FYPR Phase II External Review Guide

X X 1.2 Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to periodically review and revise the mission statement as appropriate?. X X 1.3 Does the program satisfy the expect

External Reviewer Information Collection and

Analysis Guide

California State University, Chico Undergraduate Degrees Programs: Five-Year

Program Review

This Information Collection and Analysis Guide assists external

reviewers in collecting, analyzing, and reporting relevant data

throughout the external review process More specifically, the guide is designed to accomplish the following:

To assure that the external reviewer examines a program’s performance with respect to each of the criteria of review;

To provide the external reviewer with a convenient form of recording

strengths, weakness and issues identified during the Self-Study Report

review for further assessment and verification during the campus visit; and

To provide a single place to record strengths, weaknesses and issues to

be included in the External Review Report

1 Mission and Educational Objectives

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

have a clear and published mission statement that is

appropriate for higher education and consonant with the mission

and strategic priorities of the university?

X X

1.2

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

periodically review and revise the mission statement as

appropriate? Does the review process involve appropriate

stakeholders?

X X

1.3

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

have specified its goals and expected student learning

outcomes for the program as a whole and to have

established processes for assessing student-learning

outcomes and for assuring that students are achieving core

competencies for completion of the program?

X X

1.4 Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to have developed indicators and evidence to ascertain the level

of achievement of its mission and program goals? X X

Self-Study Report Analysis Post-Visit Comments

Include: a) clarification issues and (b)

verification issues

Standard 1: The program articulates its mission and its objectives as a guide to its

future, planned evolution, infrastructure and use of resources The program has a clear and conscious sense of its essential values and character, its distinctive elements, its place in the campus community, and its relationship to society at large The program useseffectiveness and performance indicators beyond inputs and resources as the organizing basis for defining, evaluating, and reflecting on program quality and program

effectiveness

Assessment of Appropriateness of Evidence for Mission and Education Objectives

In accordance with Criterion 1.1, the Department of Geography and Planning hasformulated a mission statement and publicized it through its web page The missionstatement touches on the discipline of geography through emphasizing the society andnature interaction and the concern for spatial scale that are at the core of the discipline Italso implies the character of planning by emphazing a goal of preparing students toparticipate in the forces shaping our rapidly changing globe

The existence of this mission statement is a subtantial improvement over the 1998statement, which was so generic that it could apply to any department in any discipline inany university around the country So, Criterion 1.2 is clearly evidenced by simplecomparison of the two statements The Department in 1998 was so divided against itselfthat it probably could not agree on the nature of geography and planning and came upwith a bland and useless statement to comply with the requirement and avoid strife TheSelf-Study describes the collaborative process of discussion that led to the much morecoherent 2005 statement, and it shows a process of review, discussion, and consensusamong the faculty The Self-Study reports that the statement wasn't floated to students orother stakeholders but that the Department hopes to consult with them I don't think it'sparticularly necessary to do so, as few people in the public know what academicdisciplines are and care less and might find it strange or irritating to look at a statementand be asked “is this what you think geography and planning are?” It is quite enough, atleast for now, that the Department has evolved into an entity that can coöperatively agree

on a common mission and self-identity

In the process of goal and objective development requested in Criterion 1.3, this mission generates twocentral educational goals: provision of liberal education and professional preparation for geographyand planning careers In its Self-Study and in interviews with me, the Department has discussed itsunique character among the other departments on campus and how its essential values contribute tothe campus mission and regional character, complementing the contributions of the other departments

It has distilled its distinctive rôle in liberal education and professional preparation as:

1 Provision of cartographic and geographic information systems technologies and instruction

2 Emphasis on scale in instruction and research, so that all students will gain an understanding

of how social and physical phenomena appear and function at local, regional, national andglobal levels

3 Specific reference to the interaction of human society with the physical world

I find these an unusually coherent conceptualization of the geography discipline andplanning profession Such coherence leads to an easier formulation of assessmentmeasures that go well beyond a simple managerialist approach in performance evaluation.Criterion 1.4 gets at evidence for the achievement of mission and program goals TheSelf-Study does not go into overall program performance at this point: Rather, it focusses

on student achievement, on which it has collected information supporting its commitment

to its mission, goals, and objectives – and students This goes well beyond the basicevidence its course mix and faculty expertise provide It keeps a collection of studentsenior thesis papers, engages in the nomination of students for various scholarships andawards requiring analysis of student achievement, closely monitors students in theinternship program through contact with supervising employers, tries to stay in touch withalumni to learn about where their careers or further graduate studies take them (including

a survey distributed in 2002-03), and strongly encourages student research anddissemination through colloquia, conferences, and publications

