682 10 9856 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/4e370d7e86331806b263ce5db8882ec7.pdf 387f6435643fc2924a0cdace26ce9247 PDF Text Text Lloyd Agte Bill Bailey Robert Carlson Donna Davis Gary Donnelly Skip Gillum Floyd Kelly Michael Kent Arlene Larson Carolyn Logan Paul Marquard James Milek Helon Raines Jamie Ring Jacqueline Valdez Nora Van Burgh �1991 1991 is an anthology of selected writings by faculty at Casper Community College. In preference to scholarly articles, the magazine presents those with broader appeal. The articles included were presented to organizations, published by journals, or submitted to other publications, with audiences outside Casper; we print them here for college faculty and community members who are interested in the activities of the college campus. These works cover a narrow period, 1990 and 1991, and they are merely representative of faculty work, not comprehensive. IDEAS �Ideas li Published at Casper Community College Casper. Wyoming 82601 Summer 1991 Copyright by Casper Community College Editor: Arlene Larson Cover Design The cover was developed by Emerson R. (Bill) Bailey of the Business Division from an illustration of a light bulb only 5/8 inch tall. The image was repeatedly enlarged on a Konica 1590 copier at 200% until it became 10 inches tall. The resulting light bulb image was then scanned on a Hewlett-Packard ScanJet Plus flatbed scanner as line art (to increase contrast), manipulated to accentuate the burst of matter coming out of the right side of the bulb, and saved as a TIFF (‘‘tagged image format file”) to be imported into PageMaker 4.0 for Windows. The text blocks ("Ideas" and the list of contributors) were then set in ITC Bookman type—Ideas at 210 point size with manual kerning of 85% and the contributors list at standard 12 point. The Casper College logo was scanned in a similar fashion (without the multiple enlargements) and placed on the cover. Finally, everything was combined and manipulated on a Zeos 386 PCcompatible computer and printed on a QMS PS-410 Adobe Postscript printer. The first image of the light bulb had two "eyes" staring from it—a mysterious effect—which were eliminated in PageMaker by placing ovals filled as solid objects over the "eyes.” The cover was then taken to Mountain States Lithographing where a reverse negative was made for final printing. Total time: 4 hours 20 minutes (but now that it's been done once, it could be reproduced in about 15 minutes!). IDEAS 1991 Casper College Anthology BUI BaUey teaches business and data processing. He has an M.B.A- from Cali­ fornia State University/Hayward and has been at Casper College for eight years. �Contents CELEBRATING HISTORY IN THE LIBRARY....................................... 4 Jamie Ring and Nora Van Burgh ON WHY WE KILL OUR SAINTS .................................. Dr. Robert Carlson 6 CHEMICAL HUMOR................................................................................... 8 Dr. Floyd Kelly TERRACING THE CAMPUS..................................................................... 10 Mike Kent SATURDAY CLASSES....................................................................... .. Carolyn Logan 11 FACULTY PROFILE: LIZ OTT.................................................................12 Arlene Larson ENGINEERING COLLEGE PREP............................................................ 14 Paul Marquard MULE DEER THAT SHARE OUR CAMPUS .......................................... 15 Donna Davis BLUEBELLS....................................................................... Dr. James Milek 18 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AT COLLEGE LIBRARY.............................. 20 Jamie Ring ADVERTISING PROJECT........................................................................ 22 Gary Donnelly WOMEN’S STUDIES ................................................................................. 25 Carolyn Logan STANDARDS IN THE PROFESSION........................................................26 Dr. Lloyd Agte. Skip Gillum Dr. Helon Raines, Jacqueline Valdez Photo Printing: Donna Davis �Celebrating History by Jamie Ring and Nora Van Burgh Jamie Ring is the Wyoming Collection Specialist at Goodstein Library. She holds a B.S. from Montana State Uni­ versity and has been at Casper College for eleven years. Nora Van Bnrgh was Public Services Li­ brarian at Goodstein Library. She held an M.L.S. from the Uni­ versity of Arizona and had been at Casper College for thirty years. When library staffs take the initiative, they can influence history as well as store it. Each March, the Goodstein Foundation Library at Casper College, Casper. Wyoming, celebrates Women’s History, one way to "write women back into history." The library staff hosts a reception to observe women’s contributions to history and to honor women from Natrona County who have added significantly to the history of their community and state. Over the past seven years a former Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, and a Wyoming Poet Laureate, as well as authors, teachers, community leaders, volunteers and pioneer women, have been honored. Traditionally written history has focused on economic, political and military events. Women’s energies have been primarily committed to establishing schools, churches, libraries, hospitals, and benevolent and social organizations in communities. While these institutions are the mortar that hold societies together, they are frequently overlooked in written history. Celebrating Women’s History Month refocuses attention on these accomplishments. Choosing March for the observance has its roots in the history of the women’s movement. On March 8. 1908, women who were predominantly young immigrants and who worked in the garment industry gathered in New York’s lower East side to protest against intolerable working conditions and to demand the right to join the garment workers’ union. It was not until the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1910 that attention was focused on the plight of working women. In that same year, at the International women’s conference, a resolution was passed to declare March 8 International Women’s Day. Since the late 196O’s women’s contributions to the organized labor movement in the United States have been observed on that date. In 1977, the first Women’s History Week was celebrated in Sonoma County. 4 California, during the week of March 8. The purpose was to introduce students and teachers to the many contributions that women of all cultures have made to the building of this nation. In 1981. a Congressional resolution was passed to officially declare National Women’s History Week, and in 1987, the celebration was expanded to include the entire month of March. Literature regarding these celebra­ tions of women’s history was sent to organizations, institutions and interested individuals. In the fall of 1983, Nora Van Burgh and Jamie Ring discussed the lack of a celebration in Casper and asked the question, "Why can’t the library be the sponsoring institution of such an event?" With enthusiastic support from library staff members, the two women began to make plans for the first celebration. They selected Verda James, a Natrona County educator, administrator, politician and the first woman speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, to be the honoree. The organizers created displays in the library, sent a guest column regarding Miss James’ contributions to the paper, mailed invitations to relatives and close friends of the honoree, prepared public service announcements for radio and television and delivered press releases to radio and television stations and newspapers. The day of the first celebration proved to be a typical March day in Wyoming—windy and cool, but the weather did not discourage the Casper and college communities from celebrating Miss James’ contributions. Over 100 persons turned out to honor her and share the special afternoon with her. Her wit. charm and intelligence surprised the young TV reporter and a wonderful interview was aired on the news that night. Since then Women’s History has been celebrated at the Casper College Library each March. The reception area is decorated using a theme relevant to the honoree(s), and the library staff provides �in the library homemade treats which are popular with the guests. Displays in the lobby featuring the honoree(s) and news articles focus attention on women and their contributions to history. A local newspaper with state-wide circulation has generously run a guest column each year to focus attention on the honoree(s) and the celebration. Local television stations tape events at the afternoon reception and present news clips on the evening news programs. The 1990 celebration featured the Wyoming Centennial. The library staff greeted guests wearing historical clothing provided by the college’s theatre department. Ostrich feather plumes floated throughout the room. Wyoming’s Secretary of State, the Honorable Kathy Karpan, was the guest speaker. For the first time, youth were formally included when a Brownie troop shared the party and received special tribute from the speaker. They also made a sizable dent in the cookie trays and punch as they practiced pretending to be the speaker at the podium. At the celebration the library staff was able to show its newly remodeled library and the reception room named for librarian Rose Mary Malone. The reception is open to the public and guests are urged to wear their favorite hats and historical clothing. One year, a male faculty member boldly wore a bright pink hat with a veil. The event is popular with members of the community as well as the college population because of the opportunities to honor women, visit with friends and colleagues, and enjoy good food. At the same time members of the library staff appreciate the opportunity to share knowledge of the library’s latest acquisitions of books and electronic equipment. During the first event in 1983. Jamie Ring was asked by a television interview­ er, "What are your plans for next year?’’ At the time this was a shocking question, one that had not been considered. Now. after seven Women’s ANGI MOFFETT and THERESE GOINS, Wyoming Girl Guard. 1990, presented the colors at the 1991 program honoring Wyoming Women in the Military. KATHY KARPAN (right). Secretary of State, was featured speaker in 1990, Celebrating 100 Years. History celebrations in the Goodstein Foundation Library, it is not a question of whom will be honored next year, but rather a question of which of the multitude of possibilities will be developed into the next celebration. “Celebrating History in the Library" has also been submitted to the HPLA Newsletter, a publication of the Mountain Plains Library Association. 5 �On Why We Kill Our Dedicated to Governor Mike Sullivan and First Lady Jane Sullivan of Wyoming, who understand and defend the sanctity of human life. by Robert Carlson Robert K. Carlson teaches philosophy and humanities. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and has been at Casper College for fourteen years. No man is a hero to his butler. The world's hero is too well known by his butler, who is contemptuous of him because he understands his flaws. Thereby is illustrated the adage that "familiarity breeds contempt." How then do we explain what we do to our secular and religious saints—Saints Stephen, Paul. Socrates and so forth—who have flaws so miniscule, they count for nothing? We revere our saints from afar, but when we draw closer, reverence turns to rage, and we kill them. Why? It is ironic that, although truth is said to be the one thing that sets us free, man cannot stand too much of it. When we know the truth about ourselves our lives are seen in clear relief, like the images on a cathedral frieze, bathed in the rays of the rising sun. Not liking what we see, and afraid that others see it too, we devise many ways, some quite ingenious, of killing our truth-telling secular and religious saints, allowing us to hide once again in the darkness of obscurity. Often, we are not subtle in disposing of our truth-telling saints. We simply kill them outright — what could be called "death by execution" — because the force of law is on our side. Witness the death of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, who, speaking to the Jews, summarized Jewish history from Abraham to the crucifixion of Christ and was promptly rushed upon by the irate crowd: ". . .they crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him. And casting him forth without the city, they stoned him." Sometimes we err in disposing of our saints by accidentally killing them in our attempt to be rid of them through a kind of "death-by-contradiction." as the Athenians did with Socrates. When the Athenians took him to trial, most, of course, did not desire to kill him. for he was seventy years old when the 6 trial took place. They had only to wait a short while and he would soon die. They merely desired to humiliate him. to cause him to suffer "death-by-contradiction." What a victory it would have been if this old man who had been pursuing his divine mission for so many years in the agora would contradict all he stood for. Socrates spent most of his time, much to his wife Xanthippe's chagrin, helping his fellow citizens perfect their souls, that is. helping them acquire knowledge of the truth and cultivate the practice of virtue. To accomplish this, he first had to teach them that they lacked such knowledge and virtue and were spending their time on trivialities. Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul? They were ungrateful of Socrates’ attempt to convince them of this truth; in fact, they were downright hostile, and Socrates predicted that such anger would “bring about my destruc­ tion, if anything does — not Meletus nor Anytus (his formal accusers), but the slander and jealousy of a very large section of the people." ^Juring the trial, Socrates had a number of chances to free himself. He could have paraded his weeping wife and children in front of the jury and pleaded for mercy, which the court would most probably have granted, or he could have proposed a reasonable fine for himself, which his wealthy students would have paid. However, he refused the mercy of the court and instead of suggesting a reasonable fine, proposed a ridiculously small one. which he knew to be an insult to the court. He then had the audacity to suggest that the state, in lieu of a fine, should support him at state expense for the rest of his life because of the great good he did for it. Had Socrates suggested a "realistic” punishment in order to save his life, he would �divergent of view. With one voice they excoriated him. drowning in their vituperation his caveat that the truth he spoke came “not from an adversary but a friend.” The response was. “Friend be damned!” Snrique Hank Lopez, a free-lance writer and graduate of the Harvard Law School, wrote a typical review: Saints have implicitly admitted guilt. His life, which had been guided by the rule of truth, would thus have been contradicted, and Plato, his student and biographer, would not have cele­ brated him in the dialogues. Socrates would have died a death-by-contradiction, which was what his Athenian enemies and all enemies of truth often desire. Instead, he drank the hemlock, went courageously to his death, and he lives today to influence the lives of many. ^Jne of the most sophisticated ways of killing our truth-telling saints is through “death-by-distortion.” Alexander Solzhenit­ syn was subjected to this when he delivered his famous Harvard commencement address a few years ago. After having suffered and escaped a repressive totalitarianism. Solz­ henitsyn was warmly invited by Harvard University to address its graduating class. His commencement address at this mecca of liberalism could not have proceeded far before the most perceptive members of the audience must have realized they were “in for it.” In the second paragraph of his speech, Solzhenitsyn invoked Harvard’s motto Veritas, which, one might say, is analogous to introducing Nelson Mandela to a Ku Klux Klan rally: Harvard's motto is Veritas. Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant: It is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. Solzhenitsyn then began to speak the unpleasant and bitter truth about the West: our lack of civil courage, our rampant materialism, our loss of moral sensibility — which loss leads to the sophism that whatever is legal is moral and vice versa — our lack of responsibility in the media, and so forth. Solzhenitsyn's speech became a catalyst, unifying reviewers who were ordinarily Listening to Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the Harvard commencement June 9. I suddenly imagined Cotton Mather sternly scolding his fellow alumni for their profligate sinful ways, their shameful aversion to Puritan ethics. Indeed, as he stood at the lectern. Solzhenitsyn looked like a bearded grandfather lecturing a vast brood of penitent grandchildren; and there was a rather piquant charm in his cur­ mudgeonly self-righteousness. Why was Solzhenitsyn “curmudgeonly self-righteous”? Because of his “condemna­ tion of our free press, our rule of law. our ‘soft liberal' concern for human rights.” Lopez said. But did Solzhenitsyn condemn these things? Indeed, he criticized the irresponsible use of our free press, our assertion that whatever is legal is moral, and our misplaced soft liberal concern for the rights of criminals to the detriment of the rights of innocent citizens. But to argue that he condemned the free press, our rule of law, our concern for human rights, is to distort what he said: it is, in short, to cause his “death-by-distortion.” To assure Solzhenitsyn was dead,—not wanting to take any chances—the powers that be decided he must die a second time, this time a “death-by-neglect.” This exile from repressive totalitarianism, who, before his commencement address, was celebrated in all the media as the “toast of the town,” soon disappeared from public view. Did he too drink the hemlock? One does not know, for like Rip van Winkle he has not been heard from for many years. Death-by-execution, death-by-contradiction, death-by-distortion. death-byneglect—one wonders what ingenious method we will use in disposing of our latest saint. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Does she know what danger she is in with her truth-telling? Turn to the December 4. 1989 issue of TIME magazine, which featured an interview with Mother Teresa: Q. You and Pope John Paul II have spoken out against lifestyles in the West, against materialism and abortion. How alarmed are you? A. I always say one thing. If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West 7 It is ironic that, although truth is said to be the one thing that sets us free, man can­ not stand too much of it. �Saints to be destroyed? It is difficult to explain, but it is just that. No rhetorical embellishment, no political clap-trap, no professional casuistry, just the truth—the kind of truth the child spoke when he witnessed the proud and pompous emperor strutting naked before his cowardly subjects: “The emperor has no clothes." “If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to be destroyed?" The answer Is “Nothing” of course! Nothing of real human value is left to be destroyed because all other human rights and values are derived from and therefore dependent upon the right to live. It was not accidental that Thomas Jeffer­ son. in the Declaration of Independence. declared our first inalienable right, derived from our common human nature, to be the right to life: “We hold these truths to be selfevident. that all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights: that among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Once wc deny our first inalienable right, the right to life, all other derivative and dependent rights, such as liberty and the pursuit of happiness, fall like so many dominoes. Amidst the sound of crashing dominoes, a particular woman stands up. A frail Albanian nun who has spent her life caring for the unwashed and unloved of the world and has rescued countless abandoned babies from the garbage heaps of Calcutta says to us: “If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to be destroyed?" Her question points to a truth which “serves to magnify our essential emptiness and sends it to the stars." In response to such truths, we kill our saints. "On Why We Kill our Saints" was first printed in The Shakespeherian Rag, Summer 1990: reprinted here by permission. Chemical by Floyd Kelly As chemistry involves mathe­ matical ability, quantitative reason­ ing and spatial perception and concerns the invisible, i.e. is somewhat abstract, it is seldom an easy course for a student. This is often reaffirmed with vigor by nurses, x-ray technicians and such when they find out they are with a college chemistry teacher. Once the word is out, the typical response is "Oh yuck, that was one of my worst subjects!" Well, chemistry must be learned and understood, so we can’t cut many corners or simplify very much, but I do sometimes inject any chemical humor I can. Sadly, there isn't very much of it. I remember an old {as water) story about a road-killed rabbit who was brought back to life by application of hare restorer. It is always hard to compete with biological courses as their content, visual aids and even humor are far more appealing than ours. Twins are womb mates. Clones are cell mates. You can tell a male from a female ameba by looking in its genes. Those geneticists are always cloning around. Who needs hare-raising stories. We chemists can't empa­ thize with the balloon vendor whose business was so good he couldn't keep up with inflation. There is, however, some humor to be offered by far-sided chemical structures and formulas as shown on the adjoining page. As they say about having "to have been there." many are funnier if you have taken the course. You are invited to do so! A slightly different version of this article appeared in Northwest Science News 6:2 lJune. 