PRAC minutes for September 23, 2010
Attendance: Susan Clerc, Karen Cummings, Sanja Grubacic, Tom Radice, Charlie Dellinger-Pate, Susan Felsenfeld, Marybeth Fede, Patricia Kahlbaugh, Jane McGinn, Scott Graves
None absent
Meeting began at 9:35 a.m. in ASC 229
The committee met to discuss the revised self-study report submitted by the Marketing program. The self-study report, containing standards 1-17, was prepared by Assessment Coordinators, Dr. Richard Kustin and Dr. Melvin Prince. This report was originally reviewed by PRAC at the end of Spring 2010, but due to time constraints PRAC had not examined revisions offered by Marketing before the semester ended. Committee members discussed the self-study and then met with Dr. Kustin and Dr. Lodha at 10:30. It was agreed that the Marketing self-study has conditional approval. Conditional approval means that Marketing will have 11 months to revise their program review. PRAC members provided feedback to Dr. Lodha and Dr. Kustin as they move forward in the assessment process. Some specific recommendations can be found in the PRAC report on Marketing.
The Accounting program is our next business. PRAC should receive their report by September 29, 2010 and will meet with them on October 7th.
Meeting was adjourned at 10:50.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Patricia Kahlbaugh
Program Review and Assessment Committee (PRAC)
University Curriculum Forum
Undergraduate Program Review Report: Marketing - School of Business
September 28, 2010
The Marketing Department in the School of Business submitted a self-study report to UCF - PRAC at the end of March 2010. The self-study covered standards 1-17 of the Academic Program Review document. PRAC met to discuss this report in April. Representatives from Marketing were unable to attend the meeting due to meetings involving the hiring of a new Dean for the School of Business. To accommodate that scheduling issue, Patricia Kahlbaugh met with representatives, Dr. Lodha and Dr. Kustin at another time in order to convey the thoughts of the PRAC committee. At that time, recommendations were made for revision. Because both English and Music had been scheduled for mid-April, PRAC suggested that Marketing make their revisions by the end of the spring 2010 semester and PRAC would place Marketing as Old Business at the beginning of the Fall 2010 semester.
Marketing's revised report was delivered to PRAC members on September 9, 2010. PRAC reviewed all submitted materials and met with Dr. Richard Kustin, the Marketing Department's assessment coordinator, and Dr. Shyam Lodha, the Department's chairperson, for discussion on September 23, 2010. Revisions of the self-study were noted and discussed. The nature of these revisions warranted a decision of conditional approval. PRAC made it known to Dr Kustin and Dr. Lodha that PRAC would make the recommendation of conditional approval to UCF, which would mean Marketing now has 11 additional months to make revisions.
PRAC commends the work done so far by the Marketing Department and has made the following suggestions for revision of Standards 1-17:
Standard 1: The department/program's mission supports the university's mission
Recommendation and Feedback: To link the mission of department more concretely to the mission of the university. The mission of the Marketing department is: commitment to academic excellence, provides professional training, prepares students for leadership roles. Need to articulate how these support the university's mission.
Standard 2: Program goals and objectives
Does provide list of what program intends students to learn based on participation in the program.
Recommendation and Feedback: Need to add statement(s) about what the program intends to do as goals. Section begins with what students will be able to do after the program- which is fine, but this should follow from what the program intends to do. Marketing identified the following six program goals in term of what students will be able to do: Basic tools (methods, theories) of organizational strategy; Top Management perspectives; Communicate findings; Team Skills; Critical thinking concepts; Tools to serve students' professional opportunities (is this last one different from other goals already listed?).
Standard 3: Program level expected student outcomes
There are four program level expected student outcomes: Marketing skill comprehension (recognizing marketing problems; understanding basic marketing principles); Analytic skills (knowing analytic tools, using marketing databases); Decision Making Skills and lastly, Critical Thinking
There are Direct Measures using data from capstone - MKT 450
Covers basic methods, concepts and theories (see program goal #1)
Covers top management perspectives (see program goal #2)
Covers communication (see program goal #3)
Covers a component on team skills (see program goal #4) and critical thinking (see program goal $5)
Recommendation and Feedback: Good start. Think more about how these are nested within the program level goals. Use the program goals to drive the expected student outcomes and then link these with specific course content. When linked with specific course content across the curriculum, the department can identify areas were where achievement is measurable.
On standard 3, I would recommend additional strategies for measuring student outcomes - not only the performance in capstone course- but also the link between the performance and expectations of students in MKT 200 (a primary prerequisite) and MKT 450 (the capstone).
