College of Social Sciences Update (2020)
Analysis of the College of Social Sciences Program Review 2015-2016 Three Year Update revealed several opportunities for a college-level dashboard.
On faculty recruitment#
The review states:
Despite an aggressive plan we are not keeping pace with faculty attrition through retirements, resignations, or terminations. Looking at the numbers, there are 63 faculty still with the College that joined us since August 2011, with seven more planned for next academic year. This is well short of the approximately 84 faculty that have left since 2010-2011, with five more letters of intent to retire in-hand, and at least five more likely in the next one or two years. As faculty are the foundation of CSS, we will need additional counts and funding to sustain our excellence, increase our SSHs taught by faculty, grow our online offerings and degree completion programs, advance new student-centric initiatives (BA in Public Policy, BA in Criminology and Criminal Justice, etc.), and to retain our place as the College that has graduated the most bachelor’s students every year for the last ten years.
A dashboard could provide a year-by-year count of:
- total faculty
- retiring faculty
- new faculty hires
- count of SSH (total, and per capita by faculty)
- Number of graduating B.A. students
This could provide concrete evidence for the relationship between faculty numbers and program outcomes.
On the ACCESS Program for student recruitment and retention#
The review states:
ACCESS (Advising, Civic & Community Engagement in the Social Sciences) is committed to providing all undergraduates in the College of Social Sciences (CSS) with major course and career advising, engaging them in activities and internships that extend beyond the walls of the classroom, and inspiring students to become active, productive, community citizens. Our goals are to promote student recruitment, increase retention, and graduation rates in the College.
A dashboard could provide various data to help understand how well ACCESS is achieving its goals, including:
- The number of students entering the College each year (recruitment totals).
- The total number and percentage of students in the College using the ACCESS program.
- The total number and percentage of students taking part in internships and other community service.
On the Anthropology department#
The review states:
... the biggest problem facing...the [Anthropology D]epartment at present is the reduction in the size of our faculty since the last 5-Year Program Review.
On the Department of Ethnic Studies#
The review states:
"Faculty should focus attention on publishing in refereed journals", and "The Department continues to develop recruitment strategies to attract more majors."
A dashboard can measure progress toward both of those goals.
On the Geography and Environment Department#
The review states:
The combined efforts listed above have started to show their effect on the growth of undergraduate majors. Last year’s count was 45 majors; this year we expect to reach 60-70 based on the current data and trend of new major declarations. In our initial assessment, we believe the department name change combined with our other efforts are making a difference.
A dashboard can track declared majors.
On the Department of Political Science#
The review states:
Faculty should make more concerted efforts to publish in high visibility outlets that are receptive to the subject areas and kinds of scholarship in which the Department specializes.
On the Department of Psychology#
The review states:
Funding graduate students should be a high priority of faculty members. Long-term trends in graduate education should be examined so that good projections can be made as to how many years of support can be guaranteed to students. Incentives should be put in place to reward faculty members for writing external grants that include graduate student support.
On the Department of Urban and Regional Planning#
The review states:
"Focus on growing the graduate and certificate programs", "Support faculty in securing externally funded grants."