1990). Northwest Science News (s published by the Physical Science Diulslon. Northwest Community College. Powell, Wyoming. 8 ANSWERS* 1. paradise 2. a metaphor 3. a metaphysician 4. a paradox 5. a paramedic 6. an orthodontist 7. the ether bunny 8. isopropyl people ether 9. psychohexane 10. mercedes benzene 11. It’s amino world 12. a ferrous wheel 13. a formyl invitation Floyd W. Kelly teaches chemistry. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Idaho and has been at Casper College for twentytwo years. �*To help with 1-6: the arrangement of two groups on a ring are designated with the following prefixes: Humor ORTHO 9 META �by Mike Kent t e r Sweating in the hot July sun and lugging 100-pound slabs of rock on your own campus usually won’t appeal to your prototypical college instructor, but when you need a summer Job, manual labor is better than temporary unem­ ployment. a c i n Bob Moenkhaus and John Schroer spent many a summer doing just that. Their institution. Casper College, did not offer summer classes during their first several years as faculty, so they opted to take jobs as part of an ongoing campus­ terracing project. Little did they realize that their contri­ butions would help leave a lasting impression on this mountainside campus in central Wyoming. Today, the more than four miles of hand-laid stone-wall terracing represent this school’s most distinguishable feature. Casper College, a two-year school, grew with the community during the boom years of the 1970s and early 1980s in oil­ rich Wyoming. The only way for the college to grow was to add buildings going toward Casper Mountain. “When this site was picked, I don’t think anyone anticipated that it would stretch back (toward the mountain) as far as it has,’’ said Moenkhaus, who currently chairs the school’s Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences. The problem, of course, was that the college had to carve out building sites along hilly terrain. Consequently, the terracing project had to be undertaken, Moenkhaus said, for a threefold purpose — preventing erosion, allowing easier landscaping and adding aesthetic value. Casper College’s original facilities consisted of what’s now the Liesinger Administration Building and the Saunders Science Building — built during the middle 1950s and early 1960s — on a 30-acre tract. The city and state helped the college acquire another 175 acres a few years later. By the middle 1960s. several buildings t h e c a m P u s "Terracing the Campus" has also been submitted to American School and University. 10 were being added — and terracing became essential. The college hired outside contractors to do the initial stages of terracing, but by the early 1970s several faculty were hired to do the work. Retired CC basketball coach Swede Erickson and his assistant. Bin Graefe, led the effort to resume the terracing project that had started a few years earlier but was discontinued after the contractors left town. “The other guys on the faculty wanted work, and they (college administration) approached us. and we said, ‘Sure, we’ll try it,’ ’’ said Erickson, now the executive director of the Casper College Founda­ tion. Moenkhaus and Schroer, along with retired faculty member Cliff Pomeroy, spent several summers on the project. Among the others involved were Erickson and current faculty members David Cherry. Larry Lofgren and Abe Steward. Other than watching the contractors lay the stone, the faculty had no experience in terracing. Schroer said. “It was hard work especially after teaching all year and getting out of shape. It was a good way to get back into shape, and it made you look forward to teaching again in the fall.” The day began at 6 a.m.. and the faculty usually finished by 2:30 p.m. to avoid the extreme heat, according to Schroer, a physics instructor. During the first few summers the faculty used “very little” mechanical equipment. Schroer said, because it wasn’t needed. Then as more rock was being delivered to the campus — as much as 150 tons a summer — frontloaders and other mechanical equipment were brought in. Three kinds of rock were used: “basers,” blocks that weighed as much as 100 pounds each, that were placed at Michael J. Kent teaches journalism. He holds an M.S. from Virginia Com­ monwealth Univer­ sity and has been at Casper College two years. �the bottom of the wall; “builders,” flat slabs that weighed 15-30 pounds each, that were stacked on the base; and "cap rock.” large, flat slabs weighing as much as 150 pounds, that were placed at the top of the wall. Moenkhaus explained, “You’d trench out a flat area about two feet wide, make it level and put in the base rock. As you’d build up, you’d fill in behind it (with dirt). A lot of shovel work was involved.” The first few summers the college used rock from local quarries, but the rock was porous and was susceptible to crumbling, Moenkhaus said. During the latter stages of the project, the college imported Colorado rock, which is smoother and less porous. During the last few summers projects have been limited to areas of need as opposed to a concerted effort to add terraces campuswide, according to Willie Zimmer, the college’s grounds/ maintenance supervisor. Budget con­ straints also have hampered main­ tenance to existing sections of terrace, and Zimmer said this will become a major concern during the next few years. If the college does decide to accelerate terrace construction, don’t expect Moenkhaus and Schroer to be involved in any revived effort. Both said they will step aside to let others become involved. Yet, they have few regrets about those . ............... long, hot summers on the rock crew. Schroer said, “I’ve always been proud of having had a hand in building those walls. Some of these professors (who visit Casper College) are not expecting teachers here to be involved in that kind of labor in the summertime.” Moenkhaus added, “I’ve done my share. Summer school pays a lot better, and it’s a lot easier.” JOHN SCHROER. BOB MOENK­ HAUS, AND CLIFF POMEROY take a .break from laying rock walls in the days when they worked on campus con­ struction. ' Saturday Classes by Carolyn Logan For students and faculty. Saturday classes can be enjoyable and productive. One good example at Casper College is Carolyn Logan’s Nineteenth Century American Women Writers class which met from 9 a.m, to noon for ten Saturdays in spring semesters 1987 and 1990. Scheduling a class for Saturday mornings gives students who have full day schedules of classes or who work and cannot take day classes during the week an option other than evening classes. Students find Saturday mornings, especially during winter months, a good time for class. And planning a course for Saturday avoids overcrowding an already busy evening school schedule. Enrollment in the Saturday classes was comparable to the average enrollments for literature courses traditionally offered in spring semester. In 1987. 14 students enrolled in Nineteenth Century American Women Writers, and 10 enrolled in 1990. The Nineteenth Century American Women Writers course is a two credit course requiring thirty hours of class time which Logan chose to condense into ten meetings to finish the class well before the semester ended, giving further flexibility to the non-traditional scheduling and providing a productive block of time for discussion. Meeting once a week gave students time to prepare. Meeting on Saturdays gave the class a sense of doing something special, and the members have quickly formed into cohesive discussion groups. "Saturday SchcduUng" has also been submitted to AACJC Times. 11 Carolyn Logan teaches English courses. She holds an M-A. from the University of Wyom­ ing and has been at Casper College for twenty-four years. �Faculty Profile: by Arlene Larson projects. Liz remembers particularly David Redfield in science: Darrell Marks from the geology department: a magistrate judge who teaches business law; and Leon Powers, who reported on his study of owls in the Idaho area. Hearing such reports is important because it builds in the regents a sense of pride in the college. And that pride enhances her own teaching. Liz says she returns from each regents’ meeting "psyched up,” thinking, "maybe as a teacher I could give more.” After evaluating a college from the viewpoint of a regent. Liz believes that excellence is based on the mind-set of the faculty. Many teachers begin working at a church college because they feel called to do so: in spite of relatively low salaries, many stay at NNC because of their sense of achievement. "Excellence does not come because of an administrator’s edict: rather it comes from faculty who want to be known, and who want to attract and to influence students.” That understanding, too. reflects on her job. "I realize.” she says, "that if we are to have excellence at Casper College, my courses must contribute to that excellence.” In her two roles, Liz sees teaching from different perspectives: she also gets a chance to see higher education from a wider angle than do most people. There are two obvious differences in the colleges. CC is larger; NNC has approximately one thousand to eleven hundred students and a faculty of ninety-five. CC is financed by local taxes and state funding. Money for NNC comes from tuition and from education budgets of each Nazarene Church in the Northwest Area. A third important difference is in the governance structure of the colleges, Liz contrasts the NNC Board of Regents to Casper College District Board by pointing out that the CC board is elected by the public, is smaller, and meets more frequently for shorter meetings. Because the constituencies are different, the board members for CC are probably less well known to their electorate than the NNC regents A standing joke among teachers is one about the student who says, in honest surprise, “I never thought about your living in a house.” Teachers do not hang in the supply closet over the weekend. But even among ourselves, in a faculty of 170 we often know the name but not the face: the discipline, but not the person. Because every faculty member has an individual perspective on the job, the students, and the college, “Faculty Profile” introduces one Casper College teacher as more than a face in the college directory. In this issue meet Liz Ott. Liz teaches in the Division of Business at Casper College; she also has a role outside the classroom that allows her to see higher education from a perspective that few teachers enjoy: she is a member of the Board of Regents for Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho. By being a regent, she has learned more about being a teacher. One of the things she learned has to do with money. Her regent’s experience with the funding limits at NNC has given her a more realistic view of spending issues at CC than most teachers have. "Teachers want the college to buy whatever will help them teach well; regents must be aware of the financial limits on the college.” she says. "As a teacher I want what is best for faculty: by being on the Board of Regents, I also see the needs of administrators. ” When presented with a proposal, regents ask questions such as "Do you have a funding source? Can you tap government grants or private endowments? Or do you expect your money to be taken from some other area of the college?” Knowing those questions, she now puts in a budget request to her division at CC aware that her request is competing with others for a finite amount of money. Her regent's experience has also given her a sharper appreciation of the importance of teaching. At each two-day Board of Regents meeting, a faculty member from NNC gives a half hour presentation on current studies and 12 �LIZ with Peter, Seth, and Stephanie Jo. are to theirs. While the CC board is elected by all the voters of the district, the NNC board is elected through the church’s representative governance structure. Local churches make up a district and several districts comprise an area. Each area in the United States supports a college. Delegates from local churches meeting in district assembly elect from their number representatives to the board of regents for their area college. First Church of the Nazarene in Casper, where Liz is a member, belongs to a district with other churches in Wyoming and Montana. That district assembly, of about 150 persons, elected Liz its lay representative on the Board of Regents for Northwest College. She is in the second year of her second three-year term. The CC board includes seven members, all from within the college district; the NNC board consists of about forty persons, including an equal number of ordained elders and lay persons, plus the district superintendents. They come from districts in a seven-state area. While the CC board meets for an evening once a month, the NNC regents meet twice a year for two days at a time. Because it is a larger board, meeting less frequently, Liz says, the NNC board probably relies more heavily than the CC board on its committee structure. Liz currently serves on the finance committee, a group of about twelve persons, about half of whom are CPAs. During her tenure, the college established a Foundation to raise endowments for the college. Their goal is to raise three and a half million dollars; to achieve that goal, they hired a consultant to help with a fund drive. The Foundation has naturally been one of the major interests of the finance committee, and Liz served as fund raiser for her district. In spite of the differences in the boards and in the schools, the governing boards of the two institutions do play similar roles. Like the CC board. NNC’s is a policy-making body. The college has a chief executive officer. Dr. Gordon Wetmore, who makes recommenda­ tions for college practices to the regents, and, Liz says, if the suggestions are carefully researched and supported, the regents are likely to concur. On the recommendations of the vice president for business, the regents approve tuition charges and policies. One issue common to most college boards is how to make budgets stretch to cover every­ thing. Because they never do, NNC tries to con­ centrate in areas of excellence, such as their science and their elementary education programs. Striving for excellence in a limited number of programs sometimes means pruning other programs, but doing so without hurting the college as a whole. (continued on page 24) 13 �Mn an effort to increase the enrollment of engineers at the college level, the University of Wyoming and the seven Wyoming community colleges have renewed junior high school recruiting trips throughout much of the state. The trips were common in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, but discontinued in recent years because of budget restraints. They have been renewed in an effort again to help students make informed choices in their high school quite varied. More advanced students show more interest and ask more questions: inter­ mediate students’ interest may fade somewhat when require­ ments are presented, but rekindle when monetary rewards are mentioned. James Best, an engineering instructor at Casper Community College, has participated in the visits. He says that the trips throughout the state may not increase the number of engineering majors, but he believes they improve the quality of preparation of the mass and its relationship with the rate of rotation of the rolling object. Then a ring and a disc are released at the same time and from the same position on an inclined plane to show that they do not reach the bottom at the same time. The demonstra­ tion verifies or refutes the majority opinion of the students on which would reach the bottom first. The instruc­ tors discuss the demonstration and its relationship to the work of an engineer. The students also see a film in which several students and Engineering College Prep By Paul Marquard curricula. During the spring semester, a representative from the en­ gineering department at the University of Wyoming and an engineering instructor from one of the community colleges, visit junior high schools to give a presentation on the benefits and requirements of being an engineer and training for this career at the state institutions. The presentations occur during the normal math periods of the ninth grade students and the visitors see perhaps 150 students a day. A realistic success number would be about two percent, and a good target number would be about four or five percent of students who attend. Student interest is. of course. Paul «l. Marqoard teaches physics. He holds an M.S. from the University of Nebraska and has been at Casper College five years. majors at his college. The junior high schools, and particularly the ninth grade, are targeted because the students are at an early stage in their education. Preparation for engineering must begin at this time. Students need four years of mathematics, preferably through a second year of algebra and trigonometry. They are also encouraged to take four years of science, including chemistry and physics. Education in the social sciences and the humanities is also emphasized, though specific courses are not dictated. Even tenth graders may already be behind this curriculum if they have not planned ahead. The presentation includes a demonstration of a physical problem of interest to an engineer or science major. In an attempt to teach the students to reason out results, the instruc­ tors give an explanation of mass and the distribution of This article has also been submitted to AACJC Times. 14 graduate engineers are inter­ viewed to get their perspec­ tives. The floor is open to questions at the end of the hour. Best has observed one of the weaknesses in recruiting for engineers in the society. He has talked with ninth grade girls in geometry classes who are capable, enthusiastic, and questioning students: however fewer than ten percent of the engineering students in colleges in Wyoming and else­ where are women. One of the questions to be addressed is what happens between ninth grade and college to discourage women from a career for which they seem to be suited. Other challenges that the recruiters have encountered and are still working to meet include keep­ ing the film current to increase its appeal, providing brochures that will find their way into the students’ homes instead of being discarded, designing a demonstration that is simple, interesting. and also mathematically easy to discuss — one with flash and allure. �Mule Deer that share our campus by Donna Davis It was three o’clock in the afternoon during Christmas break in 1986 and I was cleaning up odds and ends in my office so I too could leave for the holiday. The phone rang. A colleague’s excited voice announced that there were some deer on the lawn between the library and the student center: did I want to get some pictures? I grabbed a camera bag and hurried to the location where I was able to expose a couple rolls of black and white film and a roll of slides before the deer moved out of shooting range. That was my first year as full time staff photographer at Casper Community College, but since that day I have received many similar phone calls and had lots of opportunities to photograph the seemingly resident deer herd that share the campus with us. CALMLY RESTING in front of the college library, these deer have eaten their fill for the moment. This photo leaves itself open for a variety of comment, and even became a popular post card. 15 �A CURIOUS DOE eyes the camera with caution, but not a lot of fear. Some of the deer with this herd are second and third generation fawns born right here on campus in the cool shade of the Russian olive grove near the life science building. SOMETIMES AN IRREGULAR BUCK can be spotted sunning on a back hillside or strolling through the crosswalks. Dried yucca seed pods and the tiny branches of the many fruit trees are some of the cuisine favorites that draw the deer to our campus. 16 �STUDENTS AT CASPER COLLEGE never know when they may be treated to a close encounter as they make their way from class to class. THE FIVE MILES of red rock terraces on the Casper College campus offer the deer warm sunny spots in winter and cool shady havens in summer. Donna Davis is the college photogra­ pher. She holds an A.A. from Casper College and has been working at the col­ lege for six years. �Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 1. Illustrates Mertensia oblongifolia var. nevadensis« No hairs in corolla tube or on leaves. Chromosome number of 24. Figure 2. M. oblongifolia var. oblongifolia and var. amoena. Hairs present in corolla tube and on the leaves. Chromosome number of 48. Figure 3. M. oreophila. No hairs in corolla tube or on leaves. The plant is endemic to the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Chromosome number of 24. Figure 3. 