Having once been a member of that Department and witnessed the internecine strife of

Issues Requiring Attention

The mission statement is a bit awkward and verbose It could be tightened up (mediumpriority item) with rewording something along the lines of:

The Department of Geography and Planning is committed to preparing students toengage our rapidly changing world through exploration of the social,environmental, and technical forces shaping our planet's future Our graduates willgain geographic insight into the relationships among human societies and thephysical world at different scales through the effective teaching, advising, andresearch mentoring they receive in our Department

The statement of mission and goals, while present on the web site, is not directly linkedfrom the home page A link to it should be provided on the navigation bar on the homepage's left side, in the “Our Department” list Either that, or the mission statement could

be simply worked into the “About Us” page This is a medium priority item

These quibbles aside, the mission statement provided in the Self-Study is immeasurablyclearer and more focussed than the mission statement from the 1998 Self-Study TheDepartment has obviously fine-tuned the process of thinking and talking about what it isfaculty and staff do and getting to a consensus that is both coherent and inclusive of theinterests and expertise of all the current faculty

2 Teaching and Learning

CFR Criterion for Review Yes Pre-Visit No Post-Visit Yes No

2.1

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

develop expectations for learning and student attainment and

widely sharing them among its members, including faculty,

students, staff, and – where appropriate – external

stakeholders.?

X X

2.2

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: The

program’s curriculum and extra-curricular activities are

appropriate in content, standards, and nomenclature to the

mission of the program?

X X

2.3

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

maintain a full-time faculty sufficient to provide stability and

integrity of the curriculum and on-going quality improvement for

program offerings?

X X

2.4

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

deploy faculty resources to reflect the mission and program

goals? Students in the program and/or its subunits have the

opportunity to receive instruction from appropriately qualified

faculty?

X X

2.5

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

have the faculty, individually and collectively, maintain the

intellectual qualifications and current expertise to accomplish

the core functions of teaching and learning?

X X

2.6

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

actively involve students in learning, challenging them to

achieve high expectations, and provide them with appropriate

feedback about their performance and how it can be improved?

X X

Self-Study Report Analysis Post-Visit Comments

Include: a) clarification issues and (b)

verification issues

Standard 2: The program achieves its mission and attains its educational objectives

through the core functions of teaching and learning and demonstrates that these

functions are performed effectively

Assessment of Appropriateness of Evidence for Teaching and Learning

Rather than go criterion by criterion, I'll discuss the Second Standard more wholistically TheGeography and Planning Department's mission and goals are elaborated into 6 objectives andapproaches that foster evidence collection in the course catalogue, web page, and faculty list

1 Technological capabilities 4 Experiential learning and service to community and region

2 Global/local awareness 5 Proficiency in written and spoken communication

3 Environmental awareness 6 Exposure to rigorous research methods

The first addresses mastery of applied skills that make graduates sought-after employees Thistechnological capability objective is evidenced by the 13 courses in the geospatial techniques andplanning methods and the 26 station instructional lab in Butte 501, with its GIS, graphical, remotesensing, and statistical software Several faculty, notably Drs Melcon, Fairbanks, Hankins, Rovai,King, and Chase, as well as lecturer faculty, Mr Stewart and Ms Figge, and lab manager, Ms.Benjamin, have expertise in GIS, cartography, statistics, remote sensing, and/or planning methods The second objective addresses global and local awareness The Department conveys a sense ofhow processes vary in expression at different scales from global to local and how the different scalesinteract This goal is evidenced in the 12 regional geography courses, 9 courses with a globalizationcontext or focus, 9 courses with a local focus analyzed in a globalization context, and an explicitlycross-scale course (GEOP 426) Everyone in the Department has expertise supporting the global/localand interscale interaction projects, and Dr Rovai is an expert in the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem The third objective is the development of environmental awareness in students The Departmentsupports this goal through the presence of 4 physical geographers on staff (Drs Fairbanks, Hankins,King, and Melcon), as well as 2 other faculty with environmental interests, doing work at theintersection of human society and the natural environment (Drs Rovai and Stemen) The Departmentoffers 5 physical science geography courses and 8 courses about the interaction between society andnature

