Marshall university
Plans for Program Improvement
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- Graduate Satisfaction
- Appendix IX
- Previous Reviews
- Current Strengths/Weaknesses
Plans for Program Improvement: Based on assessment data, provide a detailed plan for program improvement. The plan must include a timeline. Results of the assessment measures are reported to the journalism and mass communications faculty during beginning of the semester faculty meetings in August and in January and during the last faculty meeting of the year in May. The presentation of data is always followed by a discussion of what issues were revealed in the data and what action might mitigate these problems. While many of the issues that surface can be addressed by individual faculty on a micro level, a number of unit-wide issues and actions have been triggered from assessment analysis. Some of these initiatives are directed solely at undergraduate study, some will serve both undergraduate and graduate courses and some are directed specifically at graduate programs. Summary of undergraduate and graduate improvement plans Informal book clubs A serendipitous discovery from assessment is that students do not strive to write well every time they write; they seem to need the incentive of a grade or remuneration. The desire to write well for all writing occasions is not one of the school’s outcomes, but a trend to the contrary is evident. To try to create a passion for writing, two faculty volunteered to conduct informal book clubs with students on a trial basis, selecting books that are likely to inspire and to energize students to write as professionals at all times. Timeline: Launched fall 2015. Revisit during assessment reviews in Dec. 2016. Portfolio workshops Although students are meeting the basic requirements for graduation portfolios, it is evident they are completing the chore as quickly as possible and they are being pushed by the deadline. Two trial workshops about portfolio preparation were conducted by a team of three faculty members who discussed with graduating seniors the importance of the portfolio, how it is to be assembled and the deadline. Anecdotally, portfolios have been produced with less stress and well within the deadline, but the first portfolios to be produced with the additional guidance have not been reviewed to ascertain if any improvement in quality occurred. Timeline: Workshops were conducted in the spring of 2015. The first portfolios produced following the workshops will be reviewed in Dec. 2015. Internship prep workshops/courses Assessment has demonstrated that graduates of the program are well grounded in content creation whether it’s for print, broadcast, web or strategic communication. Internship reviews, however, suggest students need an introduction to workplace behaviors—arriving on time, calling if one cannot make it to work, and wearing appropriate attire. All faculty who have worked as internship supervisor are serving as an ad hoc committee to propose ameliorative strategies to change the workplace behaviors. Timeline: The ad hoc committee has been charged with having a proposal ready for review by the full faculty at the final faculty meeting of the year in May 2016. Writing across the curriculum tactics While the philosophy of drafting and rewriting has been employed to strengthen undergraduate writing, it has not been applied at the graduate level. It has been presumed that graduate students are accustomed to self-editing and ready to produce their strongest work on the first draft, but that is rarely true of any writer. Nearly every graduate course requires a writing project, and writing in stages with corrections and encouragements along the way should produce stronger end results. Although there will be no writing intensive attribute attached to graduate courses, the strategies can be employed to strengthen graduate student writing and research. Timeline: The first portfolios produced using the writing across the curriculum tactics will be reviewed in December of 2015.