18 �Bluebells by James Milek In February 1988, Dr. James Milek completed his doctoral thesis. In April 1991, he presented an oral summary of his work to the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science at their meeting in Laramie. An abstract of the thesis appeared in the April, 1990, edition of The Journal of the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science: *40 “A Genetic and Taxonomic Study of Mertensia Oreophila and Three Varieties of Mertensia Oblongifolia (Boraginaceae) in Wyoming and Southern Montana.” James A. Milek, Casper College, and William E. Harmon, University of Northern Colorado. Because the thesis and the presentation were highly technical. Dr. Milek has summarized his work in a shorter version for readers of Ideas. In April, 1990.1 presented the results of my doctoral research to the ColoradoWyoming Academy of Science in Laramie. My presentation dealt with the research that I had done in Wyoming and Southern Montana on the taxonomy of three varieties of Mertensia oblongifolia and a separate species M. oreophila. These species and varieties belong to a group of plants commonly called blue­ bells. Plant taxonomists have found these species and varieties to be difficult to distinguish from one another and this has caused considerable confusion in the taxonomic keys. My objective was to study these species and varieties and to determine their genetic and taxonomic relationships. This was done by first studying their chromosome numbers. Once this was determined, I tried to find unique mor­ phological features that correlated with the chromosome numbers. Previous re­ searchers had determined that all of the Mertensia species studied thus far had a chromosome number of 24. My research discovered that M. oblongifolia var. oblongifolia and var. amoena had chromosome numbers of 48. Mertensia oblongifolia var. nevadensis and M. oreophila had chromosome numbers of 24. These facts were significant because there is considerable data that supports the theory that, if the chromosome number doubles as it has here, the plants with the chromosome number of 48 are genetically isolated from those with the chromosome number of 24. If they are genetically isolated, they are probably different species and the variety category is no longer a valid classification. Another significant fact is that the characters of hairs in the corolla tube (flower) and hairs on the leaves correlates with the 48 chromosomes, and the absence of hairs correlates with the chromosome number of 24. This separates var. nevadensis from the other two varieties and suggests that it is a separate and distinct species from the varieties oblongifolia and amoena. This research also substantiated an earlier theory that M. oreophila was a distinct species from the similar species M. oblongifolia var. nevadensis. My research confirmed that this species is not only a distinct species but is also endemic to the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. An endemic species is found only in that one area and no where else in the world. I am presently planning additional research projects with botanists from Colorado. Montana, and Wyoming. We hope to clarify some more genetic relationships and to work on the processes involved in changing the classification of these plants. 19 Janet A. Milek teaches btology and genetics. He holds a D.A. from the Uni­ versity of Northern Colorado and has been at Casper Col­ lege twenty-four years. �discovery and exploration in the nineteenth century west of the Mississippi River. Currently the collection contains over 4,200 monographs. The subject headings range from “Acculturation” (of the Blackfeet Indians) to “Zoology. Yellowstone Park.” Between A and Z there is much to be found on a variety of subjects including George Armstrong Custer, the fur trade. Indian tribes. Oregon Trail, outlaws, and Wyoming communities and county histories. The monographs represent a variety of sizes, ages and values. The smallest book in the collec­ tion is the two by three inch Charter of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming. Maximilian's Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-34, at 21 by 16 inches, is the largest. The original edition is one of the earlier books published about the west, though the oldest book in the collection is Henry M. Bracken­ ridge’s Journal of a Voyage Up the River Missouri Performed in 1811. The library has the second edition of this book which was printed in 1816. Not only is this the oldest book in the collection, but it is also one of the most valuable. The value of a book is determined by a variety of factors, and age is not always one of them. Essentially a book must have intrinsic importance in order to create consumer demand which in turn can cause the demand for the book to be greater than the supply. Intrinsic importance can be based upon the topic, the illustrations, and whether the original work was suppressed. Other factors which determine the value of a book are special bindings or printing processes, an innovative design and autographs or inscriptions by the author. One book published in Wyoming in 1894 had its value increased because of the suppression that followed its publication. In 1988, a first edition of Banditti of the Plains, or The Cattlemen’s Invasion of Wyoming in 1892 by Asa S. Mercer was valued at 82,500 by a rare book dealer. While Banditti of the Plains may not be considered an objective account of the Johnson County War because Mercer was angered by the apparent miscarriage ofjustice in Johnson County, it did not deserve its Special Collections at cortege’s Goodstein Library by Jamie Ring Did the Overland stage ever go through Casper? Where were the first Casper College classes held? What is the earliest date on a map in the collection? Who was the first woman to be Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives? Do you have a photograph of a “cooster wagon”? The answers are yes; the third floor of N.C.H.S.; 1867; Verda James; yes. These answers and more can be found in Special Collections at the Goodstein Foundation Library which contains materials about Wyoming. Natrona County and Casper. Because members of the public are welcome to use the library, materials in the Special Collection are available to all residents. The library will issue a free borrower’s card to anyone who lives in the district, but. because the collection includes out-of-print material, its use is restricted to the library unless there are duplicates in the circulating collection. Sometimes the material can be easily photocopied in the library. Primarily the materials are historical, but the collection also contains recent materials such as the 1989 Wyoming Data Handbook and the Casper Urban System Study. Major Street, and Highway System Report. 1989. Additionally, the collection contains materials in which a significant portion is related to or similar to the experiences of people in Wyoming. Thus, there are books which contain information on ranch life in Montana. Indian wars in South Dakota, military life in the Rocky Mountain west and Jamie Ring is the Wyoming Collection Specialist at Good­ stein Library. She holds a B.S. from Montana State Uni­ versity and has been at Casper College for eleven years. 20 �subsequent fate. Following its publication, Mercer was jailed and charged with sending obscene matter through the mail. A court order commanded that all plates and all copies remaining in the publisher’s hand be destroyed. Later editions of this book have enjoyed brisk sales, but none of these are as valuable as the ones which were not burned in 1894. Special Collections does not contain a large number of rare books, but it does have books that are irreplaceable. In some instances these publications are one of a kind, and in other cases only a limited number of books of a certain title were published and over the years MONUMENT across from present day courthouse, Casper. the books have become scarce and Chicago and NW depot and old Sears in background. (Webb difficult to replace although their Historical Collection, Casper College Library.) intrinsic value outside of Wyoming may not be very great. Along with scarce books, the collection has some unusual books. Jack Gage wrote a book about the Johnson County Invasion in which he presented both sides of the dispute. He did this by giving the book two titles. Opening the book one way. the reader finds an account of the invasion entitled. The Johnson County War Is a Pack of Lies; turning the book over and opening it from the other end. the reader finds the title The Johnson County War Ain’t a Pack of Lies. Another unusual book is the eight and one-half by thirteen inch reproduction of The Official Record of a Court of Inquiry Convened at Chicago, Illinois, January 13, 1879 by the President of the THESE MEN eire believed to be the Bothwells, a Natrona County family. (Bob David Collection, Casper College Library.) United States upon the Request of Major Marcus A. Reno, 7th U.S. Cavalry to Investigate His Conduct at the Battle of the Little Big Hom, June Washington, D.C.—and one book co-authored by 25-26, 1876. Only 125 copies of this official Dick and Lynne Cheney entitled. Kings of the record were reproduced by W. A. Graham, noted Hill, Power and Personality in the House of Custer authority. Nolie Mumey wrote a book Representatives. about the Pony Express and to accompany this The collection contains fascinating titles that book he had a facsimile of the leather bound will intrigue patrons with a variety of interests. Bible carried by all Pony Express riders Titles such as Dog Soldiers, Bear Men and reproduced. The small Bible was easily carried Buffalo Women and Few Clothes and Plenty by the riders during their dashing rides from St. Horse conjure up visions not always associated Jo. to Sacramento. Finally while they are not (continued on page 23) unique or unusual, the collection contains two books by Lynne Cheney—one is historical fiction This article appeared in the March 2. 1991. issue of the Casper set in the Cheyenne area before the turn of the Journal under the headline "Western history buffs can lose selves in CC library. " century and the other is a contemporary novel of 21 �Advertising Project by Gary M. Donnelly Suggestion: Do not wait to get started on this project. It will take time to do an adequate job. While working in groups you will also learn something about group dynamics and some of the problems in trying to get anything done in a group, especially a project of this size. If you as a group feel that a member or members of your group are not fulfilling their part or portion of the workload the following procedure will be followed. The group and the instructor will meet privately and come to a decision as to what will be done. This project will constitute a large portion of your grade, so it is the best policy for all concerned to be honest and straightforward with each other from the very beginning. iA project developed by Gary Donnelly for his advertising course is scheduled to appear in the 1991 summer edition of Great Ideas for Teach­ ing Marketings You will develop an advertising campaign for a downtown business, for a specific time period and a specific budget. Your group will contact a business and get the time period the campaign will run and the budget and you must stay within the budget. Specific Guidelines: (These must be included somewhere in the project.) 1. Established written goals for the campaign. 2. Define the market segment your campaign will appeal to and why. 3. Select the media you will use and explain why. 4. Develop sample ads for the chosen media and explain each ad and commercial in detail regarding the message you are trying to get across and to whom. Also, include the cost of each ad and commercial and state the time period they will run. 5. Develop an evaluation method for determining if the campaign was successful if your campaign gets used. Be creative and include anything else in the campaign which you think will make the campaign successful. You may utilize any outside resources that you can find. This project is your final examination, so do a complete and thorough job. The project will be graded by your instructor and the manager of the business for whom the project is developed. This will give you the fairest and most objective grading possible. The business will be able to keep the project if they choose and use any or all of the project for their own advertising. The project is required for you to get actual hands-on experience in developing advertising and experience the problems of working within budget limitations and still get the maximum amount of return from the advertising dollar spent. This project can give you the best insight possible into retail advertising. Cooperating Business: 1. Students are to develop an advertising package (campaign) for you for a period of time chosen by you. They will need a realistic budget from which to work. 2. The students may need to get some additional information about the store, peak seasons, etc., possibly even some ideas as to last year’s expenditures for the same period of time. 3. The students should be given only basic information, as they are the ones who must learn to develop advertising. 4. You will be involved in grading the project when it is completed. The project is the students’ final exam. 5. You may keep the project when it is completed and use any ideas, ads, or commercials that were developed in the advertising package. In the past, grading has posed somewhat of a problem for cooperating businesses. The Gary M. Donnelly teaches business courses. He holds an M.Ed. from the Uni­ versity of Idaho and has been at Casper College ten years. 22 �Special Collection (continuedfrom page 21) individuals—for instance George Mitchell, Casper’s first mayor and Matt Campfield, the first black barber in Casper who homesteaded the land previously occupied by Fort Caspar—and groups such as the Casper Fire Department resplendent in their new uniforms of white trousers, blue shirts with red collars, and red belts. Events such as the 1904 Industrial Convention and Fourth of July celebrations were captured by photographers and saved for later generations. All of the photos in the collection are indexed by proper names and subject headings for easier access by researchers. Patrons are also welcome to browse the collection. There are eleven archival collections including Casper College materials in Special Collections. The most significant of these collections is the Robert David Historical Collection. There is much primary source material about the Casper area and Wyoming in this collection. Another facet of the David Collection is historical maps. The oldest map Is a reproduction of a map dated 1867 and titled “U.S. War Department Map of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers and Their Tributaries Explored by Capt. W. F. Raynolds. Topographical Engineers and 1st Lieut. H. E. Maynadier. 10th Infantry. Assistant, 1859-60.” “Map of the Military Department of the Platte. Wyoming, 1874,” is another map that provides history buffs with vital information. Other collections are smaller than David’s, but they contain useful materials about the Casper vicinity dating back to 1889. Special Collections at the Goodstein Foundation Library contains an enormous amount of interesting information about Wyoming and the West. Students, community patrons and history buffs will find answers to many questions in these holdings and they will find many hours of enjoyment as they peruse the various collections. with life on the frontier. Manual for the Modern Day Mountain Man or How To Make and Use the Atlatl; the Ancient Weapon of the Ice Age Hunters would help us all step back in time and experience life in an age without necessities and conveniences we think so important. No Life For A Lady and Hell on Horses and Women lead one to think that the frontier was no place for women. On the other hand such titles as A Bride Goes West and Letters of a Woman Homesteader make us realize that women did successfully settle on the frontier. And finally if one is seeking mirth in the collection the following titles should help: The Damned Elk ’Et My Broom; Baled Hay, a Drier Book Than Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”; A Light Hearted Tour of the West on a Search for the Two Story Outhouse. T he Special Collections photograph collection contains over 2,500 historical photos primarily of Casper and Natrona County. Wyoming. One of the oldest photos is an 1890 photo of Center Street in Casper complete with sagebrush in the street. There are pictures of Advertising Project following are the evaluation: Poor suggested criteria for Fair Aver. Above Aver. Excel. Was the project well planned? Were the ads and copy well done? Did the students use good judgment? Were the objectives of the project realist­ ic and feasible? Would you use the advertising? Your cooperation with this is appreciated by the students, the college, and more so by the instructor. It allows me to provide the students with a learning experience that cannot be achieved in the classroom alone. 23 �Since teaching at CC. she has kept a small tax practice of her own in order to keep current with tax laws and accounting practices. To maintain her CPA. she must complete 40 CEUs (continuing education units) per year. Liz is married to Steve Ott, who is also an accountant. They have three children. Peter. 6. Stephanie Jo. 4, and Seth. 2. All facets of her life come to bear on Liz's role as teacher. For two years, she has been working an all-evening schedule, with two courses each evening and office hours before and after the class meetings. In the evening classes, most of her students are returning students, with whom she enjoys working. She says she likes the schedule, at least for a few semesters while her children are young. Because of her work background, she has the perspective of a CPA even in the way she teaches her business courses. Those courses usually include Principals of Accounting I and II, Management, and Accounting 151. which concentrates on using Lotus 1-2-3 for accounting. “I think that my reputation is that I am ‘hard core' in my subject,” Liz says, “but I believe that the most important part of teaching is caring about each student as an individual. "I believe that the credibility of the individual teacher determines how well students respond and, in some instances, encourages students to come for help. For that reason I go ahead and speak up. telling my students something about my values, so they will see me not as just a lecturer but as an individual human being. "What I am enjoying most about teaching right now is investing my life in the lives of students.” After teaching at CC for nine years. Liz now has former students who return to see her; in talking with them she realizes that the return on the investment often comes years later. After attending NNC and UW. Liz says that by teaching at CC she has come to appreciate what twoyear schools do best: the faculty maintain close contact with students. She believes that students remember teachers who care. (continuedfrom page 13) Liz’s interest in NNC goes even deeper than her current position as regent. It grows naturally from her background. Elizabeth Mosteller was born in the Cape Verde Islands, two hundred miles off west Africa, of parents who were missionaries for the Church of the Nazarene. She has two sisters, Virginia, three years older, and Kathleen, seven years older. She lived in Cape Verde until she was eight, when her parents moved to Brazil. There her father was Mission Director. Because her parents believed in living in the culture of their host country, they spoke Portuguese at home and it was Liz's first language. She was in college before she thought as easily in English as in Portuguese. Her early years included a variety of educational experiences. In Cape Verde, the Mostellers were the only American family in the immediate area and the girls took correspondence courses. In Brazil they lived near other missionaries so Liz attended the American school in Campinas. Sao Paulo, Brazil, through grade ten. The school provided instruction in two languages in dual courses. She finished the equivalent of an American high school education through the University of Nebraska extension division. Every four years, her parents returned to the United States for a year’s furlough; during those times, the children lived with their mother in Oregon City. Oregon, and attended school there while their father traveled throughout the country. Liz counts as many the advantages of her early years. The variety of school experiences was enriching. The population of Cape Verde was black and that of Brazil multicultural; consequently, she believes, she is not culturally biased in her judgments. Travel has broadened her horizons, giving her appreciation for practices other than those in the United States. As a result of all this, she can examine education from several points of view and she can examine business, especially international manage­ ment. from several perspectives. At eighteen, Liz returned to the United States to attend Northwest Nazarene College. She graduated with a B.A. in business administration, then earned an M.B.A. with a concentration in accounting from the University of Wyoming. After the necessary three years of experience, she became a CPA. She worked in Casper for Elmer Fox and Company arid for Macy and Associates. This article has also been submitted to The Messenger, the alumni publication of Northwest Nazarene College. Arlene Larson teaches English courses. She holds an M.A.T. from Colo­ rado College and has been at Casper Col­ lege for nineteen years. 24 �Women's Studies by Carolyn Logan Casper College has a women’s studies program which began fall semester. 