The fourth objective promotes experiential learning and service to community and region This isstrongly evidenced in the field courses and field trips, for which the Department is well known, as well

as the internship program and the activist-oriented Environmental Studies program and the ButteNature Preserve managed by Dr Stemen

The fifth objective is proficiency in written and spoken communication, evidenced by its GEOP 309and 290 sequence of research and writing courses, culminating in a formal senior thesis, which ispublically presented to the Department It also encourages (and funds) student presentations atconferences

The sixth goal is exposure to rigorous research methods, which is evidenced by the core requirement

of 2 geospatial techniques courses, the availability of 13 geospatial techniques courses, the existence

of a GIS certificate, and the embedding of the geospatial techniques in both GEOP B.A Options.The Self-Study organizes these 6 objectives into a matrix (Table 1.3.1), showing where in the requiredcurriculum a particular objective is fostered The result is easy to interpret and monitor, keeping theDepartment on track in meeting its goals and satisfying its mission while tracking the disciplines andsocial need and modifying its curriculum In a similar vein, the Department has developed a matrix ofthe alignment of student outcomes to course syllabi (Table 2.1.1)

In short, GEOP is clearly building a culture of evidence in its ongoing self-assessment It might want

to go through this matrix exercise every time it adjusts its curriculum

Issues Requiring Attention

The introductory physical geography course, GEOP 101, still does not confer B1 physicalscience general education credit, interfering with achievement of the Department'smission-derived objective of fostering environmental awareness! CSU Chico is now theonly CSU geography department not to have Area B credit for this class, and nearly allcommunity colleges in the State confer B credit on the course! How ironic is it thatstudents can take the class at a local community college, possibly from a master'sgraduate of the Department or even an advanced CSU Chico master's student, andreceive B credit for it, but they can't get credit for the same course, if they take it from aCSUC GEOP Ph.D actively publishing scientific research, such as Drs Fairbanks, Hankins,

or King? The only context I can see for this intellectually untenable situation is the factthat CSU Chico requires fewer science units than many CSUs, only 6 units instead of 7-9 I

am heartened that Dr Fairbanks is working on this situation and wish him the best of luck.This is a high priority attention item

It is odd that the Department does not have a lower division world regional geographycourse It would introduce the global/local awareness goal of the Department at an earlystage of a student's education, serve a Non-Western and a D2 or D3 requirement ingeneral education, and undoubtedly recruit majors It is a common course in manygeography departments, and it is potentially a “bread and butter” class for theDepartment My own department typically runs 8-10 sections, including 3 “jumbo”sections I would note this as a high priority attention item

The Department's regional geography offerings are fairly comprehensive, including 4addressing North America, 3 devoted to Latin America, 2 to the Pacific Rim, one to theformer USSR, and 1 to Europe Many of these seem to provide service for other programs

on campus, notably the interdisciplinary Latin American Studies and American Studies

programs Absent are offerings targeted to Asia per se, Africa, and the Middle East I

gather from the existence only of minors in the ethnic studies fields at Chico State thatperhaps there might not be a student constituency to justify courses in these 3 areas, andfaculty expertise (other than the near decade spent in Africa by Dr Fairbanks) is notpresent to support these regional courses at the present time The Department mightwant to consider adding at least one of these, perhaps the Middle East, given thecentrality of that region to American geopolitical engagements for the foreseeable future.This is a low priority item

In the Self-Study, the six goals are characterized as the “four” broad goals, and thenthere's a comment about the fifth and sixth areas (proficiency in written and spokencommunication and exposure to rigorous research methods) being “added” to “this”section and how they “should be included in revised versions of the mission statement.”This four and six issue was confusing to me, and I don't see how the mission statementsomehow excludes the two extra goals

The Department commendably tries to maintain information about its students and alumni

to track their success and, indirectly, the Department's own success in meeting itsmission, goals, and objectives As the Self-Study reports, however, some of thisinformation is simply collected and not subjected to more than anecdotal analysis In thelist of alumni employment and graduate school admissions, I think they missed one whowent on to UCLA and has recently become a tenured associate professor there andanother who is working on his Ph.D at the University of Arizona The Department mightwant to explore more rigorous analysis of the information collected, perhaps bydeveloping some sort of rubric to identify goals and objectives that each item ofinformation illustrates This would be a medium priority attention item

3 Scholarship and Creative Activity

CFR Criterion for Review Yes Pre-Visit No Post-Visit Yes No

3.1

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

actively value and promote scholarship, curricular and

instructional innovation, and creative activity, as well as their

dissemination at levels and of the kinds appropriate to the

program’s mission and characteristic?