Standard 4: Uses student data to improve program
Recommendation and Feedback: The report in general needs more narrative and more explanation of everything, more recent and analyzed data.
Marketing should provide more detail on how the department does or plans to use data from standard 3 to change curriculum or course content. Right now, the report doesn't indicate any reflection about how they might apply data to the program for self-improvement. How often do Marketing faculty meet to discuss cases, every semester or once a year? It has been done since 2008, so are there any ideas from these discussions about how to improve program? According to the report, faculty were able to see the strengths and weaknesses in the student. Can this approach also inform faculty about the strengths and weakness in the program? Has this been done? And if so, what has been the outcome of such an analysis?
Paragraph 3 ("The department recruits...") should be moved to standard 7.
Standard 5: Quality of instruction and teaching effectiveness
Recommendation and Feedback: Requires at least 2 more syllabi. Some description of how the assignments reflect or assess the learning outcomes is needed, either in chart form or narrative. See standard 4: there's no description of how data has changed teaching. If they haven't gathered the data, they should describe their plan to do so.
Only have 3 syllabi in appendix B. Need to relate program goals and expected student outcomes to the course objectives/course syllabi.
For 5b. where is this data coming from that is being evaluated?
No summary data from standard 3.. question is do they have a good enough plan in place to generate this type of data?
Missing: Summary of how assignment relate to outcomes
Missing: 5 or more syllabi
Standard 6: Curricular development
Recommendation and Feedback: The first paragraph needs editing. The graduation rates table should be revised and moved to standard 7. Table 1 should link the courses more clearly to the learning outcomes and goals of standards 2 & 3. A more developed matrix would be helpful.
Good example - Marketing management, Retail management and Sales management.
But, how do the other courses fit in with program goals, specific learning outcomes and now these three "specializations of marketing, retail and sales management"? How does the curriculum align with standards in the field? Is there a sequence to the courses that shows how one course builds on another in order to provide the students with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required? (This could be shown with a matrix or diagram and explanation of how it works.)
Needs more information here, more specific detail about how courses are linked to form coherent curriculum. Information about courses and links between them would be welcome detail. Reference is made to how curriculum is commensurate with other universities, but again documentation/detail of how that is the case would be welcome. A curriculum map (such as shown in Standard 3) would be helpful.
Further articulation of the relationship between undergraduate and graduate programs would be welcome
Standard 7: Faculty, students, staff
Recommendation and Feedback: Confused by Table 4 regarding enrollment data - is this for marketing or for business? Looking at Table 2 it seems as though the program only has 14 students and has only graduated 2 of them in 6 years (14.3%) - can this be correct? The fact book states they graduated 37 students last year and have approximately 200 majors enrolled in classes last year. The table that is included is confusing and not as complimentary to their program as the fact book tables..
The most significant (and perhaps the most constructive) thing I can say is that for standard 7, they need to provide a stronger rationale for the optimal number of faculty. They say that they have three, and used to have six. But though they indicate that they would love to have more faculty lines, they never explain what specializations need to be covered, so that their program can be considered "adequate" compared to similar programs at other institutions. This is a place where they can really explain what holes in the marketing curriculum need to be filled.
They provide everything for 7a, but the list of faculty and student awards should go in standard 7.
Missing: Any information about students (recruitment - where do students come from? Demographics? Awards?)
Missing: Any information about support staff
Missing: Idea of what would be the optimal number of faculty and students?
Standard 8: Student Advisement
Recommendation and Feedback: Marketing's report of their assessment describes how students are advised and ratio of students to faculty.
The report does not include information regarding how they have assessed the program sequence, rotation plan, tracking students through the program or forms used during advisement. A table is provided with little explanation as to what it means or what they have learned are the strengths and weaknesses of the program.
Mention is made to the enrollment increase and low number of full-time faculty. More specific description as to what each faculty member teaches would strengthen this argument.
Mention is made to a handbook but no information as to what is included in the handbook and what the department has learned through the assessment process that would assist students through the curriculum.
No explanation of how students with academic difficulties are counseled. Think about how to address the problems identified in advising when students enter into program late in undergraduate career.
No information regarding responsibilities of faculty members coordinating the program, library resources, scheduling, or budgeting is provided.
For standard 8, they provide the first three items on the checklist: how students are assigned advisors, the number of advisors, and the student-faculty ratio. It's 70:1, which seems overwhelming - yet another place to indicate why they need more faculty to deal with their majors. They also do provide a description of how they advise their students about what courses to take. And it seems like the form they use for advising is the degree evaluation form. They don't provide anything else for standard 8 and nothing is provided for 8a.