1990. Over the past fifteen years. CC has had two or three courses with significant content on women, but there was no effort to build a program. In July. 1989. Carolyn Logan (English Department) and Nora Van Burgh (Library), with enthusiastic support from the Vice President for Instructional Services, began enlisting a committee of faculty interested in starting a women’s studies program. The committee became a thirteen member multi-disciplinary group of faculty from fine arts, business, English, psychology, biology, health arts and sciences, anthropology, law. library, and counselling. Faculty on the committee redesigned existing courses or designed new courses for the program. Four existing courses redesigned to be taught from a feminist perspective and/or with significant content about women are Business Management. Freshman Composition I and II, and Literature of the American West. Nineteenth Century American Women Writers, the pilot course for the program, was offered in spring, 1990. New courses are Women in Art. Women in Music, Issues of Women’s Health, and Introduction to Women’s Studies. Those new courses were accepted by the academic departments, and by the committee of deans and division chairs in April, 1990. Psychology of Women and other new courses are being proposed in the 1990-91 academic term. For fall semester. 1990, the Women’s Studies Program offered Introduction to Women’s Studies, Freshman Composi­ tion. Issues of Women’s Health, and Business Management. For spring semester, the program added Women in Art. Other courses will be added to the schedule in later semesters. The Women’s Studies major is a liberal arts option. Students will take the introductory women’s studies course. Women in Art or Women in Music, Psychology of Women, the designated sections of freshman composition, and either of the literature courses in women’s studies; they will be advised to take Issues of Women’s Health and Business Management, depending on their secondary interests. In April, 1990, Casper College hosted Wyoming’s first annual articulation conference on women’s studies. Partici­ pating faculty from Casper College, and Carolyn Logan the University of Wyoming met for two leaches Bnglish days to discuss course content, transfer of courses. She holds M.A. from lhe credit, and plans for the next year’s an University of Wyom­ meetings at Casper College. ing and has been at Although other community colleges in Casper College for Wyoming offer one or two courses in twenty-four years. women’s studies, and the University of Wyoming offers a minor, Casper College is the first community college in the state to have a women’s studies program. Faculty participating in the program or serving on the committee are Deborah Bauert, Dr. Ruth Doyle, Dr. Julie Horsch, Mary Kubichek, Arlene Larson, Dr. Barbara Mueller. Barbara Ochiltree. Dr. Bonnie Phillips, Linda Ryan. Cheryl Wrasper. and Logan. Student members of the committee are Margaret Randall and COMMITTEE: Karen Ware, This article appeared tn the Spring 1991 Issue of NWSAction, a publication of the National Women's Studies Association. 25 Doyle. Wrasper, Logan, Ryan. Larson, Mueller, and Phillips. �Standards in the Profession: A Community College Case Study by Lloyd Agte. Skip Gillum. Helon Raines, Jackie Valdez^ The 1989 CCCC statement on writing teacher load recommendations became for the Casper College English Department a classic example of irony. While the rest of the profession seemed to be moving forward in identifying and promoting responsible teaching loads, we soon would be required to teach additional writing at a college in the state where the Wyoming Conference Resolution was conceived. Although our teaching duties at Casper College always have exceeded the conditions described in the standards statement, our four-plus-four course load (twenty-five students per class) came reasonably close to the recommendations. In addition, we were fully aware our load was less than that in five of our sister institutions in Wyoming and that we with one other community college stood as something of a buffer against the erosion of load standards. However, under the most favorable interpretation of the new campus­ wide load policy at Casper College, we would be teaching at least twenty-seven hours per year. Our dismay was palpable as we saw ourselves being moved further from the recommendations in the statement as well as from the reasonable loads we had maintained for over twenty years. In addition, these events forced us to reassess our publicly stated beliefs in the value of two-year colleges.In particular, we were forced to question whether our English Department could continue to offer the exceptional writing program on which we prided ourselves. Some of the tensions generated between hope for progress in a global sphere and dismay over regression at the local level found temporary release in our opportunity to organize a panel on load issues for the first meeting of the Western Conference on Two-Year Colleges. Perhaps the story we presented at Salt Lake City in October 1990 will provide ammunition for others in the continuing war to create the conditions for teachers of writing that allow us to provide environments where students can learn effectively. recent developments at Casper College where the panelists teach. Our institution is a comprehensive two-year college founded in 1945. Since 1986 our campus has housed an upper-division degree granting program, the University of Wyoming/Casper College Center. The two institutions. Casper College and the upper level UW/CC Center are on the same campus which is located in Casper, population 50.000. Head­ count for the two institutions was 7.082 in fall semester, 1990, with Casper College full-time equivalency (FTES) of 3.500 and University of Wyoming/Casper College FTE about 500. In the spring of 1989. the Casper College English De­ partment thought we had staved off the most recent attack on the discrepancy between the load carried by English faculty and the load normally carried by the rest of the college. However, in fall of 1990. we learned that by the next year we would be expected to teach more writing students. At professional meetings in 1989 and 1990, I discussed our concerns with Utah colleagues, Liz Nist and Ron Severson, who then invited me to participate in planning a conference for the NCTE Western Conference of Two-Year Colleges. Brainstorming ideas for the meeting, we gravitated to the effects of standards statements on community colleges and decided that this was a good topic for the conference to address. The purpose of this panel then is not to whine, since we are well aware that even our increased teaching load at Casper College will give us fewer students than many community college writing instructors presently have. We also will avoid shouting, or. what might be our most honest response, killing the nearest administrator, particularly since the CC Vice-President of Instruction Skip Gillum is with us. While we are not here to whine, shout, or kill, we are here to tell our particular story in the context of the continuing conversation on standards. We hope that a review of development of the CCC Standards Statements, of Casper College load policy history, as well as our suggestions for future action based on our past experience, may generate more than dialogue. We hope that by the end of the day the Western Conference will decide on a course of action for assisting in implementing standards for community colleges across the country, no matter how simple or limited that action may be. TEXT OF PANEL ON STANDARDS IN THE PROFESSION AND THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE EXPERIENCE AT THE WESTERN CONFERENCE FOR TWO YEAR COLLEGES, 1990, Salt Lake City Context for Panel Presentation (Helon Raines) Review of the History of the Wyoming Resolution and the Subsequent “ Statement of As a case history on load policy, we will review 26 �Principles and Standards for the Postsecon­ dary Teaching of Writing” (Jackie Valdez) seek a degree in English that she wept” (277). That student had a “galvanizing effect” on her audience (277). Although she was unnamed in the article. Susan Wyche-Smith since has become known to us through her articles and her presence at conferences. From the events at the Laramie Conference developed what became the Wyoming Conference Resolution which charged the Executive Committee of College Composition and Communication to speak to the needs of postsecondary teachers of writing. The result is the “Statement of Principles and Standards for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing.” the history of which follows. 1986: Resolution drafted. 1987: Resolution endorsed by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. A most enlightening history of what has come to be known as the Wyoming Conference Resolution may be found in the excellent article by Linda R. Robertson, Sharon Crowley, and Frank Lentricchia entitled “The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing.’’ which appeared in College English, March. 1987, (274-80). According to that account, the Wyoming Resolution grew out of a dramatic series of events that occurred during the June. 1986, Wyoming Conference on English. The theme of the conference was “Language and the Social Context.” In brief, the first of four major catalysts that led to the Resolution were James Moffett's remarks that writing teachers are responsible for helping students to recognize the freedom that comes with being able to express themselves (274). Robertson, Crowley, and Lentricchia write that a number of conferees “were struck with the irony” that those “charged” with empowering students were themselves powerless in speaking out about “the fundamentally unfair conditions under which we labor” (274). As a result, conversations regarding those “unfair conditions” ensued among conferees (275), conversations to which each teacher of writing could add his or her own particular, yet similar, experiences. The comments of James Slevin are a second element credited in the Robertson, Crowley, and Lentricchia article with focusing attention even more sharply on working conditions. Using information gathered by the Association of Departments of English. Slevin stated that “only forty percent of new English PhDs now find tenure-track positions” (Robertson, Crowley, and Lentricchia 275). The implication is that the remaining sixty percent provide an available pool of part-time or temporary labor (275-76). This situation, say the authors of the article, has been attributed to difficult economic conditions. Further, they point out, in the 197O’s projections of declining enrollments were reported. In fact, “. . . enrollments in colleges and universities increased by twenty to thirty percent between 1974 and 1984” (275). A third contributor to the growing agitation among conferees was James Sledd who spoke of “exploitation” in the very English departments decrying their own exploitation (276). He chastened English faculty with the remark that, if we sought evidence to disprove the notion that the study of the humanities promoted more humane conduct, we need look no further than the way we treated graduate students and part-time faculty in our own departments. (276-77) His remarks sparked a fourth and culminating event that brought the concerns to a climax—the impassioned speech of a graduate student who “challenged” the conference participants to address themselves to the issue of exploitation (277). In short, she implored them to do something. “So conditioned was she.” the authors write, “to keeping silent that her voice broke as she spoke: so frustrated was she by the conditions she had felt compelled to endure in order to Perhaps the story will provide ammunition for others in the continuing war to create the conditions for teachers of writing that allow us to provide environments where students can learn effectively. 1988: Resolution endorsed by the Executive Commitee of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. 1989: “Statement of Principles and Standards for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing” published by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the statement being accepted and approved for publication by the Executive Committee. 1990: “Statement” endorsed by the Modern Language Association. The Resolution charged the CCCC as follows: 1. To formulate, after appropriate consulta­ tions with post-secondary teachers of writing, professional standards and expectations for salary levels and working conditions of post-secondary teachers of writing. [This step has been taken.) 2. To establish a procedure for hearing grievances brought by post-secondary teachers of writing—either singly or collectively—against apparent institutional non-compliance with these standards and expectations. 3. To establish a procedure for acting upon a finding of non-compliance: specifically, to issue a letter of censure to an individual institution’s administration. Board of Regents or Trustees. State legislators (where pertinent), and to publicize the finding to the public-at-large, the educational community in general, and to our membership. (qtd. in Robertson, Crowley, Lentricchia. 278-279) While there is much in the “Statement” of value to all writing teachers, of immediate concern is the section entitled “Part-Two: Teaching Conditions Necessary for Quality Education.” If we compare this section with our own reality, too many of us find discrepancies. For example, this section recommends 20 as an appropriate number of students for “any 27 �writing class. Ideally, classes should be limited to 15.” Further, numbers of remedial and developmental students should be limited to 15 per section. An instructor should have no more than 60 writing students per term. 45 if the students are in developmental classes (335). The “Statement” continues, advocating writing centers, opportunities for faculty scholarship and growth, and. finally, office space and support services for all writing faculty (335-36). spirit of the load requirement while teaching four courses. In the fall of 1989. however, with a new administrator in a position called “Vice President of Instruction.” our previous agreement was at first unknown, and when finally found with all the requisite signatures, nullified. We were asked to teach four courses one semester and five the next for a twenty­ seven hour load. We were back to square one. In a rare display of complete unanimity, the English Department dug in its heels and said “read our lips—no more classes.” We were granted exception to the new load policy for the fall term to allow us time to address the issue again. We then drafted a proposal to the Deans and Chairs Committee requesting that writing courses, given the burden of correcting papers, be weighted as more than three hours, arguing that our marking sessions were equivalent to lab hours in a science course. Our lobbying of division chair colleagues to explain our Load Policy History in the Casper College English Department (Lloyd Agte) Casper College is structured into nine divisions with little departmental autonomy. Our department has thirteen English teachers and usually one or two parttime Instructors. The load policy at Casper College has. from the 195O’s until two years ago, been vaguely defined. While the faculty handbooks usually stated Lloyd Agte Skip Gillum Helon Raines that fifteen hours per semester was the normal fulltime load, in practice it varied greatly across departments. The English Department generally taught twelve hours. The exceptions were new faculty, who sometimes were assigned fifteen hours for a few semesters or until they began to grow fuzzy around the edges and their knees began to buckle. We sometimes heard, however, resentment from other departments because the English Department, whose major job was teaching freshman composition, had set their load at twelve hours. In 1988 a new president established a campus-wide operations policy: one of the first issues addressed was pay and load. The Faculty Senate recommended that divisions and departments should set their own load policies. This recommendation was ignored by the administration, and the load policy arrived at by a majority vote of the divisions set the normal class load at thirty hours with a three-hour possible adjustment by the appropriate division chair. The English Department completed a self-study on hours spent preparing, teaching, and grading writing courses and submitted a proposal that each hour of a writing course, because of the paper-grading load, be counted as 1.25 hours, making a normal three hour course worth 3.75 hours toward our load requirement. This was approved by the dean of faculty and we assumed that we were meeting both the letter and Jacqueline Valdez case apparently fell on deaf ears, for we were overwhelmingly defeated. Our written and verbal presentations with numbers, pleas for quality, and information about national standards apparently meant little or nothing to the Deans and Chairs Committee. The following is an excerpt from an “underground” account I wrote. In the spirit of comparing peristroika with a growing love of centralized power in our school, I datelined it Kaspergrad. February 14. 1990. When one inflamed member of the English Department made an impassioned speech in defense of academic quality, the life of the mind, and the detrimental effects of an exploitative work load, the comrades of the Central Committee [the Deans and Chairs Committee) rallied together to quell the subversion. One after another they told Lloyd Agte teaches English courses. He holds a Ph.D. from Kent State University and has been at Casper College sixteen years. F. B. (Skip) Gillam is vice president for instructional services. He holds an M.P.A. from the University of Wyoming and has been at Casper College nineteen years. Helon Howell Raines teaches English courses. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Denver and has been at Casper College fifteen years. Jacqneline K. Valdez teaches English courses. She holds an M.A. from the University of Wyoming and has been at Casper College eighteen years. 28 �tales of their own exploitation, the pain they had to inflict on comrades in their own departments and in general made it clear that if they had no justice then no one else should have it either. When the English Department brought up national professional standards, which clearly state that 12 hours is considered a maximum load, some members of the Central Committee proudly boasted that for years they had been violating their own professional guidelines. Responding to our appeal, the senate affirmed the principle that load decisions should be made within divisions and departments. An ad hoc committee of the English Department recommended a load policy, following guidelines from NCTE, CCCC, MLA and others. The administration chose instead to support a campus-wide load policy. Back to square one. Our attempts to change the course into a four-hour course were met with resistance by those who said it would transfer only as a three-hour course. We discussed scheduling a one-hour “conference lab” with students, but the scheduling logistics would have burdened both students and teachers. Administrators finally granted the option of allowing us to play magic numbers. We could work in the writing center, the English lab, or do other divisional duties for three hours per week for three contact hours. All departmental members did this in the fall of 1990 except one person who chose to teach a fifth class. The need to renegotiate our schedules each semester as well as the real danger that those arrangements could be nullified by administrative fiat at any time gave us serious reservations about this arrangement, although it seemed more reasonable than an additional twenty-five writing students. In the fall of 1990. we launched another proposal before the Deans and Chairs Committee to have writing courses considered as worth more than three hours. This has been tabled at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Vice President of Instruction Gillum suggested that we rewrite a course description of our writing courses and add an hour of study “To Be Arranged,” making these classes four contact hours each. Thus, we wrote into our job description the contact and grading load which accurately reflects what we do. This extra “TBA” hour was recently voted down ten to two at a Deans and Chairs Committee meeting. We had made no progress. Back to square one again. The only bright light on the horizon is that there is again some sentiment now for allowing divisions and departments to establish their own load guidelines. If there is any lesson in this brief history, it is that departments should not give up the fight. We all sincerely felt that we were doing the best professional job we could do and that taking on another class would compromise instructional quality, professional development, and academic service to the college and community. We were and still are adamant about that. Another lesson is that national professional standards are valuable, not arrived at whimsically, and can provide a solid rallying point for all departments. But more importantly, we learned we had failed to calculate the hostility of other departments toward the English department. While it is one thing for the public at large to confuse the hours in the classroom with the total obligation for which we are paid (“What? you mean those teachers get all that money for workin' just fifteen hours a week?”), it is another thing to hear it from our colleagues. We need to restructure the descriptions of what we do so that our colleagues too know that the hours devoted to marking papers and consulting with students are legitimate and necessary parts of