X X

3.2

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to

have faculty members make scholarly and creative

contributions on a continuing basis appropriate to the

program’s mission?

X X

3.3 Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to engage students directly in scholarship and creative activity,

consonant with program purpose and character? X X

3.4 Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion: to recognize and promote appropriate linkages among

scholarship, teaching, student learning and service? X X

Self-Study Report Analysis Post-Visit Comments

Include: a) clarification issues and (b)

verification issues

Standard 3: Faculty scholarship, research and creative activity are essential components

of the CSU mission The program achieves its mission and attains its educational

objectives through the core functions of scholarship and creativity learning and

demonstrates that these functions are performed effectively The program has policies and practices that encourage and support scholarship and creative activity linked to the mission and improvements in teaching and learning

Assessment of Appropriateness of Evidence for Scholarly and Creative Activity

The Department does foster research activity on the part of its faculty There is anincreasingly influential culture of research associated with the demographic transition inthe Department The non-research oriented faculty have retired, and everyone left in theDepartment was hired after the campus decided to move from a normal-school model to abalanced teacher-scholar model in the 1980s Besides the informal culture of researchthat grows organically through the hire of research-oriented faculty, this faculty haschosen to invest resources to ensure a 3:3 teaching load for tenure-track faculty untiltenure is earned, in order to underscore the importance of research even to the point ofsacrifice This decision is evidence that the Department values and promotes scholarship(Criterion 3.1)

The presentation of Table 2.5.1 was very helpful to me in organizing the evidence forCriterion 3.2 of scholarly and creative activity in GEOP during 2002-03 and 2003-04 (Igather that these were the only two years for which such data could be compiled due tothe availability of FARs) In those two years, every single member of the faculty made atleast one presentation to a regional professional conference, and there is at least oneprofessional contribution from every faculty member in each of the two academic years.For every one of the various activities listed, there is at least one faculty member listed asactive The number of contributions in several categories is more than the number ofparticipating faculty, demonstrating that at least some of the faculty are very active I

would have liked to see the c.v.s of the faculty, however, to learn more about what each is

doing I was able to find one online, but it would have been helpful to have all of themonline or in this Self-Study

A similarly helpful table shows the grant and contract activity of the faculty, which, intotal, is quite impressive More than half the faculty have sought extramural funding,which is an admirable proportion It is clear, however, that the retirement of one FERPwho was notable for his grant activity, has seriously hurt the amount of money beingbrought in by the remaining four grant-seeking faculty, as has the earlier re-organization

of the GIC out of the Department Still, given the amount of time such activity requires, itsinherent high risk, the removal of the Center developed by the Department, and the lack

of institutional incentives at CSUC, the Department retains a good profile in this area.The Department has for at least a couple of decades involved students as researchers andresearch partners This is one of the Department's most admirable qualities Theevidence for Critierion 3.3 has been helpfully gathered into a table (3.3.1) Students havepresented papers at the BSS research symposia and some have also participated in theCSU Research Competition Sixty students have given papers at regional or nationalconferences and, though the table doesn't show it among the examples of conferences, Ihave often seen Chico students presenting their work at the California GeographicalSociety, where they often win awards Two hundred are estimated to have done aninternship with agencies as diverse as campus programs, community programs, city andcounty planning departments, and State agencies Students are further encouraged intheir research and studies through the five scholarships awarded annually now Thecurriculum embeds research as an expectation through the required GEOP 309 and 490sequence, where students produce senior theses as capstone experiences integratingwhat they've learned in geography and planning and applying it to a project that mustshow some original content The reputation of the Department in this area has long beenrecognized campus-wide, judging from the President's Task Force Report, “Turning thePotential of Chico's Residential Situation into a Realized University Community” in whichthe intense interaction of students and faculty in the Geography and Planning