Standard 9: Sections of courses
Recommendation and Feedback: Details the hardship case of low number of faculty. It does not provide documentation that a three to five year course rotation plan is published and followed.
For 9, they provide a table about data provided by Dr. Riccardi and Dr. Kennedy, but need to provide explanatory narrative. Evidently it's supposed to demonstrate that there are enough courses provided. There's no course rotation plan. They refer to "Key Trends and Graduation Numbers figures below," but I don't see any such figures. Perhaps they're listed in a separate standard?
Graduation rates (30/year) doesn't match with earlier table - I recommend deleting the earlier table and/or clearing up situation.
10. Climate of intellectual and professional curiosity -
Recommendation and Feedback: Neglected to mention any involvement or plan for involvement of students. They mentioned one contest
students entered back in 2007. Faculty were published, but one faculty member had nothing within the 5 year range. Need more narrative discussing strengths, weaknesses and plans here, which can be picked up again in standards 16 and 17.
What journal did the department publish - should make a bigger deal of this, right? What are Romanian NGOs - again I'd clarify to make a greater impact.
Any plans to enhance this? Any strengths? Weaknesses? Challenges?
11. Evidence of scholarship - Met
Recommendation and Feedback: Could use FAAR reports and could provide narrative about particular successes.
Standard 12: Library Resources
Recommendation and Feedback: he results from survey of narrative description of faculty views on library holdings (Standard 12) are not included in the report. The results from survey of student satisfaction with library holdings are stated as: "overwhelming: yes", but this was not supported by the actual evidence.
Standard 13: Faculty and Resources
Recommendation and Feedback: Could provide data here to support their need to reduce adjunct rates. This might be a good place to really highlight the high faculty/student ratios. Also, they note that they don't currently have any specialized computer or lab facilities for marketing projects. If this is something that they feel is compromising the quality of the program, they should say this and maybe
give some examples of the ways in which such facilities, if available, would be used.
Seabury Recommendation: Case could be made that is even stronger ... maybe something about how the facilities issues adversely affect the mission, goals, etc of the department?
Standard 14: Department Engages in Review and Self-Evaluation:
Recommendation and Feedback: There are some strengths that could be highlighted here, including the use of outside marketing scholars to review the curriculum and the planned development of a marketing review board. They have also recently developed an alumni survey, an employer survey and a senior majors (exit) survey. These tools look very promising. They indicate that the results of these surveys will be "discussed among faculty members and used to make adjustments were [sic] these are deemed necessary in order to improve the program." As with other standards, this comment could be expanded to describe more specific mechanisms they are developing to help them convert the large amount of survey data they will receive into "action plans." In terms of style, as we discussed at the meeting, they should move the comments into an Appendix, and maybe just provide a brief summary of the highlights in the body of the document, based on N surveys obtained in xx and yy years.
Missing: Narrative description of improvements made or planned based on the results of student survey
Missing: Frequency of follow up
Standard 15: The department's activity in community service and outreach is appropriate to the mission of the program and the university
Recommendation and Feedback: Good - could be more specific about how each activity supports/or is appropriate to the mission of program and university.
Standard 16: The department provides an analysis of program strength and weaknesses
Recommendation and Feedback: To try to find out how many majors Marketing has versus how many students at SCSU take classes in Marketing. Would be helpful in evaluating needs. Identified strength in curriculum revision. Nicely identified additional courses needed for program, which indicates need for more faculty. Both the revision of the curriculum and additional faculty to support curricular initiatives could have been explained further under standard 6 (as well as included here in standard 16).
Areas for improvement are identified; however should be tied back to the various standards reviewed if possible. For example, what in the report has pointed to a need for areas of specialization and additions to curriculum. Could make these connections more explicit for the reviewer. Are the addition of three courses in the course offerings particularly in areas of three specialization (e.g., marketing communications and promotion, marketing management, and relationship marketing) tied to program goals and expected student learning outcomes? Are these part of how you described your curriculum in standard 6? These are some questions that may be useful to ask.
Standard 17: The department describes a vision and action plan for the future
Recommendation and Feedback: Good identification of vision and action plan. Some general recommendations are to align the vision and action plan in a deliberate way with the mission and goals of the department and the strengths and weaknesses identified through the self-study. All of these goals for the future are admirable. Confident that as the report is revised, the vision and action plan for future will be better supported by the report narrative.
