Sample Academic Department Plan - Department of Pan-African Studies

Kent State University
Assessment of Student Academic Achievement Plan
Sample Academic Department Plan
Department of Pan-African Studies

The Department of Pan-African Studies (DPAS) has developed the following Outcomes Assessment plan for measuring its curricular and structural effectiveness. This plan is to go into effect Spring Semester 1993. This plan begins with two assessment mechanisms, the Outcomes Assessment Survey (juniors and seniors) and the Senior Colloquium.

Outcomes Assessment Survey (Questionnaire, Instrument)

The DPAS will use an assessment survey to determine the extent to which its majors and minors and graduates have absorbed and mastered (1) the curriculum's Afrocentric perspective and (2) the curricular and structural holism. Using this mechanism, DPAS will:

1. Confirm that majors and minors have been exposed to and have retained an adequate amount of knowledge requisite of majors and minors in the discipline,

2. Determine the degree to which student understand the inter- and intrarelationships of the PAS curricular divisions--humanities, social sciences, and community development and research,

3. Establish baseline data relative to how students view and involve themselves in special curricular components forming DPAS's holistic program structure, and

4. Learn from PAS graduates, if correct addresses are available, the degree to which the PAS curriculum and special curricular components have prepared them for the careers they are presently pursuing.

Capstone Course: Senior Colloquium

An additional outcomes assessment strategy is DPAS's capstone course--PAS 49596 - Senior Colloquium. This course, offered usually during Spring Semester, is designed to have students write a major research paper that is to be presented to a public audience composed also of DPAS faculty and students. The research paper must reflect a broad Afrocentric perspective of the major issues, idea, and concepts relative to the African Diaspora.

The Senior Colloquium has, for the past 16 years, already allowed the department to determine the extent to which students have assimilated and can synthesize not only the PAS curricular and special curricular component content but also the extent to which students can synthesize content learned in other Kent State University curricula and from their own personal lives. DPAS believes it is an ideal assessment mechanism.