(http://www.csuchico.edu/inf/T2000/ptf/residentiality.shtml, no date)

Issues Requiring Attention

After doing my own searches in Google Scholar, I learned that most of the GEOP facultyare engaging in scholarly research I was impressed by the scholarly publications andpresentations of untenured junior faculty Drs Chase, who alone among the faculty

provided her vita online, and I was able to track down some of the recent scholarship of

Drs Brady, Hankins, Fairbanks, King, Rovai, and Stemen I was unable to locate recent

publications by Drs Melcon I received no paper c.v.s, so my gleanings online may be

underrepresenting the amount of work going on, but I was able to determine that thisfaculty is active in research All those who gallantly toil to remain current and tocontribute to their disciplines under the extremely high teaching and service expectations

of the California State Universities deserve commendation

The Department should consider exploiting the web to publicize faculty achievements inresearch (e.g., http://www.csulb.edu/geography/research/) This makes data-gathering forprogram review much easier, it would certainly have helped me to learn more about whatthe faculty are doing, it helps promote the Department to potential new hires and externalaudiences, and it provides one of the few incentives for research the campus can provide:basic recognition This kind of web development is a lot of work, however, and requires anobsessive faculty member's time, but I think it's worthwhile I recommend it but not as ahigh priority item, because I know the work involved and the small resources and rewardsavailable to do this kind of extra work

Incentives for research in general seem quite thin at CSU Chico and seem more stick thancarrot Research is so critical for a teaching-oriented university that that university should

be coming up with positive ways to foster and encourage research, so that people don'tburn out after achieving tenure This is a problem far beyond the ability of theDepartment of Geography and Planning to address: The proper level to address this need

is the University level I would rate this a very top priority item

A few impressions about the incentive structure I asked several administrators andFoundation people about how grant overhead is shared, and I heard as many answers asthere were people Several faculty told me that, after bringing in a grant of, say, $30,000,they would get something like $69 back and would need to negotiate with the dean toaccess money they had brought in to pay for the expenses of their projects Oneadministrator said he thought PIs got something like 5% of the indirect Someone elsesaid that the effective return to the PI had something to do with the amount of grantsbrought into a college as a whole (so an active grant-seeker in a small or less activecollege would get a smaller return?) On my campus, the indirect rate is squared and theresulting funds are allocated 1/3 to the College of Liberal Arts, 1/3 to Geography, and 1/3

to the PI In CLA, the PI would get $1,764 in their Foundation accounts from a $30,000grant with a 42% negotiated overhead rate, as would the Department, and the College.The generation of funds that a faculty member or department can draw upon on their ownauthority is quite an incentive for extramurally-funded projects My faculty have usedthese funds to buy out of classes, and this is a way of circumventing the bias amongproposal reviewers against CSU proposals that request released time as part of the costs

of the project I think the campus needs to re-examine, systematize, and maketransparent its allocation of indirect with an eye to providing positive incentives to faculty:The improvement in faculty incentive would generate the desired increase in extramural-funding searches, as it has at Long Beach

4 Participants in Learning

CFR Criterion for Review Yes Pre-Visit No Post-Visit Yes No

4.1

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion:

to recruit and systematically select its students

consistent with its mission? To regularly identify the

characteristics of its students, and assesses their needs,

experiences, and levels of satisfaction?

X X

4.2

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion:

to have students understand the requirements of the

program and receive timely, useful and regular

information and advising about program requirements? X X

4.3

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion:

to have retention policies for the students that are

consistent with the objective of producing high quality

graduates?

X X

4.4

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion:

to have students engage the learning materials with

appropriate attention and dedication and perform to

standards set by the faculty?

X X

4.5

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion:

to have the faculty take collective responsibility for

the creation and delivery of effective instruction, the

evaluation of instructional effectiveness and student

achievement, the continued improvement of instructional

efforts, and innovation in instructional processes?

X X

4.6

Does the program satisfy the expectation of this criterion:

to have the faculty take individual responsibility for

currency in their instructional field, delivery of effective

instruction, frequent and prompt feedback on student

performance?

X X

Self-Study Report Analysis Post-Visit Comments

Include: a) clarification issues and (b)

verification issues