The School of Journalism and Mass Communications uses its triennial survey of alumni and Marshall University Assessment Office data to evaluate graduate satisfaction. The assessment office provided graduation survey results from 2010-11 to 2014-15 that drew 123 respondents over the five-year period, n=32, 14, 34, 20 and 23 respectively. ˆ A number of trends can be noted over the five-year assessment office surveys. Students in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications graduate in an average of 9.24 semesters. Over 45 percent worked 11 to 30 hours a week during their final year of college, and some worked more than a 30-hour week. The school requires an internship of every student and over 50 percent said the experience helped them secure employment. Another 20 percent said they had insufficient information upon which to base a conclusion. The number of students who planned to continue on to graduate school fluctuated considerably from year to year, but the average was 30 percent. The most useful information in the survey came from three questions that used Likert-scale measures of agreement and satisfaction with one reflecting strong agreement or high satisfaction and 5 representing disagreement or dissatisfaction. The first was a series of statements about abilities developed while pursuing a degree at Marshall. Scores ranged from 1.19 to 3.0 over the reporting period and they indicated the strongest agreement with statements about learning to write effectively, using computers, gaining sufficient knowledge for chosen careers, learning to examine issues from multiple perspectives, and having valuable capstone experiences. The lowest scores consistently reflected disagreement with statements referencing ability to use math effectively, science courses and understanding science processes, the value of writing intensive courses, and broadening appreciation of the arts. Although responses ranged from 1.19 to 3.0 it should be noted that a 3.0 average occurred only once in relation to the statement, “I developed the ability to use mathematics effectively,” and typically scores clustered between 1.3 and 2. Another set of similar questions was added in the past two years of the survey period asking respondents to indicate a degree of satisfaction with a set of experiences within the college. Here scores ranged from 1.39 to 2.26 and indicated greatest satisfaction with availability of faculty, faculty who were helpful in pursuit of the students’ careers, and support for women and racial groups. Consistently, respondents were less satisfied with the general studies curriculum and with equipment. Oddly, the second time the trait “faculty who were helpful in pursuit of the students’ careers” was used the score fell to a much lower rating. Although it is possible to rank scores on a continuum, responses in the range of 2 still reflect satisfaction. Another set of Likert scales asked respondents to register their agreement with statements about how well their degrees prepared them for their fields, the quality of the programs and their propensity to recommend the program. Responses in this area clustered more tightly than the other questions and ranged from 1.32 to 1.95, reflecting satisfaction with their programs. Every third year a survey is sent to graduates to determine their current employment, to solicit their opinions about their education at the school, and to request suggestions for improvements. The most recent survey was completed in 2014 and generated a sample of 156 respondents. A Qualtrics (the computer program that hosts the survey) link was sent via e-mail to all identified contacts along with a request to “snowball” the survey, that is, to send it to other individuals with whom the first recipients maintain contact. This not only increases the sample size, but it helps re-establish contact with additional graduates. The triennial alumni survey indicated a high regard for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications and its professors and satisfaction with the education gained and professional experiences while in the school. Respondents often suggested some areas that could be improved. The majority of the most frequently mentioned improvements--convergence, online communication, visual communication and updating equipment—have been implemented to some degree and they are constantly being refined. Roughly 90 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their courses, their practical experience and their professional organization activities helped in their careers. Courses cited as most useful were profuse, with nearly every course referenced at some point, but those that generated the greatest number of notations were campaigns, Parthenon experience, reporting, writing, ethics, law and design.
See attachment B for a copy of the triennial alumni survey.
The School of Journalism and Mass Communications has made deliberate and concerted efforts to respond to the observations of the assessment committee. Although the graduate program has undergone assessment for many years, the data have not been regularly entered to the university’s data collection website. The information is now being entered into the website following each assessment period. The levels of learning required of graduate students has been changed to better discriminate between graduate and undergraduate performance. Data that has been generated and analyzed internally is being transferred to the university assessment website. Performance levels of the rubrics are now clearly indicated in the website. While the school recognizes the value of the critique regarding outcomes that are set at the application level that might appropriately use higher levels of learning, conforming to the accrediting agency’s standards impedes in some cases altering the verbs used to describe desired outcomes. The university’s and the accrediting agency’s objectives have been aligned as much as possible to avoid completing two separate assessment for two different agencies.
At its meeting on April 22, 2010, the Marshall University Board of Governors recommended that the MA in Journalism and Mass Communications continue at its current level of activity.
In its last program review, submitted in academic year 2009 – 2010, the Master of Arts in Journalism identified the following weaknesses. These are transcribed from that report. Amidst the stabilization cited above, some issues have not received the support or attention necessary. These include:
Since the program was reviewed in 2009-2010, one Ed.D. left the school, but two individuals completed Ph.Ds to make the total of terminal degrees serving the school at four, and three additional faculty who are ABD. The faculty line that was vacated by the former dean, the Ed.D. was filled first with a full time temporary Ph.D., then filled with a tenure track faculty member who was ABD He left after one year, and the line is again filled by a full time temporary faculty member who has a master’s. Two faculty who hold master’s degrees are not likely to start a doctoral program nor will a term faculty member. A faculty member who’s expertise is in design holds an M.F.A. which is considered a terminal degree for a designer. One junior faculty member is being encouraged to start a doctoral program. Ph.D. preferred is always stressed when advertising to fill vacancies, but salary and workload make it difficult to hire qualified individuals who are attracted to the school otherwise. The school has been successful in “growing” Ph.Ds. from new hires.
