluded from, or minimally represented in, the study of British and American literature. Professors may select various approaches in teaching these courses, but principal objectives include the following:



  • to explore, examine, and teach marginalized voices in literature.

  • pay critical attention to how the voices of women and ethnic minorities (among others) are formed by, and interact with, dominant cultural groups and understandings.

  • promote a better, and more nuanced, sense of how literary works come into being and take on (and shape) cultural meaning.


Senior Seminar, 400-level requirement

The Senior Seminar is taken by English majors during the second semester of their Junior year or during their Senior year. Seminars are capped at 15 students. These courses prepare students for the self-initiative that is expected in graduate studies and other professional endeavors. The seminar course requires:



  • more sustained participation by students, as opposed to lecture-style courses.

  • presentations of independent research .

  • sustained written research projects .

  • deeper concentration upon specific genres, topics, or approaches than is available in other 400-level courses.

Recent Senior Seminars include:



  • Contemporary American Ethnic Literature (Michael)

  • 20th Century British Travel Lit (Suh)

  • The Country House in Modern Brit. Lit. (Suh)

  • Myth and Memory in Twentieth-Century Southern Lit (T. Kinnahan)

  • 20th Century British Poetry and Beyond (L. Kinnahan)

  • King, Baldwin, and Malcolm X (Glass)

  • Gothic Novels of the Long Eighteenth Century (Engel)

  • Frankenstein and Friends (Howard)

  • Ecocriticism and American Literature (T. Kinnahan)

  • Milton (St. Hilaire)

  • Literature of the Americas (Mirmotahari)

See Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 1, Course Descriptions for full list.


Writing Studies Concentration
The new Writing Studies concentration within the English major responded to the faculty’s growing sense that the English major needed a writing option to add to the literary emphasis, since many undergraduates were seeking their degree to gain practical, concrete skills that employers looking at their transcripts could readily identify. The undergraduate committee was charged to create a concentration out of the writing courses then on the books: business writing, technical writing, and creative writing in the major genres (poetry, fiction, drama). There was a recognition that within this concentration, there would be students who wanted the more readily marketable skills available in the technical and creative writing courses and those who wished to use the writing emphasis to pursue an MFA or other advanced degrees in writing. Over the years, the department has added multiple levels of the creative writing workshops as well as science writing courses and courses in writing for the web. The creative writing courses have expanded as well to include creative non-fiction and memoir writing.
The Film Studies concentration
The Film Studies concentration, was instituted in Fall 2005 as several conditions converged:

  • Already existing film courses, such as “Austen and Film” and “Shakespeare and Film,” taught by tenured faculty had proven to be increasingly popular with English majors.

  • Pittsburgh Filmmakers, an independent non-profit film education facility in Pittsburgh, made clear to Duquesne’s English Department that it would be willing to undertake a contractual agreement to enable English majors to take film courses (up to two, but at least one in an area of film production) for university credit. The facility has similar agreements with other area universities, including the University of Pittsburgh.

  • The Department hired new faculty with experience in teaching film courses.

In Spring 2010, the Department undertook an agreement with the Modern Languages Department to cross-list film courses. The number of students choosing a film concentration remains small, about six or seven, but enthusiastic. Since its inception, the concentration has sent two students to graduate film studies programs (NYU and Columbia).



Assessment tools
These curricular changes and new concentrations have been developed largely on the basis of faculty assessments of the program rather than on assessments of student learning. Formal assessments of student learning have been largely confined to UCOR 101 and 102 (first-year writing courses). In these assessments, a sample of final papers are taken from classes across the board, and then read by a committee, in order to determine whether the program is meeting its goals. UCOR 101 was last assessed in this way during Fall 2007 and UCOR 102 in Spring 2009.
A second assessment tool is the first-year paper contest which is held each semester; the winners are published in the First Year Writing magazine. Since instructors nominate the papers to be judged, this tool does not assess all levels of the program as a whole, but it does allow faculty to note the level of our best first-year writers.
Student learning outcomes have also begun to be assessed by two new methods: annual assessment reports to the Dean written by the Director of Undergraduate Studies and the Chair (see Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 3), which started in 2009-10; and surveys of students taking Senior Seminars, which started in Fall 2009. (See Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 3, for data from these surveys)

2) Provide as much information as possible about the placement of students after graduation and alumni satisfaction within the program for the preceding 5 years.
Data does not exist. The general university alumni survey asks questions about the core curriculum; mission and identity; and student life. The university has only recently established a section of this survey to elicit opinions and reflections about the major. The Undergraduate Studies committee recently submitted their desired questions to the Assistant Dean of the College in Fall 2010, with hope that they will be included in the general survey starting in 2011.