work loads. It would be nice if we at Casper College were the only ones who have to go through this frantic running about only to return to the well-worn square, but load The Wyoming Resolution grew out of a dramatic series of events that occurred during the June. 1986, Wyoming Conference on English. The theme of the conference was “Language and the Social Context." and pay rationalization by state bean counters in institutions of higher education in the West is only beginning, and we must all be fully armed for the assault. An Administrative Perspective (Skip Gillum) Several different methods of defining and measuring teaching work load have evolved in recent years and are well documented in the literature by such researchers as Harold E. Yuker in his work Faculty Workload: Research, Theory, and Interpretation. Some of these methods are as simple as reliance on assigned credit hours based on little or no real rationale (fifteen credit hours per semester). Schools relying on this method usually are operating under the belief that class size, type of instruction, discipline, or course type have little bearing on workload. This is the type of policy statement that Casper College had selectively enforced for over twenty years. Other schools use a slightly more sophisticated approach. In an attempt to measure faculty productivity, these Institutions calculate the number of credits a teacher is assigned and multiply those by the number of students in those classes and again multiply that number by the per credit tuition cost. The resulting figure is then compared to the faculty member's salary. If this method were used at Casper College, it would produce efficiency percentages for six individual instructors as follows. DISCIPLINE Criminal Justice Math Political Science Diesel Power English Music •Student Credit Hour *SCH 440 361 358 224 215 156 FULLTIME .565 .479 .432 .356 .259 .196 SCH 30 213 180 n/a 165 16 PARTTIME .524 1.812 1.950 n/a 1.420 .344 As you can see, instructors who teach classes with low enrollments do not fare well compared to instructors who traditionally have higher enrollments. Also, in looking at cost alone, part-time instructors appear more efficient than full-time instructors. Results like these can be used to argue for increasing 29 �the number of classes an instructor offers or the number of students in the class to bring them closer to the desired rating. They can also be used to argue for the use of more part-time faculty. Still other schools rely on a formula similar to the one outlined by G. H. Durham in his 1960 article "The Uses and Abuses of Faculty Load Data." Under this method of attempting to quantify teaching load, the total student credit hours for a department are divided by the number of full-time equivalent faculty in that department. The larger the resulting number, the more efficient the department. This method not only looks at entire departments instead of individual Instructors but it also allows for more meaningful comparisons across disciplines and also can be used to calculate the relative cost of departments on campus. This method has never been used at Casper College, but if it were it would reveal the following numbers for select departments. Math 480.2 Criminal Justice 387.1 Political Science 362.9 English 239.9 Diesel 210.4 Music 88.1 Again, it should be noted that departments with large classes or few faculty, or a combination of both, will appear to be the most efficient and productive departments. None of these models was used as the basis for the Casper College load policy. The policy was developed by a campus-wide faculty committee representing every academic division on campus: three academic deans were also members. The committee worked for approximately three-fourths of the 1988-1989 policy, one must be aware of the political climate that existed in the state and at the school at the time. Casper College receives over eighty percent of its 13.5 million dollar budget from the state legislature. Wyoming’s economy has been in a downward spiral since approximately 1983, with the legislature tightening its purse strings each year since, cutting the budgets of most agencies almost every subsequent year. A system of formula funding, now in its second year, was developed to more equitably disburse state funds to all seven community colleges. The main driving factor in the formula is full-time-equivalents (FTE’s). If institutions have any hope of maintaining or increasing their current level of funding, they must maintain or increase the number of full-time equivalent students at the school. Over eighty percent of Casper College's total budget is consumed by personnel costs, most of which are for full-time, benefited people. Casper College prides itself in relying on full-time faculty: we want to continue to avoid excessive use of part-time instructors. Budgets, funding formulas, and staffing practices all were factors the members of the load-policy committee members considered as they did their work. At the time the committee was developing the load policy, the new president initiated a participative management approach, a management style that for the first time allowed faculty input into college-wide decisions. As a result, the committee became aware of previous faculty load and overload pay variances, and they worked to offer a solution to that problem. Furthermore, they expected their work to be imple­ mented by the administration. By now. it should be obvious that the issue of what the English Department could have done to avoid the addition of the equivalent of one three-hour class to their load each year is not simple. It may have been beyond the control of the English Department to influence factors such as the following. 1. State-wide budget constraints 2. A system of formula funding, dependent on numbers of students 3. Discontent among faculty about who works hardest 4. School-wide reluctance to increase part-time faculty 5. Faculty committees feeling that they have the ability to influence policy, possibly for the first time in CC history 6. A previous policy that set one standard and select­ ively allowed some groups to openly violate it Casper College is an institution that strives to treat faculty equally, regardless of their teaching assignments. The college operates under a campus­ wide pay scale which is driven by the education and experience of the instructor, not the demands of the market for a particular discipline, nor merit. Casper College treats all faculty as equals with reference to the issue of rank: all are instructors. Almost all of the 157 contracted faculty are on tenure track or have already attained tenure. The attempt to standardize load was yet another example of an attempt to treat all people the same in determining the teaching segment of their load and in attempting to determine when overload compensation is warranted. Back to square one. Back to square one. Back to square one. Back to square one. academic year. Briefly stated, the policy they recom­ mended required either 15, 20. or 26.5 contact hours of teaching time per week each semester depending on whether the contact is through lecture, lecture/lab, or straight lab. It allows for overload compensation for activities beyond the "full-load," and it also allows for division chair discretion to lower or increase the teaching load 10% based on the presence or absence of other measurable criteria such as the number and difficulty of preps, the number of advisees, the number of committee assignments, and grading requirements, to give but a few examples. Implementation of this policy will result in the members of the English department assuming one additional three-hour class per year or working in the Writing Center for three hours per week one semester each year, or some other similar activity with actual student contact equal to three hours per week for one semester. To understand what the English Department could have done to avoid the impact caused by the new load 30 �2. Publish that information 3. Formally endorse the standards statement 4. Send the endorsement to the administrations of all schools in the Western Conference 5. Publish in the newsletter recommendations, the status of schools, as well as individual schools’ progress toward improving teaching conditions Where are we on the standards issue nationally? The CCC standards committee continues to work to implement the “Statement.” Currently they are gathering histories, case studies, and accounts of successful and unsuccessful strategies to implement policy. They plan to make political action packets available to individual schools trying to improve teaching conditions. We would like to see them also pursue steps two and three in the Wyoming Resolution asking CCC to establish grievance procedures and actions for noncompliance to standards. We believe that with all of our professional Where We Have Been. Now Where Are We Going? (Helon Raines) In concluding the panel presentations. I would like to add a few observations by looking at four questions on standards in the profession. Where are we going at Casper College? Where are we going in Wyoming? Where we we going in the region? Where are we going at the national level? First, as already stated, because of formula distribution of funds and issues of measurement and accountability, administrators at CC and other state schools see the need for campus-wide load policies. However, we must continue to look for ways to make the numbers work for us and for our students. In addition to the lessons we learned at the local level, which have been mentioned by the panelists, we also leeu’ned that, to maintain or improve loads, the Casper College English Department should have established its own written standards. Even if a department is unable to adhere to the written policy, and even if the rest of the campus has more exploitative workloads, the written statements can stand as an ideal towards which the department can aspire. However, in order to get a statement of policy, a department has to gather local history, local, state, and national data, and it has to gel administrators to examine that data rather than reviewing only the anecdotal information they gather from other administrators and other schools in the area. We also learned that getting a written departmental policy is not enough: in addition, we must conduct an ongoing education of administrators, faculty, staff, students, and the general public. We have to be prepared with arguments to counter those who say professional standards formulated by national or regional organizations are meaningless in community colleges. In order to educate others, faculty in English departments need to know what the standards issues are. and particularly they need to be clear in articulating how standards relate to excellence in teaching and learning and to the larger issues of literacy. Overall, we learned that we must be politically active. We learned that in this political struggle we need help from other colleges and even more support from professional organizations, at least in providing recommendations and endorsements of standards and in gathering current and accurate information about situations at two-year colleges. Where are we headed in the state of Wyoming? At a recent meeting of the Wyoming Association of Teachers of English, two-year schools formed a coalition of English departments, primarily to collect and publish data from local colleges, at least among ourselves. We also will consider either securing formal endorsement of the CCCC standards statement from WATE and from the Wyoming Coalition of Community Colleges or writing a similar statement for Wyoming schools. What can we do in regional organizations, specifically in the Western Conference? Those of us on this panel recommend that this group consider the following actions. 1. Gather data from member schools Casper College prides itself in relying on full-time faculty: we want to continue to avoid excessive use of part-time instructors. organizations working together we can educate accreditation agencies and the general public. In other words, we should use our networks, both formal and informal, to bring attention to the issues and to use all available means to pressure for compliance. Afterword The discussion following this panel resulted in the Western Conference voting to gather information on loads and conditions in Institutions throughout this region. We plan to publish that material when it is collected and summarized. As of February, 1991, the news from Casper College is not encouraging. The proposal to the Casper College Executive Committee, previously mentioned, was tabled and the issue went to the interim president. He sympathized and pledged support to lobby for more English faculty, but he refused to change the policy. We now are planning further Investigations into the load issue through the Wyoming Education Associa­ tion. We plan to request the local Affirmative Action Committee to look al departments across the curriculum in relation to gender, loads and salaries. We also will gather more information on teaching time, preparation time, and evaluation time in calculating loads in other departments at Casper College. Finally, we have an English Department committee to research and recommend ways to restructure our writing curriculum to develop a program that will allow students to continue to improve writing, communication, and critical thinking in our classes without further shortening the life expectancy of our English faculty. It is clear to us at Casper College, however, that whatever we do will be a diminution of the writing program. For self-preservation, we will have to cut writing in some way. thus watering down 31 �our overall curriculum. At this point then it seems we (temporarily) have lost the local battle. The outcome of the war will be determined only in the educational lives of our students. Raines, Helen. “Is There a Writing Program in This College? Two Hundred and Thirty-Six Two-Year Colleges Respond.” College Composition and Communication 41.2 (May. 1990): 151-163. “Teaching Writing in the Two Year Colleges.” Writing Program Administration. 12.1-2 (Fall/Winter 1988): 29-37. Robertson, Linda R., Sharon Crowley, and Frank Lentricchia. Opinion. "The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing.” College.English 49 (March. 1987): 274-80. “Statement of Principles and Standards for the Post­ secondary Teaching of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 40 (October. 1989): 329-36. Yuker. Harold E. Faculty Workload: Research, Theory and Interpretation. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report No. 10. Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1984. 1-15. NOTES ‘The body of this article originally was a panel on standards in the profession at the first Western Conference for TwoYear Colleges in Salt Lake City, October. 1990. The article is intended as a case study of the struggle at one institution to maintain a twelve hour per semester teaching load for com­ position instructors. Because this article has been rewritten slightly to serve as a case study on load issues, we also have omitted comments by Ron Severson, University of Utah. ’See for instance Melon Raines. “Is There a Writing Program in This College?.” May. 1990. CCC. and “Admin­ istration by Representation" in Fall, 1989, Writing Program Administration. WORKS CITED In addition to its having been a panel presentation at the October conference, as Indicated in the body of the article, this paper has been sent as a case study to the standards committee of CCCC. and Is under review by the CCC Jonraal. Durham. G. H. “The Uses and Abuses of Faculty Load Data.” Cited in Faculty Workload: Research. Theory and Interpretation by Harold E. Yuker. 1960. 10. 32 � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Print magazine Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ideas Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1991 Description An account of the resource Taken from the publication, "Ideas 1991 is an anthology of selected writinngs by Faculty at Casper College. In preference to scholarly articles, the magazine presents those with broader appeal. The articles included were presented to organizations, published by journals, or submitted to other publications, with audiences outside of Casper; we print them here for college faculty and community members who are interested in the activities of the college campus. These works cover a narrow period, 1990 and 1991, and they are merely representative of faculty work, not comprehensive." Related materials include Casper College Public Relations Department photographs and Women's Studies Program records. An anticipated special collections accession of Jamie Ring's research on Captain Henry Blanchard Freeman may also be of interest to users of the archives. Faculty who submitted to this magazine include Jamie Ring, Nora Van Burgh, Dr. Floyd Kelly, Mike Kent, Carolyn Logan, Arlene Larson, Paul Marquard, Donna Davis, Dr. James Milek, Gary Donnelly, Dr. Lloyd Agte, Skip Gillum, Dr. Helon Raines, Jacqueline Valdez. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Casper College Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA_10.i.2025.01_Ideas_1991 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Extent The size or duration of the resource. 33 pages https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/aed5d28dcf1f58fc952a060b0f9ba3bc.pdf 155d89811d7f2e1fed064bd980673712 PDF Text Text lientitg an6 fxi(e Michael Downing Who am I? How did I get here? It seems it’s been One long dream All of a sudden I awoke Exiled on death row Amongst this steady Stream of murderers And freakish castaways Condemned to dry bread I choke Addiction was my ticket To this life sentence Self-centered quest To feed my disease Made me a menace Now that I feel again, I’m lost I lie awake at night Baring my soul to myself Misunderstood Like a puppet Longing for another chance To be considered real But trapped upon A dusty closet shelf I’m lost 190 �Identity and Exile Reduced to living Inside my head Not set adrift On memory bliss But stranded in time Like a sunken pirate ship Living souls of the dead As my mind’s eye sails Tumultuous seas of my past Allowing me to view The start Of many a promising voyage The evil forces of addiction Would never allow to last Black clouds quickly overtook The gentle breezes And blue skies Of periodic success From dusk till dawn I went from living well To everything in my life A complete mess The sinister, cunning lion That is my disease Took the powerful tools Of a bright eyed boy Turned them into an affliction A dereliction of his-self 191 � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. 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Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies. The reformatted images in the Casper Area Chamber of Commerce Photographs are for personal, not-for profit use of students, researchers, and the public. Any use must provide attribution to the Casper College Archives and Special Collections (Western History Center). While being the property of Casper College, all text, images and other materials are subject to applicable copyright laws. Commercial use, electronic reproduction, or print publication of text, images, or other materials is strictly prohibited without written permission. All permissions to publish must be obtained from the rights holder and are not the repository's responsibility for securing. The rights holder may or may not be the repository. Users also agree to hold the repository harmless from legal claims arising from their use of material held by the institution and made accessible in this digital repository. Description An account of the resource This digital collection contains photographs of places, locations, and buildings that were used by the Casper Area Chamber of Commerce before being gifted to the Casper College Archives and Special Collections (Western History Center). Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Casper Area Chamber of Commerce Photographs, NCA 01.ii.2002.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.ii.2002.01_PlacesPhotos Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Print photographs, negatives, and photo slides Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Casper College Archives and Special Collections (Western History Center) Relation A related resource <a href="https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/collections/show/52" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/collections/show/52</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span>Casper Area Chamber of Commerce Photographs: <a href="https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/collections/show/9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/collections/show/9</a><br /><br />The finding aid for these and other items in this collection is also available for viewing: </span><a href="https://caspercollegearchives.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/resources/173" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://caspercollegearchives.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/resources/173</a> Still Image A static visual representation. 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The material in this collection may be reused so long as attribution is provided to its original source. Date Created Date of creation of the resource. Undated Description An account of the resource Photograph of the Imperial 400 Motel in Casper, Wyoming. The Casper Area Chamber of Commerce Records collection consists of a wide range of photographs, media, and documentation of activities, events, and programs undertaken by the Casper Chamber of Commerce from 1920 to 2010. Images in this collection highlight community events, buildings and places, local interests, businesses, people, leadership, and tourism. Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Casper Area Chamber of Commerce Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Casper Area Chamber of Commerce Photographs, NCA 01.ii.2002.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.ii.2002.01_Imperial 400 Motel_01 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPG Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Casper College Archives and Special Collections (Western History Center) Relation A related resource <a href="https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/collections/show/9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/collections/show/9</a> https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/f354f9812d38ff91045a1550862c28ab.pdf 7b104bbb572dc64b8069eeeabfe92e7c PDF Text Text IMPROVING THE ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING: ADVANCING A RESEARCH AGENDA IN SOCIOLOGY * tn the last two decades, format assessment of student learning in higher education has become institutionalized. This paper summarizes current re­ search and writing about the key components of assessment plans (statement of purpose, goals and outcomes objectives, and assessment mechanisms) and about the work involved in conducting an annual assessment program. We discuss the evolution of assessment within sociology and the paucity of both descriptive and explanatory research on assessment of student learning. We also pose important research questions that sociologists could pursue to enhance understanding of the context, content, process, and effects of assessment. The paper also examines the assessment movement itself: forces that have stimulated the movement, the demonstrated benefits of conscien­ tious assessment of student learning, sources of resistance to assessment, and the genera! status of assessment in higher education today. Gregory L. Weiss Janet R. Cosbey Eastern Illinois University Roanoke College Shelly K. Habel ChadM. Hanson Georgetown University Casper College Carolee Larsen Millsaps College In the last two decades, an assessment student learning, (3) the systematic collec­ movement has emerged and spread through­ tion of information relative to the extent to out a variety of social sectors including which the objectives are being accom­ businesses, social services, and education. plished, and (4) based on the information Wi±in higher education, assessment can obtained, collective efforts to identify and occur at the institutional, divisional, depart­ implement specific program changes to en­ mental, program, and class level and on hance student learning. Assessment is both the academic and administrative sides grounded in the belief that effective institu­ of the institution. While the layers of assess­ tions and departments engage in a systematic ment are naturally inter-related, this paper and continuous process of improvement in focuses on the assessment of student learn­ order to better achieve their goals and objec­ ing by academic departments. As such, the tives. focus is on a process that includes (1) the Work on this paper began when the five of department’s development of an explicit us collaborated at a conference on The mission or purpose statement, (2) the formu­ Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in lation of broadly stated goals and more Sociology held in Harrisonburg, Virginia in specifically stated outcomes objectives for July 2000. The workshop brought together more than 40 sociologists from all types of *The authors wish to thank two anonymous institutions to review and extend current reviewers for their very helpful comments on an scholarship in sociology related to (1) the earlier draft of this paper. Please address all correspondence to Gregory L. Weiss. Depanintegration of styles of teaching and styles of ment of Sociology, Roanoke College. Salem. learning, (2) the assessment of faculty, (3) VA 24153; e-mail: weiss@roanoke.edu partnerships between community and Editor’s note: The reviewers were, in alpha­ academy, (4) technology and its uses in betical order, Charles Powers and Stephen leaching and learning, (5) the impact of Sharkey. Teaching Sociology. Vol. 30, 2002 (January:63-79) 63 �64 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY institutional contexts on teaching and learn­ ing, and (6) the sociology curriculum and assessment of student learning. The authors of this paper worked to identify knowledge that already existed about the assessment of student learning and what still needed to be known. In the course of doing this work we hoped to establish and promote a research agenda for sociologists interested in con­ tributing to an understanding of assessment and its effects on teaching and learning. FORCES PROMOTING THE ASSESSMENT MOVEMENT The primary stimulus for the assessment movement occurred in the early 1980s through increasingly vocal public dissatis­ faction with the quality of higher education and increased calls for institutional account­ ability for educational promises. Wellpublicized exposes of students graduating from college without fundamental reading, writing, and mathematics skills contributed to the suspicion that institutions were not fulfilling their obligations to students. When these complaints were coupled with requests by institutions for more public funds, legis­ lators, parents, and students began demand­ ing empirical evidence of the real—as op­ posed to claimed—outcomes and benefits of attending a college or university (Terenzini 1989). These public outcries caught the attention of two especially important groups: the six regional accrediting agencies for colleges and universities and several slate legislatures (Schechter, Testa, and Eder 2000). Though the terminology used by the accrediting agencies differs, all of them now place some emphasis on assessment (Maki 1999). For example, the Southern Association of Col­ leges and Schools (SACS) has placed ex­ tremely high priority on assessment (in re­ cent years assessment has been the area in which institutions have been most likely to be judged in non-compliance by SACS), and places it in the context of institutional effec­ tiveness. SACS’ Criteria for Accreditation (1998:19) describes institutional effective­ ness as being “at the heart of the commis­ sion’s philosophy of accreditation” and “central to institutional programs and opera­ tions.” It expresses an expectation that “each member institution develop a broad­ based system to determine institutional ef­ fectiveness appropriate to its own context and purpose, to use the purpose statement as the foundation of planning and evaluation, to employ a variety of assessment methods, and to demonstrate use of the results of the planning and evaluation process for the im­ provement of both educational programs and support services.” State legislatures have also become cen­ trally involved in the assessment and ac­ countability movement. Several legislatures have applied significant pressure on public institutions of higher education to engage in a systematic process of assessment of their programs and to document the outcomes and value of the education provided. Some states have created specific performance standards to evaluate institutions and upon which to base budget allocations (Burke, Modarresi, and Serban 1999; Wellman 2001). The same forces have in part been respon­ sible for stimulating considerable interest in assessment throughout a wide variety of academic groups, academic foundations, and disciplinary associations. Groups such as the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) now promote the value of assess­ ment as a legitimate means to improve student learning, encourage institutions to shape their own programs to be maximally beneficial, and sponsor annual assessment workshops. Disciplinary associations, including the American Sociological Association (ASA), also support and encourage assessment ac­ tivity and have become advocates for the development of sound assessment programs. For example, the widely-read Liberal Learn­ ing and the Sociology Major (ASA 1992:2223), prepared by the ASA in conjunction with the Association of American Colleges (AAC), identifies assessment as one of 13 recommendations for all sociology depart­ ments: �ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING Departments should assess the major (curriculum, courses, and instruction) on a regular basis using multiple sources of data. To implement this recommendation, departments should routinely collect data by: • examining the department’s goals, missions, needs, facilities, access to resources, etc.; • examining the faculty’s goals, needs, re­ sources, and perspectives on instruction; • surveying present students, both majors and non-majors, on needs, goals, levels of satis­ faction with courses and advising, social networks, career goals and actual plans, etc.; • surveying graduates on. similar issues, as well as on their identification with sociol­ ogy: • monitoring similar data in other “sibling” institutions and departments; • aniculating the findings’ implications for departmental programs. RATIONALE FOR ASSESSMENT The literature contains four primary argu­ ments for conscientious assessment pro­ grams as they relate to student learningincreased faculty conversation about teach­ ing and learning, improved classroom teach­ ing, effective curricular reform, and, most importantly, enhanced student learning. Conducting meaningful assessment re­ quires faculty colleagues to engage in seri­ ous conversation about teaching and learn­ ing: about the mission of the department or program, about explicit goals and objectives held for students, about ways to determine the best manner to assess the extent to which students are achieving the objectives, and about ways that department organization, curriculum, and course instruction can be modified to enhance student learning. While many departments never engage in this type of discussion, proponents of assessment ar­ gue that they should and that the teaching­ learning process will inevitably benefit (Howery 1992; Sharkey 1990). The assessment literature suggests that conversation about teaching and learning and the self-reflection that it engenders leads to a second benefit: improved teaching. The process of mission, goal, and objective artic­ 65 ulation forces faculty to think about their own courses and course components in a more focused way (Good and Brophy 1994; Posner 1995). It creates a greater awareness of how individual courses fit into the cur­ riculum, and it helps guide course construc­ tion and delivery. This benefit may be especially true in the case of classroom-embedded assessment techniques such as the use of primary-trait analysis (that is, the development of rubrics), which uses graded assignments that directly correspond to department and course learning objectives (Huba and Freed 2000), and with classroom assessment tech­ niques (CAT), which use ungraded feedback mechanisms to monitor the progress of stu­ dent learning during a course (Angelo and Cross 1993; Brookfield 1995; Nilson 1998; Tebo-Messina and Van Waller 1998). Be­ cause meaningful classroom assessment oc­ curs only when we lest what we teach (Cross 1999; Hilton, 1993; Lovell-Troy 1989) and when we are willing to continually evaluate what we are leaching (Angelo and Cross 1993), assessment creates a cycle of feed­ back, self-reflection, and effort to improve leaching. There is evidence that the use of these techniques constitutes good teaching as they both require students to focus on what they are learning (Eisenbach, Golich, and Curry 1998) and enable students to more actively monitor their own learning process (Cross 1999). Students typically respond favorably to these classroom techniques, expressing greater satisfaction with courses that use them (Steadman 1998). For these reasons, it is not unusual to see discussions of student assessment and faculty assessment in tandem, as willingness to engage in stu­ dent assessment is seen as one measure of faculty affectivity (Centra 1993; Weimer 1990). A third benefit of assessment cited in the literature is support for curricular reform. An obvious sociological insight is that aca­ demic departments rarely equal the sum of their parts—they are greater or lesser de­ pending upon the ability and willingness of members to work together for the common �TEACHING SOCIOLOGY l«xt, Sunihuly. sociology curricula do not many more such examples exist, but most timply equal lhe sum or aggregation of are only now finding their way into the hMllvuliially constructed sociology courses. literature. Miiiiy oj (he key curricular issues identified in Liberal Learning and lhe Sociology MaTHE CURRENT STATUS /fv -jniegration of the curriculum, meaningOF ASSESSMENT lul sequencing of courses, requiring devel­ opmental levels, and overall curricular co­ In the last 15 years, assessment has been a herence—cannot be addressed by individual primary movement within higher education. faculty members, no matter how conscien­ The insistence of state legislatures and ac­ tious they are. Assessment provides a means crediting agencies; the endorsement of for discussion of the collective departmental higher education associations, foundations, mission, goals, and objectives; a technique and disciplinary associations; the institution­ for systematically collecting data to deter­ alization of assessment on campuses in the mine the extent of success in achieving the form of assessment directors and commit­ objectives; and a forum for consideration of tees; and the ever-burgeoning growth of curricular changes that would strengthen assessment conferences and assessment liter­ student learning (Ellis and Pouts 1993: ature testify to the secure hold that assess­ Howery 1992; Posner 1995). ment has obtained. Yet, most higher educa­ Ultimately, the legitimacy of assessment tion experts around the country would agree rests with the final perceived benefit: the that, to date, assessment’s record of accom­ genuine enhancement of student learning. plishment has fallen far short of the ideal or The theoretical foundation of assessment is expected (Angelo 1999; Burke 1999; Lazerthat the focus of higher education should son, Wagener, and Shumanis 2000; Maki shift from being teaching-oriented and input- 1999.) oriented to learning-oriented and outcome­ In 1997 the New England Association of based. The measure of success shifts from Colleges and Schools (the accrediting what is being given to students or done to or agency in the New England area) surveyed for students to what happens to students as a its 188 constituent institutions about activi­ result of their educational experience. Those ties directed toward assessing student out­ who work in assessment agree that this is a comes. A dozen years into the assessment profound change. movement, the great majority (92 percent) Much of the evidence that exists regarding of the institutions indicated that they could the positive effect of assessment on student “demonstrate not very well or only moder­ learning is based on either (I) the positive ately well the success of their efforts to effects of clear goal- and objective-setting on assess, verify, and enhance the achievement student learning or (2) case studies of institu­ of their mission and purposes through stu­ tions and departments that have experienced dent outcomes assessment” (Maki 1999:2). enhanced student learning as a result of Sixty percent of administrators rated assess­ serious assessment. Examples in sociology ment as extremely important, but they esti­ of the latter include Sharkey’s report (1990) mated that 70 percent of the faculty viewed on Alverno College’s success in teaching assessment as only somewhat important or analysis and valuing: Jackson et al.’s report not at all important. (1992) on Rhode Island College’s success in A subsequent survey conducted by the teaching research methods and social theory; National Center for Postsecondary Improve­ and Bradfield’s report (1992) and Eek’s ment (NCPI) of 1,400 public and private reflection (2001) on James Madison Univer­ institutions examined the nature, extent, and sity’s success helping students understand impact of student assessment strategies on a the core paradigms of critical, interpreta­ national basis (Wright 2000). Although the tive, and naturalistic analysis. Certainly, survey found fairly substantial institutional �ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING activity on collecting student assessment data, most of what was collected were insti­ tutional data on students’ academic progress, basic college readiness skills, academic in­ tentions of students, and satisfaction with the undergraduate experience. Few institutions indicated an engagement in more complex assessment activities focused on evidence of student learning. Results also indicated that few institutions were making academic plan­ ning decisions based on the findings from assessment data. The NCPI report stated that while many state agencies and institu­ tional accrediting bodies have stimulated the adoption of assessment activities, these ac­ tivities have had little impact on how institu­ tions have used student assessment data to improve student performance. While assess­ ment holds much promise, the NCPI con­ cluded that it hardly constitutes an academic revolution (National Center for Postsec­ ondary Improvement 1999). Lazerson et al. (2000), commenting on their survey of 320 institutions that under­ went reaccreditation reviews between 1997 and 1999, acknowledged that some changes in leaching and learning in higher education have occurred in recent decades, “but there is little evidence that the changes add up to a systematic reconsideration of how and why students learn or of how institutions, rather than simply individual professors, can revise their approaches to teaching.” Palomba and Banta (1999) charge that although most insti­ tutions are now involved in assessment, their actions constitute little more than “a thin veneer of compliance.” Acknowledging that some academics and professional staff take their assessment activity seriously, most are only tangentially involved or not at all in­ volved in genuinely using assessment to enhance student learning. Yet, there are many examples of institu­ tions and academic departments that do take assessment seriously and report positive findings. Publications such as Assessment Bulletin and Assessment Update routinely report specific examples of successful as­ sessment programs. Books such as Banta et al.’s Assessment in Practice: Putting Princi­ 67 ples to Work on College Campuses (1996) and Nichols’ A Practitioner’s Handbook for Institutional Effectiveness and Student Out­ comes Assessment Implementation (1995) offer exemplars of effective assessment ac­ tivity. It seems clear, according to Hutch­ ings and Marchese (1990), that where as­ sessment works, it does so because it is an integral part of the entire educational experi­ ence. It is not a separate function on its own but rather a process woven into the daily fabric of college. REASONS WHY ASSESSMENT HAS NOT HAD MORE SUCCESS What guidance does the literature offer to help explain why assessment has not reached a higher level of acceptance nor led to more frequent genuine enhancements of student learning? Four of the key factors are sum­ marized here. First, conscientious assessment constitutes a significant departure from the traditional academic culture throughout higher educa­ tion but especially in larger, researchoriented institutions. Traditional academic culture often is very individualistic, with maximum emphasis placed on each faculty member enacting his or her own career without much interference or influence by department or college. Teaching and curric­ ular matters may rarely be discussed, and no one is likely to impinge on what occurs in individual classrooms. Meaningful assess­ ment requires faculty to discuss matters such as the mission of the program and its spe­ cific objectives, mechanisms to genuinely assess student learning, and changes in cur­ riculum, policies, standards, course organi­ zation, and pedagogy that could positively impact student learning. This requires coor­ dination, collaboration on teaching-learning matters, and some willingness to prioritize the common good or the student good over personal desires. In a paper presented at the 1999 Assess­ ment Institute, Banta et al. posited that the very definition of assessment implies collab­ oration, but that higher education contains a �68 variety of barriers to collaboration which make genuine commitment to assessment very difficult. While the reasons for lack of greater assessment success at large universi­ ties and small colleges may not be identical, Banta et al. identified the following barriers: disciplinary traditions, the faculty reward structure (as it relates to engaging in individ­ ual research projects and securing grants), and the traditional configuration of teaching as an individually practiced profession. Keith and Myers (1992) concluded that many faculty have little interest in collabora­ tion for the sake of student learning, have not been convinced of its desirability, and resent its interference with their own inter­ ests and autonomy. Second, the manner in which the assess­ ment mandate has been presented to faculties has further