Marshall University continues to be a teaching institution that is working to generate greater scholarly and creative output. It also continues to require a 4/4 teaching load and heavy committee commitments. Within this institutional atmosphere, the School of Journalism and Mass Communications has concentrated on finding encouragements for scholarly and creative activity with resource limitations. New faculty entering the school have not been assigned advising duties, and they have not been asked to serve on the most demanding committees. Insofar as possible, course schedules have been clustered to provide two or three instructional days in order to free large blocks of time that can be committed to scholarly and creative work. Sabbaticals have been actively encouraged and three faculty members have applied for and been granted leaves. Two more faculty members have applied for leaves during the 2015-2016 academic year. These measures have produced some degree of success in that the school can demonstrate an increase in the number of scholarly and creative projects completed, and an increase in submissions and acceptances to referred sources. Research partnerships have also proved a productive strategy for increasing research as shared responsibility reduces the time each individual must invest to bring a project to fruition. Teaching of more lower division courses by adjuncts has also created some space for scholarship and creative endeavors. These practices have had some unintended consequences. One is that they have not reduced the obligations of the unit overall, but they have disbursed some of the load to faculty willing to assist with efforts to stimulate scholarly and creative productivity. For instance, if one faculty member is not advising students, others are serving those advisees. A second issue is that faculty coming into the unit presume this is standard operating procedure and may resist when advisees, committee memberships and five days of classes are asked of them. There is some fear continuing in this manner may create de facto faculty tiers. Third, these policies have introduced greater reliance on adjunct faculty and graduate teaching assistants. Claiming that full-time professors teach every class, a strong selling point previously, is weakening. In spite of some drawbacks of the tactics that encouraged research and publication, the School of Journalism and Mass Communications can demonstrate increased scholarship and creative productivity. To reiterate the heightened productivity described on page nine as part of “Adequacy of the Program,” fourteen individuals (including faculty members who have come and gone during the review period) have generated 242 scholarly and professional articles, scholarly and professional presentations, grants, conference proceedings, encyclopedia entries, book reviews and creative works. The total number of discrete projects rose from 153 reported in the 2008 to 242 in 2014, a 58 percent increase. Grants rose from 20 in the previous report to 29 in the current report (+45 percent), refereed journal articles moved from four to 20 (+400 percent), refereed conference paper presentations went from 18 to 58 (+222 percent), invited professional conference presentations grew from 17 to 26 (+53 percent), and non-refereed publications rose from 32 to 48 (+50 percent).
Heavy loads are still typically the norm, but several new approaches are offering some relief. A long-time administrative assistant for the unit has moved into a new position for the college, that of Student Support Specialist. The fact the specialist came from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications has been particularly advantageous because of her familiarity with its programs. Many lower classmen will see the specialist first, and she can also flag students who are “at risk” so that interventions may ameliorate problems and improve retention. Additionally, a university Student Success Center has diminished some of the need for advising contact. When the School of Journalism and Mass Communications functioned as an independent unit the faculty served on school committees and on university committees. The consolidation introduced college-level committee obligations as well. What appears to be a heavier commitment to committee work, however, is balanced by a greater number of individuals in the college to share the workload. When the College of Fine Arts and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications merged to form the College of Arts and Media, required office hours in journalism and mass communications were reduced, from 10 hours a week to 5 hour a week to align with colleagues from Fine Arts. Though the change was made begrudgingly for some the tactic diminished the heavy workload somewhat. Many faculty continue to post ten hours. While solving a clear problem, these tactics have a drawback of eroding one of the unit’s traditional strengths, that of close engagement with students. Trimming obligations to reduce workload is also paring time available to students.