Information about career placement of English major alumni would thus be more available. What we do know now is what many of the Class of 2010 and Class of 2011 would like to achieve. (See Appendix, Evaluative Criterion 3, for survey information)


Evaluative criterion 4—Program/Curriculum Planning and Review

Committee: Engel (chair), Newberry, St. Hilaire, Watkins
1) Describe the processes employed by the faculty for curriculum review, planning, and revision.
The Undergraduate studies committee is charged with discussing, developing, and formulating new/revised programs or new/revised requirements for the major—decisions to initiate such discussion come from University requested reviews and/or from consensus by the faculty that changes should be considered. The committee then presents their suggestions/formulations to the faculty at a faculty meeting where the proposals are discussed, debated, and eventually voted on (often going back to the committee one or more times for further revisions).
Interdepartmental programs and dual major programs are usually established through liaison with the involved schools or departments. The department has generally left minor adjustments in requirements for these dual programs to the discretion of the Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Decisions on what English undergraduate courses to offer in any given semester are made in accordance with the Department’s responsibility to offer courses that satisfy requirements of the University, the various schools on campus, and the English major.
2. Discuss how the curriculum provides sufficient depth and breadth for the baccalaureate degree.
Duquesne’s undergraduate English program curriculum is a blend of traditional and contemporary approaches to literature.
Breadth for the baccalaureate degree
The English major offers courses in a wide range of British, American and World literature, and concentrations that teach a breadth of skills: literature, writing, and film studies. Regardless of concentration, students achieve a breadth of knowledge in the following ways:

  • Three required survey courses at the 200-level in British and American Literature together cover the span of literary history and a great variety of literature from the English and American traditions. Film studies concentrations must take Introduction to Film (ENGL 205) as one of their survey requirements, substituting one of the Survey of Literature requirements.

  • English 300W: Critical Issues in Literary Study introduces students to a variety of disciplinary perspectives, research skills, and critical positions within literary study


Literature concentration students also achieve breadth of knowledge with four 400-level advanced courses (in British Literature, American Literature, and Literature and Diversity), which require students to encounter canonical and non-canonical literature, including marginalized voices within literary study.
The Writing concentration curriculum helps students achieve breadth by requiring courses in at least two genres (poetry, fiction, drama, screenwriting, playwriting, science writing, and others).
The Film Studies concentration typically offers a range of genre courses, historical approaches, and theoretical approaches. In addition, at least one course in film production is required (to be taken at Pittsburgh Filmmakers).
Depth for the baccalaureate degree
The major provides depth for its students by requiring more intensive study within specific literary periods at the 400-level. 400-level courses provide depth of knowledge since they:

  • typically focus on a single literary period, genre, or topic.

  • require students to engage with that period, genre, or topic in more detail than do the surveys.

  • require students to arrive at the 400-level with some sense of literary history and with a critical “toolbox.”

  • expect students to bring those critical tools to bear in their work in the 400-level courses, deepening their understanding of the topic of the course while at the same time honing their abilities to work with the critical skills taught at the 200- and 300-levels.

  • require students to engage in extensive research and writing.

The Senior Seminar continues this progression into more detailed study; here the expectation is that students will be responsible for generating a more significant portion of the course content (in the form of discussion, presentations, etc.) and that they will engage in more intensive research to create presentations and a substantial research paper.


3. Describe learning opportunities for students beyond the classroom and how those interactions support the learning goals for the program.

Beyond the classroom, numerous opportunities exist for undergraduate students to extend or enhance their learning.


Each semester, the English Department (sometimes in conjunction with McAnulty College and/or other departments) invites an eminent literary scholar or culturally prominent writer to give formal presentations and to meet with students in informal settings. Visits by such authors are widely announced, and students are encouraged (and, on occasion, required) to read a particular book, essay, or collection of poems in order to acquire a measure of background and thereby integrate the public presentations with the written work. Speakers from the past years have included a diversity of scholars and creative writers:


  • Scholars such as Eric Sundquist, Gerald Graff, Peter Holland, Romana Huk, N. Katherine Hayles, and Trinh Min Ha.

  • Creative writers such as Diana Abu-Jaber, Mohja Kahf, Lynn Emmanuel, Linda Hogan, Caroline Bergvalle, and Terrance Hayes.

The department also sponsors a number of other opportunities outside the classroom:


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