contributed to their resentment of it. The traditional mistrust between college faculties and state legislatures comes to the surface in cases where legislators enact poli­ cies that directly or indirectly dictate to the professorate (as occurs with performance standards). While regional accrediting agen­ cies have been among the leaders in support­ ing and requiring assessment, they have sometimes acted with such heavy­ handedness in working with constituent insti­ tutions that faculties come to see assessment mostly or entirely as a mandate associated with reaccrediiation rather than a genuine technique to enhance student learning (Sharkey 1990). This factor is further exac­ erbated by the fact that doing good assess­ ment does require time. Faculty members will inevitably resent having any time­ significant task imposed on their workload without some corresponding reduction in other responsibilities. Finally, Peter Ewell (1997) has suggested two additional reasons that institutions of higher education have not had more success in enhancing student learning. He suggests that those in higher education lack a clear understanding of what collegiate learning really means. This is consistent with the oft-expressed idea that student learning is such an obvious and taken-for-granted con­ TEACHING SOCIOLOGY cept that neither individually nor collectively have we thought through its meaning. An­ gelo (1999:3-4) argues that “most assess­ ment efforts have resulted in little learning improvement because they have been imple­ mented without a clear vision of what “higher” or “deeper” learning is and with­ out an understanding of how assessment can promote such learning.” This brings us to Ewell’s other conclusion regarding assess­ ment: that assessment initiatives have, for the most part, been attempted in a piecemeal fashion within and across institutions. This perception of haphazardness also contributes to a failure to view the teaching/learning process as part of the social institution of education. THE ENACTMENT OF ASSESSMENT: ASSESSMENT PLANS AND ANNUAL ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES As the assessment movement has evolved and as the literature on assessment and the number of workshops and sessions at profes­ sional meetings of academic disciplines and higher education associations have in­ creased, the basic expectations for assess­ ment have crystallized. Essentially, but with some important variations from region to region, academic majors and programs within higher education institutions must (1) construct an assessment plan consisting of a statement of purpose, a set of outcome objectives for students majoring in the disci­ pline and a roster of mechanisms used to assess success in achieving the objectives, and (2) conduct an annual assessment pro­ gram in which a limited number of the objectives are assessed and the results used to identify and implement changes to en­ hance student learning. The following sec­ tions summarize current knowledge about these components of assessment and suggest questions to which sociological analysis might be brought to bear. Sociology is especially well-positioned to offer both descriptions of what currently exists with regard to assessment plans and programs and analyses of factors that con- �ASSESSMEOT OF STUDENT LEARNING tribute to or impede effective assessment. A sociology of assessment practice could easily draw upon the insights of the discipline with regard to the institutionalization of a new paradigm and new activities. Such an ap­ proach would be enhanced both by macro­ level investigations of political, economic, and socio-organizational factors that affect the introduction and dissemination of assess­ ment and by micro-level analyses of the processes by which assessment questions are framed and assessment results used to mod­ ify curriculum and pedagogy. It could bene­ fit from all major theoretical analyses and use both quantitative and qualitative methods to obtain comprehensive understanding of assessment. Potentially, these analyses can offer important practical guidance to faculty and departments as they work and some­ times struggle to understand and effectively utilize results of assessment to enhance stu­ dent learning of sociology. The Statement of Purpose The statement of purpose is designed to be the foundation and inspiration for all assess­ ment activity. Sociology purpose statements, like those for all majors and programs, are intended to articulate the contribution of the discipline to the mission and goals of the institution and describe the purpose of study­ ing the discipline (for example, what sociol­ ogy majors ought to learn and be able to do as a result of studying sociology). While purpose statements often are written generi­ cally, the best statements are tailored to the specific programs and emphases of a partic­ ular department (Gardiner 1989). The Program Assessment Consultation Team (PACT) at California State University at Bakersfield (a typical institutional assess­ ment committee but one that has published an impressive assessment document) notes that the mission statement should identify the values and philosophy of the department and a vision of what the department is doing. It can include a brief history and philosophy of the unit, the type of students to be served and their geographic area, the academic environment and primary focus of the cur- 69 riculum, faculty roles, contributions to and connections with the community, the role of research, and a nondiscrimination statement (PACT Outcomes Assessment Handbook, 2000). A well-written statement should be used to guide decision-making about curricu­ lum, policies, and standards and should provide the framework for the program’s goals and objectives. The literature on higher education contains numerous essays and reflections on the im­ portance of purpose statements, key compo­ nents of well written statements, successful processes for writing statements, and ways to link purpose statements with goals and objectives. However, there has been almost no systematic research on the content of purpose or mission statements and on varia­ tions in statements based on type of institu­ tion. Many assessment experts believe that, despite the attention given to assessment in the last two decades, institutional purpose statements remain largely generic and not substantially different among various types of institutions—a pattern first reported by Weick in the mid-1970s (Weick 1976). This pattern was affirmed in recent re­ search by Delucchi (2000) who analyzed the academic mission statements of 303 liberal arts colleges in the United States. Among his findings was that 70 percent of colleges making liberal arts claims in their mission statements actually awarded degrees primar­ ily in professional disciplines. He concluded that the claim to liberal arts often failed to reveal the actual motives that shaped the curriculum, and that it may be both politi­ cally and methodologically more valuable for sociology faculty to frame their assess­ ment of student learning within the context of the discipline as opposed to the mission of a particular institution. Powers (2000:42) offers an excellent ex­ plication of the role of a guiding mission statement in his description of Santa Clara University’s efforts to build a developmental curriculum. His department’s mission is to “offer students sociological tools and in­ sights they can use to improve the effective­ ness of the organizations they are a part of �70 ___________ TEACHING SOCIOLOGY and enhance the quality of the communities identified as characterizing the sociology they live in.” This mission statement has program? What elements of educational phi­ become the department’s organizing focal losophy are included? Is attention given to point for the construction of specific learn­ the purpose of sociology as a general educa­ ing objectives, curriculum design, and as­ tion requirement? To what extent does the sessment techniques to gain feedback on the content of purpose statements differ in pri­ department’s success. vate versus public institutions, churchClearly there is an important research related versus secular institutions, small ver­ agenda for sociologists who want to shed sus large institutions, single-sex versus coed­ light on the context in which sociology ucational institutions, or by institutional lo­ purpose statements are written, the content cation (e.g., urban versus small town and of the statements, the process by which they south versus midwest)? were written, and the effects or outcomes of Process. What process is used to write the having a purpose statement in place. The statement? To what extent is it created out of following offers a beginning list of questions group discussion and collaboration versus that sociologists might pursue. Given that the work of the chair or a single individual? we are at a very early stage of sociological How is the process subsumed within the research on assessment, most of the identi­ traditional organizational bureaucracy of the fied questions are descriptive in nature. department? What occurs when most or Context. What is the institutional setting in even some faculty refuse to participate or which the department has been asked to undermine the work of others? How does the write a purpose statement? Is there adminis­ department assessment leader encourage trative support for the work of departments follow-through on collective decisions? in writing a mission statement? What guid­ What strategies are used to encourage fac­ ance do institutional administrators offer, ulty to keep an open mind about or support and what resources, if any, have been made conscientious assessment? available to assist in the work? What ratio­ Effects. Is the statement supported by nale does administrators and department faculty? Is it used as a framework for identi­ chairpersons offer for faculty to take assess­ fying goals and objectives? Is it viewed as a ment responsibility seriously? How much useful activity? Does the process by which time is given to draft the statement? What the statement is written affect the level of institutional rewards and sanctions are used acceptance of the statement? Does the pur­ to stimulate this work? What is the influence pose statement lead to departmental, curric­ of these factors on the content, process, and ular, or pedagogical decisions that affect the outcomes of writing the statement? teaching and learning of sociology? Are Content. To what extent and in what ways changes made to enhance curricular coher­ are sociology purpose statements linked to ence and student learning? Are improve­ institutional purpose statements? What do ments made in positive student outcomes? sociology faculties identify as the fundamen­ tal purpose of their department and its fun­ Goals and Objectives damental contribution to the instimtion? To “The departmental purpose statement is to what extent are statements focused on stu­ lead to the formulation of a list of goals and dents’ learning versus a research mission or outcomes objectives for students majoring in a community or public service mission? To the field. Goals are statements about general what extent does the purpose statement focus aims or purposes of education that are on the cognitive abilities of students versus broad, long-range intended outcomes that more generic skills (such as critical thinking can be used in policy making and general and effective writing), value acquisition, and program planning” (Johnson, Potts, and post-graduation employment? Hood 1999). They are “general aims or What major emphases and directions are purposes of the program and the curriculum; �ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING include broad, long-range intended out­ on task, and increased motivation for goal comes, wishes, desires, and intentions, as attainment. Educational treatises today rou­ well as statements about content knowledge, tinely cite the positive effects of carefully skills, attributes, broad knowledge/values, designed, clearly expressed, explicit learn­ and perspectives expected in graduates” ing goals (see Ellis and Pouts 1993 on clear (PACT Outcomes Assessment Handbook goal-setting contributing to effective 2000:11). schools; Good and Brophy 1994 on goals as Each goal has one or more corresponding motivators; Posner 1995 on the contribution outcomes objectives. The best-written objec­ of goal setting to coherent curricula; Cross tives are concise, clear statements that de­ 1999 on goal-setting as a motivator specifi­ scribe a measurable learning outcome. They cally among college students; and Johnson. are focused on the specific types of perfor­ Potts, and Hood 1999 on the contribution of mance that students are expected to demon­ department goal setting to course instruc­ strate at the end of instruction (Johnson, tion). Potts, and Hood 1999), Objectives “...flow There is a small body of literature in from the goals; [they are] operational defini­ sociology that specifically addresses the im­ tions that let you know if goals are being portance of goal- and objective-setting in reached; [they are] langible/observabie out­ shaping the curriculum and in assessing comes expected in your students” (PACT student learning. Given the demonstrated Outcomes Assessment Handbook 20(X):ll). value of goal articulation for student learn­ They should include the knowledge, skills, ing, it is surprising that more sociologists attitudes, behaviors, and achievements ex­ have not addressed this issue. Interestingly, pected of students in the major. some sociologists were addressing this issue The emphasis within the assessment move­ before the assessment movement in higher ment is on objectives that are clear, measur­ education really became visible. In an early able. and outcome- or result-oriented rather Teaching Sociology article, Miriampolski than process-oriented. This is contrary to the (1978) reflected on goals that would be tradition of most academic departments, appropriate in a humanistic approach to which are more accustomed to identifying introducing students to sociology. (He rec­ what the faculty will do than what will ommended understanding social determin­ happen to students. While some departments ism, relativizing culture, instilling a sense of still include some process-oriented objec­ social realism, and developing skills in criti­ tives, the emphasis now is on identification cal evaluation.) of what students will be able to do as a result Among the earliest attempts to discover of studying sociology. the content of goals emphasized in sociology Much education literature exists on the is the work of Vaughan (1980:268). She importance of clear articulation of goals and analyzed textbooks; study guides and in­ objectives. Empirical research (both labora­ structor s manuals for the introductory soci­ tory and in the field) across a wide range of ology course; course syllabi for the intro­ organizational settings strongly supports the ductory course (that were collected by the positive effects of goal-setting on learning ASA Section on Undergraduate Education); and performance improvement. In an early and surveys of departmental chairpersons to review of 17 empirical studies, Locke et al. assemble a list of Stated Goals for Under­ (1981) found that setting challenging goals graduate Instruction in Sociology. She iden­ versus more vague “do your best” goals tified the following goals: (1) to transmit a increased performance in every one of the body of knowledge to the students. (2) to studies. How did clear goal setting lead to develop cenain substantive understandings improved performance? It led to more fo­ in the students, (3) to contribute to the cused attention and action, greater mobiliza­ general intellectual and personal develop­ tion of energy and effort, greater persistence ment of students, and (4) to contribute to �72 students’ vocational preparation. Others who reflected on appropriate goals for sociology include Bradshaw and McPherron (1980), Hazzard (1991), McMillan and McKinney (1985), Rhoades (1980), and Stephan and Massey (1982). In 1991, Wagenaar extended and formal­ ized much of this thinking by drafting a list of 10 goals for undergraduate sociology (which linked goals and outcomes objec­ tives). These goals later became the basis for a list of 12 learning goals for the sociology major that was included in Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major (ASA 1992). These two sets of goals have been widely cited and used as a foundation for their own goal­ setting by sociology programs around the country. The Liberal Learning goals are contained in Table 1. Also, in 1992, the ASA’s Teaching Resources Center published Assessing Undergraduate Learning in Soci­ ology, edited by Sharkey and Johnson, which has also been an extremely useful document to many sociology programs. Much of the writing by sociologists on goals and objectives has been prescriptive, reflecting efforts to recommend goals and TEACHING SOCIOLOGY objectives that sociology departments might consider. What is needed is more empirical research—both descriptive and explana­ tory—that relates to the context, content, process, and effects of goal- and objective­ writing. Context. What is the institutional setting in which the department has been asked to write learning goals and objectives? Is there administrative support for this work? What guidance is offered by institutional adminis­ trators, and what resources, if any, have been made available to assist in the work? What rationale do administrators and depart­ ment chairpersons offer to faculty to justify this work? How much time is given to write goals and objectives? What institutional re­ wards and sanctions are used to stimulate this work? Content. What are the goals and outcome objectives that sociology programs have adopted? How do they compare with the goals and objectives identified in Liberal Leaming-nTe they more or less inclusive? Do they follow from the institutional and program statement of purpose? How do they compare with the goals and objectives writ- Table 1. Learning Goals for the Sociology Major (from Liberal Learning and the SocioIorv Major} The sociology major should study, review, and reflect on; (1) the discipline of sociology and its role in contributing to our understanding of social reality, such that the student will be able to; • describe how sociology differs from and is similar to other social sciences, and give examples of these differences; • describe how sociology contributes to a liberal arts understanding of social reality; and • apply the sociological imagination, sociological principles, and concepts to her/his own life. (2) the role of theory in sociology, such that the students will be able to; • define theory and describe its role in building sociological knowledge; • compare and contrast basic theoretical orientations; • show how theories reflect the historical context of times and cultures in which they were developed; • describe and apply some basic theories or theoretical orientations in at least one area of social reality. (3) the role of evidence and qualitative and quantitative methods in sociology, such that the student will be able to; • identify basic methodological approaches and describe the general role of methods in building sociological knowledge; • compare and contrast the basic methodological approaches for gathering data; • design a research study in an area of choice and explain why various decisions were made; and • critically assess a published research report and explain how the study could have been improved. �ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING 73 Table 1. con’t (4) basic concepts in sociology and their fundamental theoretical interrelations, such that the student will be able to: • define, give examples, and demonstrate the relevance of the following: culture, social change, socialization, stratification, social structure, institutions, and differentiations by race/ethnicity, gender, age, and class. (5) how culture and social structure operate, such that the student will be able to: • show how institutions interlink their effects on each other and on individuals; • demonstrate how social change factors such as population or urbanization affect social structures and individuals; • demonstrate how culture and social structure vary across time and place, and the effect of such variations; and • identify examples of specific policy implications using reasoning about social structural effects. (6) reciprocal relations between individuals and society, such that the student will be able to: • explain how the self develops sociologically; • demonstrate how societal and structural factors influence individual behavior and the selfs development; • demonstrate how social interaction and the self influence society and social structure; and • distinguish sociological approaches to analyzing the self from psychological, economic, and other approaches. (7) the macro/micro distinction, such that the student will be able to: • compare and contrast theories at one level with those at another; • summarize some research documenting connections between the two; and • develop a list of research or analytical issues that should be pursued to more fully understand the connections between the two. (8) in depth at least one area within sociology, such that the student will be able to: • summarize basic questions and issues in the area; • compare and contrast basic theoretical orientations and middle range theories in the area; • show how sociology helps understand the area; • summarize current research