No additional resources for faculty lines have come to the school, but creative efforts have increased travel opportunities for presentation and have reserved pockets of time to aid research enterprises. The faculty have been encouraged to become more aggressive in seeking grant money to support travel, using internal grants from the university and by writing small grants for projects that include travel lines. Grant awards rose 45% from the last review period. Combining funding from several sources also has been successful. As stated earlier, within available funding the school strives to send each faculty member to at least one academic conference for scholarly presentation and/or development each year. Faculty who chose to travel to conferences or to conduct research average 1.4 trips per year. Several initiatives to reduce workload, decreased advising for new faculty, trimmed office hours and moderated committee obligations as a result of consolidation into the College of Arts and Media, have carved out time that can be dedicated to research and creative activity. Sabbatical leaves that were used infrequently in the past are now being taken on a regular basis. Team research projects are also increasing that allow faculty to share the load, and heightened thesis production by graduate students create opportunities for publication as a second author for faculty advisers.
Identifying strengths and weaknesses requires a collective review of issues raised in assessment, in alumni surveys and in accreditation, A perennial strength of the journalism and mass communications program is in the professional, passionate, dedicated and caring faculty. The second most noted strength is easily the hands-on, real world approach to learning. Graduates cite their experiences with The Parthenon, WMUL, MU Report and ad and PR campaigns as some of their most rewarding experiences in college. The strategic communications components of the program are frequently engaged in projects with area businesses, gaining experience, raising substantial funds for local non- profit organizations and assisting with public messages and content creation. Real world exposure is expanded with the requirement for a three-hour internship that expects 100 hours of employment for one internship credit hour. Student professional organizations that promote networking during college careers and afford opportunities to earn awards in competitions generate excitement about students’ chosen professions. Graduates repeatedly point to their ability to write effectively, solid professional preparation, ability to work with computers, and understanding multiple viewpoints as benefits of attending the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Rigor is standard practice. The school has a strong reputation and visibility in the region. A state-of-the-art fully digital television studio and new digital radio broadcast studio are clearly attractive assets as are four Macintosh computer labs. Accreditors described WMUL-FM as “an overachieving student FM radio station that offers high quality professional opportunities to students.” Assessment has identified many course adjustments that can be made in the short run to achieve established learning outcomes. Curriculum concerns, however, require more studied and deliberate examination. As with most colleges and universities, the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall responded to shifts toward digital communications initially with the addition of new courses—web strategies, web design, and multimedia reporting. The temptation was to continue generating new courses and to add “and” to many existing offerings, e.g., Information Gathering and Digital Searching, Advertising and Social Media Strategy, or News and Digital Writing. However, the school does not wish to extract digital practices from the curriculum and flag it with a new label or create a parallel digital curriculum. Shaping a curriculum that will maintain in a rapidly changing media environment is the greatest challenge facing the school currently, and it is the charge of the journalism and mass communications faculty this year to consider the degrees to which curriculum needs revised, altered or overhauled. Curriculum revision is being approached in four steps. The first two steps focus on problem analysis while steps three and four concentrate on action planning. Step One—What does every journalism and mass communications major need to know? The first step took place in August and September of the current semester. The concentration has been on assessing what every journalism and mass communications major needs to know particularly in the digital realm. Faculty in three work groups generated inventories of outcomes they thought all students should know. The exercise generated a free-thinking catalogue of ideas that was sifted into two categories: what the school is already doing and what still needs to be done. In the “what we are already doing” category were perpetual objectives related to writing, analyzing and interviewing, all still very necessary parts of the industry. In the “what we still need to do” category were the areas in which the school will concentrate on development. Step Two—What are the possible reconfigurations of majors, divisions, courses? Each division has been charged with proposing course revisions, new course developments, and combinations of majors that will enable the school to implement necessary revisions. Step Three—Consulting with experts During the first half of the 2016 spring semester experts will be invited to consult with the faculty about the proposals. Experts will come from a pool of alumni who have advanced understanding of digital communications issues. It is hoped that a panel from the Poynter can also assist in the consultation. The Poynter Institute’s mission is to assist with curricular revisions to adapt to a digital world. Step Four—Fashion revisions and formally propose A subcommittee representing each division will be tasked with formulating revisions and course proposals based on all previous discussions and advising that will be submitted through formal channels for catalog revisions during the 2016-17 academic year.
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