Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2021-2022 Level: Undergraduate
Campus Department: Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Core [UG]
Program Name: Earth and Environmental Sciences Core (Link)
Description of Data Collection:
The department faculty meets each spring, after classes are over, to discuss how the changes we implemented based on previous years’ assessment activities have resulted in improved learning outcomes. We also discuss additional changes we would like to make based on what we have learned from the assessment process
Review Process:
The department full-time faculty meets annually to review all aspects of our program, and to make recommendations to the whole department for improvement. This process is led by the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The conclusions of those discussions are reviewed by all full-time faculty, and presented in department annual reports. This year we met on May 27, 2022 during an all-day faculty retreat. Other faculty meetings are held throughout the year (approximately twice per month) in which we continuously work towards gathering and interpreting data for reviewing our core program and how well our curriculum is achieving our learning goals.
Resulting Program Changes:
The following Complex Problems and Enduring Questions courses have been added to our core curriculum:
● Global Implications of Climate Change (Pisani Gareau, EESC; and Gareau, Sociology), Fall 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022
● A Perfect Moral Storm: The Science and Ethics of Climate Change (Wong, EESC; and Storey, Philosophy), Spring 2017
● Building a Habitable Planet: The Origins and Evolution of the Earth: Geoscience Perspectives (Baxter, EESC; and Delong-Bas, Theology), Spring 2017, 2019, 2021
● Living on Water (Kineke, EESC; and Leone, Fine Arts), Fall 2017, 2018, 2020
● Powering America (Ebel, EESC; and Valencius, History), Spring 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022; Fall 2022
● Making the Modern World (Krones, EESC; and Tonn, History), Fall 2020; Spring 2022
● Crisis and Storytelling in the Age of Climate Change (Palevsky, EESC; and Song, English), Fall 2021
During our May 2022 meeting, Professors Palevsky and Ebel reported on their experience teaching these courses during this year. Palevsky reported that the first year of teaching the Climate Storytelling course was very successful, with a highlight of podcasts prepared by students on their own climate stories. She also discussed working with the 10 junior and senior Purposeful Ongoing Discussion (POD) leaders who led weekly reflection sessions for our students. These leaders played a key role in
this course, helping new first-year students acclimate to and find their place at BC. This was an especially steep challenge this year for incoming students who had their junior and senior years of high school disrupted by COVID. Ebel reported very positive feedback from students in the Powering America course. We also discussed the continued popularity of our core courses and the problems this presents. Here are the available seats and enrollments of our regular core courses for each of the last three
semesters: Fall 2021: 588 seats/588 enrolled Spring 2022: 610 seats/625 enrolled Fall 2022: 505 seats/508 enrolled This does not include the 100-200 seats available each semester to first-year students in Complex Problems and Enduring Questions courses, which also are usually all filled. We clearly could offer more core classes to meet student interests. Another problem is that essentially all of the seats in regular core classes are taken before the incoming freshman class registers over the summer. This means that these courses are generally filled with juniors and seniors, and so they provide less opportunity for students to find and join our majors. We will keep seeking opportunities for our professors to teach high-quality core courses.
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
The following Complex Problems and Enduring Questions courses have been added to our core curriculum:
● Global Implications of Climate Change (Pisani Gareau, EESC; and Gareau, Sociology), Fall 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022
● A Perfect Moral Storm: The Science and Ethics of Climate Change (Wong, EESC; and Storey, Philosophy), Spring 2017
● Building a Habitable Planet: The Origins and Evolution of the Earth: Geoscience Perspectives (Baxter, EESC; and Delong-Bas, Theology), Spring 2017, 2019, 2021
● Living on Water (Kineke, EESC; and Leone, Fine Arts), Fall 2017, 2018, 2020
● Powering America (Ebel, EESC; and Valencius, History), Spring 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022; Fall 2022
● Making the Modern World (Krones, EESC; and Tonn, History), Fall 2020; Spring 2022
● Crisis and Storytelling in the Age of Climate Change (Palevsky, EESC; and Song, English), Fall 2021
During our May 2022 meeting, Professors Palevsky and Ebel reported on their experience teaching these courses during this year. Palevsky reported that the first year of teaching the Climate Storytelling course was very successful, with a highlight of podcasts prepared by students on their own climate stories. She also discussed working with the 10 junior and senior Purposeful Ongoing Discussion (POD) leaders who led weekly reflection sessions for our students. These leaders played a key role in
this course, helping new first-year students acclimate to and find their place at BC. This was an especially steep challenge this year for incoming students who had their junior and senior years of high school disrupted by COVID. Ebel reported very positive feedback from students in the Powering America course. We also discussed the continued popularity of our core courses and the problems this presents. Here are the available seats and enrollments of our regular core courses for each of the last three
semesters: Fall 2021: 588 seats/588 enrolled Spring 2022: 610 seats/625 enrolled Fall 2022: 505 seats/508 enrolled This does not include the 100-200 seats available each semester to first-year students in Complex Problems and Enduring Questions courses, which also are usually all filled. We clearly could offer more core classes to meet student interests. Another problem is that essentially all of the seats in regular core classes are taken before the incoming freshman class registers over the summer. This means that these courses are generally filled with juniors and seniors, and so they provide less opportunity for students to find and join our majors. We will keep seeking opportunities for our professors to teach high-quality core courses.
Attachments (if available)