in the area; and • develop specific policy implications of research and theories in the area. (9) the internal diversity of American society and its place in the international context, such that the student will be able to describe: • the significance of variations by race, class, gender, and age; and • will know how to appropriately generalize or resist generalizations across groups. (10) one or more areas within sociology, such that the student will be able to: • compare and contrast the basic theoretical orientations in the area; • show how sociology helps understand the area; • summarize current research in the area; and • develop policy implications of the research and theory in the area. Two more generic goals that should be pursued in sociology are: (11) To think critically, such that the student will be able to: • move easily from recall analysis and application to synthesis and evaluation; • identify underlying assumptions in particular theoretical orientations or arguments; • identify underlying assumptions particular methodological approaches to an issue; • show how patterns of thought and knowledge are directly influenced by political-economic social structures; and • present opposing viewpoints and alternative hypotheses on various issues. (12) To develop values, such that the student will see; • the utility of the sociological perspective as one of several perspectives on social reality; and • the importance of reducing the negative effects of social inequality. �74 ten in other social science departments at the same institution? To what extent do they focus on the cognitive learning of sociology versus skill development (for example, theory construc­ tion or interviewing skills) versus generic skills (for example, effective writing and oral presentation)? Is there any focus on value socialization or on enabling students to understand their own education as being part of a larger social institution that has social, political, cultural, and economic conse­ quences? To what extent does the content of goals and objectives differ in private versus public institutions, church-related versus secular institutions, small versus large insti­ tutions, single-sex versus coeducational in­ stitutions, or by institutional location (e.g., urban versus small town and south versus midwest)? Process. What process is used to write the goals and objectives? To what extent are they created out of group discussion and collaboration versus the work of the chair or a single individual? How is the process subsumed within the traditional organiza­ tional bureaucracy of the department? What occurs when faculty refuse to participate or undermine the work of others? How does the department assessment leader encourage follow-through on collective decisions? What strategies are used to encourage fac­ ulty to keep an open mind about or to support conscientious assessment? Effects. Are the goals and objectives sup­ ported by faculty? Does the process by which they have been written affect their level of acceptance? Do the goals and objec­ tives genuinely influence decisions about curriculum, policies, and standards? Are faculty familiar with them? Are students familiar with them? Do they influence course content and pedagogy? Are they peri­ odically reviewed? What factors influence the degree to which the goals and objectives are used as guides? To what extent do they differ in private versus public institutions, church-related versus secular institutions, small versus large institutions, single-sex versus coeducational institutions, or by insti­ TEACHING SOCIOLOGY tutional location? Assessment Mechanisms Being accustomed to conceptualizing, opera­ tionalizing, and measuring human attitudes and behaviors, sociologists likely have as much experience as any academicians with mechanisms for assessing student learning. Early assessment programs often consisted of little more than administering test scores to measure student outcomes (Schilling and Schilling 1998). Today, however, assess­ ment of student learning occurs through a wide variety of techniques based on the collection of information from current stu­ dents, from alumni, from relevant con­ stituencies (for example, employers and graduate schools), from external reviewers, and from the monitoring of institutional data. Table 2 identifies some of the com­ monly used assessment mechanisms in soci­ ology. Most of the increasingly voluminous liter­ ature on assessment mechanisms focuses on one of ±ree topics: (1) a discussion about methodological issues involved in assessing outcomes (e.g.. Assessment in Higher Edu­ cation: Issues of Access, Quality, Student Development, and Public Policy IMessick 19991), (2) a description and evaluation of one or more specific mechanisms (e.g., Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Hand­ book for College Teachers [Angelo and Cross 1993]), and (3) a description of the mechanisms used in particular institutions (e.g.. Assessment in Practice: Putting Prin­ ciples to 'Work on College Campuses (Banta et al. 1996]). The literature on assessment methodology typically centers on recommendations for ensuring the validity and reliability of as­ sessment findings. Common in these recom­ mendations (American Association of Col­ leges 1992; Banta et al. 1996; Schilling and Schilling 1998) are the following five fea­ tures: (1) Assessment mechanisms should provide answers to genuine questions that faculty have. If faculty do not care about the �ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING 75 Table 2. A Partial List of Assessment Mechanisms From Current Students Classroom-embedded techniques that focus on a direct educational outcome Performance in senior capstone course Major papers and projects Nationally-normed examinations In-house examination administered in the capstone course In-house essay administered early and late in major Student portfolios Surveys and Focus groups Awards/grants/publications/presentations/honors Senior exit interviews From Alumni Placement records (education, employment) of graduates Alumni surveys From Relevant College and External Constituencies Focus groups of faculty in related programs and with staff in Admissions, Academic Services, and the Registrar’s Office Surveys of employers and faculty in graduate programs in which graduates have matriculated From Program Reviewers and College Data External reviews Monitoring of background/quality of students declaring major, grades, i>erformance in campus-wide competitions (2) (3) (4) (5) results of questions asked, then the mecha­ nism is a poor one. Assessment mechanisms should actually measure what they are intended to mea­ sure. Assessment mechanisms should en­ able faculty to draw correct conclusions about the extent to which objectives are being met. (One of the best-condensed discussions of the strengths and weak­ nesses of specific assessment mechanisms is the Cal Siaie-Bakersfield PACT Out­ comes Assessment Handbook described earlier.) Both quantitative (e.g., numerical data such as scores on comprehensive exams and number of students doing independent studies) and qualitative (e.g., assessment of student portfolios) measures should be used. At least two mechanisms should be used to assess each of the objectives. Assessment information should be col­ lected from a variety of constituencies. For example, departments might focus on current majors and minors, students in the introductory class, non-majors taking electives in the department, recent or older alums, faculty in other departments, student services staff, etc. There is significant sociological literature (primarily in Teaching Sociology) about the use of various pedagogical strategies and classroom projects and activities. Some of these articles include systematic evaluation of the technique, while others are simply anecdotal reports. Many have potential to be considered in an assessment context, though this connection typically has been implicit. Nevertheless, there are several good exam­ ples of assessment-related thinking. Watts and Ellis (1989) discussed using occupa­ tional status and mobility of graduates as an assessment mechanism; Sharkey (1990) dis­ cussed several issues related to organizing an entire curriculum around learning out­ comes; and the ASA Teaching Resources Center publication on assessment, edited by �76 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY Sharkey and Johnson (1992) includes pieces by Thompson on assessing learning in re­ search methods, by Vera on assessing read­ ing ability, and by Hartman on using a senior-level paper to assess the major. Given the expertise of many sociologists in the conceptualization and operationaliza­ tion of social variables and the exercise of sound research techniques, there is consider­ able potential for greater sociological contri­ butions to understanding assessment mecha­ nisms. Research is needed on the advantages and disadvantages of each assessment mech­ anism relative to the quality, depth, and quantity of learning that occurs. In sociol­ ogy, examples of specific questions are: To what extent do we obtain accurate assess­ ment data from examining performance on the Educational Testing Service Major Field Test or on some other nationally-normed examination? Are helpful in-house compre­ hensive examinations being used? If so, what can we learn from them? Is perfor­ mance in capstone courses or in internships and independent studies genuinely reflective of student learning in the major? How are student portfolios used to assess sociology learning? How do sociology faculty compare assessment mechanisms on the quality of information collected? Which mechanisms are most appropriate to use with particular learning objectives? Do we receive reliable data when we use multiple mechanisms to assess a single ob­ jective? Do external assessors (e.g., gradu­ ate schools and employers and outside re­ viewers of a department) confirm other indi­ cators of student learning? What is learned by studying the observations of alumni grad­ uates? Are their perceptions similar to those reported by seniors? pare them to pre-formulated expectations (that is, criteria of success), and, most importantly, identify and implement specific actions designed to enhance student learning (this final process is referred to as closing the loop}. This final stage is the ultimate purpose of assessment and reconnects the process to its underlying rationale: that gen­ uinely effective departments and programs continually look for ways to improve student learning and that they base their analysis on data that have been systematically collected (Nichols 1995). With regard to the assessment program, there is again an extraordinary need for empirical research. In addition to the same kinds of questions suggested for analysis of purpose statements and the writing of goals and objectives, other specific questions can be asked: How has sociology shaped the implementation of annual assessment pro­ grams? How are assessment activities sched­ uled into the routine administrative tasks that are accomplished during the academic year? How do departments configure themselves to accomplish annual assessment? Are there particular objectives that sociol­ ogy programs typically achieve? Are there particular objectives on which sociology programs typically fail? In what ways have sociology programs changed in response to assessment? What kinds of changes typically succeed and what kinds typically fail? What factors influence the conscientiousness with which departmental assessment is conducted and with which efforts to enact program improvements are made and carried out? An Annual Assessment Program Assessment-focused research indicates the potential for substantial enhancement of stu­ dent learning. Yet, much remains to be learned about the manner in which assess­ ment makes a positive contribution, about how assessment can be configured to pro­ vide the most and best data about student learning, and about ways to overcome resis- The Assessment Plan simply identifies the working pieces of the assessment process. Assessment becomes real each year when faculty select a small number of outcome objectives (typically about three to five) upon which to focus, carry out the necessary mechanisms, examine the results and com­ THE NEXT DECADE: THE SCHOLAR­ SHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING AND THE ASSESSMENT MOVEMENT �ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING lance to assessment. This is true for all of higher education, and it is true for sociol­ ogyThe need for more research and reflection on assessment of student learning coincides with the development and continued refine­ ment of a scholarship of teaching and learn­ ing (SOTL) within sociology. Defined as the systematic reflection on leaching and learn­ ing made public (McKinney 2000), SOTL seeks to promote the research that faculty members conduct on their daily activities. Research on assessment can contribute to the knowledge base about this important move­ ment within higher education and can pro­ vide information that contributes in a very practical and direct way to improved teach­ ing and learning. This paper ends with a call and encouragement for sociologists to partic­ ipate in the scholarship of teaching and learning in general and to assist in conduct­ ing research on the assessment of student learning in particular. REFERENCES Pro­ gram Review and Educational Quality in the Major. 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Charlotte. 1980. “Identifying Course Goals: Domains and Levels of Learning.” Teaching Sociology 7:265-79. Vera, Hernan. 1992. “To Create New Meanings: A Method to Assess Students’ Reading.” Pp. 170-74 in Assessing Undergraduate Learning in Sociology, edited by Stephen Sharkey and William S. Johnson. Washington, DC: Ameri­ Loosely Coupled Systems.” Administrative Sci­ ence Quarterly 21:1-19. College Teaching.- Strategies for Developing Effective­ ness. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Weimer, Maryellen. 1990. Improving Wellman, Jane V. 2001. “Assessing State Ac­ countability Systems.” Change 33:46-52. Wright, Barbara D. 2000. “Assessing Student From Change: Landmarks in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from Change Magazine 1969-1999. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Learning.” Pp. 209-304 in Learning Greg Weiss is professor of sociology at Roanoke College. His research interests center around the sociol­ ogy curriculum and assessment, end-of-life decision­ making, and health protective behaviors. He is co­ author with Lynne Lonnquist of 77ie Sociology of Health. Healing, and Illness. Janet Cosbey is associate professor of sociology at Eastern Illinois University. Her research interests focus on gender, family, gerontology, and teaching styles and techniques. Shelly Habel is visiting assistant professor of sociol­ ogy at Georgetown University. Her research interests focus on teaching and learning with Web-based com­ puter course delivery systems and assessment of student learning. Chad Hanson is a member of the social science faculty at Casper College. His research interests focus on issues in higher education, specifically teaching and learning. He has recently published in The Teaching Professor, The National Teaching and Learning Forum, and College Teaching. Carolee Larsen is assistant professor of sociology at Millsaps College. Her research interests include assess­ ment of student learning, the impact of technology on society, and welfare-to-work issues. � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Print Journal Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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All rights revert back to the author/artist after publication.</div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2024 Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Madison Harvey Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Expression Literary and Arts Magazine, CCA 04.ii.c.2022.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA 04.ii.c.2022.01_Exp_2024_Art_69 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource TIF Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Casper College https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/8907b9db95c0a19f16a72bea3d65cd2d.tif e251de032dc880b9b686589ba01ee1b3 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. 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Title A name given to the resource In Loving Hands Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text"><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a></div> </div> </div> <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns offset-by-two"> <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns offset-by-two"> <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text"><em>Expression</em><span>&nbsp;</span>claims first North American rights to submissions selected for publication. All rights revert back to the author/artist after publication.</div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2024 Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mariah Geis Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Expression Literary and Arts Magazine, CCA 04.ii.c.2022.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA 04.ii.c.2022.01_Exp_2024_Art_74 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource TIF Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Casper College https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/9d4628a6320fe7682278ee63f9ae6129.tif fbbb7acb7fbfd1d158d129d15fa71da7 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. 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Title A name given to the resource In Thought Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text"><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a></div> </div> </div> <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns offset-by-two"> <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns offset-by-two"> <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text"><em>Expression</em><span>&nbsp;</span>claims first North American rights to submissions selected for publication. All rights revert back to the author/artist after publication.</div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2024 Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rita Mata Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Expression Literary and Arts Magazine, CCA 04.ii.c.2022.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA 04.ii.c.2022.01_Exp_2024_Art_20 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource TIF Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Casper College https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/f29af2e486b11aa4e5431914bb02ee0b.jpg 884eb63dc5b2e73dbcc34ff524b2fd32 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/9c156cb1b683ad63a7ae93cb43477909.jpg 8180b10da5731f18911db0cf1899d028 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Boney Earnest Photographs Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Frances Seely Webb Collection Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.v.1985.02_BEP Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPG Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Casper College Western History Center Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boney Earnest; Martha Earnest Abstract A summary of the resource. A collection of photos related to Napoleon Bonaparte "Boney" Earnest and Martha Earnest as well as their families, friends, and properties. The Earnests were early settlers and ranchers in the Carbon and Natrona counties of Wyoming in the 1800-1900s. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Independence Rock, 1890 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/</a> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.v.1985.02_BEP_35a; NCA 01.v.1985.02_BEP_35b Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Frances Seely Webb Collection Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPG Has Format A related resource that is substantially the same as the pre-existing described resource, but in another format. TIFF https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/9bbf55d7e861afd8f52812c8d373e408.pdf 4d08838c430fca02a2238561ed775395 PDF Text Text ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Casper College 1961 Thunderbird Annual Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1961 Subject The topic of the resource Casper College -- History.; Community colleges -- Wyoming -- History. Description An account of the resource Digitized copies of the Casper College 1961 Thunderbird Annual. Type The nature or genre of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Casper College Thunderbird Annuals Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Casper College Thunderbird Annuals, CCA 2023.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Annual print yearbook Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Index Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1961 Subject The topic of the resource Casper College -- History.; Community colleges -- Wyoming -- History Description An account of the resource Digitized copy of the Index pages Administration section for the 1961 Casper College Thunderbird annual yearbook. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Casper College Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Is Part Of Casper College Thunderbird Annuals, CCA 2023.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA2023.01_1961_Index Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF