The History Department uses its capstone Senior Seminar to capture a snapshot of how well our majors in History and Social Studies are mastering a set of skills which aim to prepare them for success in a variety of careers (see appendices for a list of these skills). The instructors offering the seminar each semester are supposed to prepare reports which assess the general skill levels of students in that class. This report is based on reports by Ken Smemo for Spring 2002, Paul Harris for Fall 2002, and Steve Hoffbeck for Spring 2003. Their reports are included as appendices with this summary. Reports by Dieter Berninger for Fall 2003 and Christopher Corley for Spring 2004 were not available because Prof. Berninger began phased retirement at the end of that semester and Prof. Corley left to take another position.

The authors depict their students in generally positive tones, and the overall conclusion of this report is that History and Social Studies majors are being well served by the education they receive from us. Prof. Smemo’s observation that the weakest students in his seminar were those who had recently transferred into our program is well taken. The department’s long-standing commitment to maintaining high standards ensures that students in our classes are challenged to develop their potentials, and the variety of instructional techniques used in our courses has helped to prepare them as well-rounded people. That our students compare favorably with those in other majors has found confirmation in this author’s mind from his recent experiences with upper-division students in Eurospring and History of Social Welfare, a course he teaches to predominantly Social Work majors.

Self-evident though it may be, it also bears emphasizing that History does not educate its students in a vacuum. When education is defined as a product and not a process, is it any wonder that some students take a narrow view of schooling as a matter of obtaining a piece of paper? When teachers are assessed on their abilities to jam students’ heads with a jumble of facts, is it any wonder that some students are ill prepared for higher order thinking? When the political climate labels questioning as un-American, is it any wonder that some students are deficient in critical thinking? When reading itself goes out of fashion, is it any wonder that some students struggle with scholarly texts and primary documents? When athletic prowess is valued over intellectual ability, is it any wonder that some Social Studies majors believe their preparation on the playing field will make them more marketable than their preparation in the classroom?

The History Department’s assessment process has identified and addressed the following deficiencies:

• Students’ ability to reach conclusions based on research was hampered by a lack of experience dealing with conflicting interpretations. Too much of what students read is textbooks, with the result that they tend to treat the written word as simple truth. Although the reports find students are able in many cases to recognize bias in their sources, it may be that this ability is specific to certain forms of bias rather than rooted in a general sophistication with critical thinking.

• Some students’ oral communication skills are not being developed as fully as they should be. Students ought to be doing more formal presentations and participating in more informal discussions before they reach Senior Seminar. Although student timidity is a barrier in both cases, it is becoming clear that delivering an effective presentation draws on a different set of skills than the off-the-cuff exchanges of class discussion. Both areas need to be addressed if students are to develop as effective teachers or team members in other occupations.

• Students have difficulty incorporating primary sources into their research projects. This difficulty is partly a matter of unfamiliarity working with such sources and partly a matter of refining their topics in such a way that primary sources can be meaningfully incorporated.

These deficiencies are being addressed by department faculty, as the following individual responses attest.

Margaret Sankey introduces World History students to the difference between primary and secondary sources in the very beginning of each course and then continues to draw on primary materials in her lectures. To increase students’ comfort level with these sources, she de-emphasizes written versions and prefers either reading them aloud or using alternative media like art or music. She then elicits discussion to draw out students’ responses. She has also experimented with the use of written documents in small-group discussions. Her upper-level courses go further in integrating substantial primary source collections into her syllabi and making them a focus of class discussions. In those classes, she also works carefully and closely with students in developing their major papers. Great emphasis is placed on using a variety of sources in appropriate ways to support an argument.

Ken Smemo has added a required formal lecture presentation in all his upper-level classes. With structured requirements for each topic, they must find and read materials (including primary ones) that present conflicting contentions and varying conclusions about the historical impact of an individual, a policy/decision/program, a major event, etc. They must summarize the issues and then present and defend their own interpretive conclusion(s) to the class and be prepared to answer questions. By the end of the course they must write a scholarly article/paper on the topic as well, using the data they gathered for their lecture summary.

Henry Chan has placed greater emphasis on formal presentations in both his World History and his upper-level classes.

Paul Harris has placed greater emphasis on both primary sources and formal presentations in his classes. His U.S. survey classes are required to deal with primary documents in both small-group discussions and written assignments. He has adopted texts with more variety of source materials for his upper-level courses and made documents a greater focus of class discussion. He has also been requiring that his upper-level students present their research projects in both written and oral forms.

American Studies did not become a part of the History Department until after the period covered by this report, but Helen Sheumaker and Maureen Reed also responded to this assessment. Their responses are included below.

Interpretative skill development:  In AMST217 (Introduction to American Studies), for example, students balance different interpretations of the issues underlying colonial Americans willingness to go to war. After reading T.H. Breen’s essay (which argues that the American Revolution was a consumer revolution) the class discusses the arguments they are already familiar with (religious persecution, ideals of political freedom, taxation issues, etc.).  We spend a class period weighing these arguments against Breen’s, and discuss the ways such arguments can be seen to contradict him, and also the elements of argument that support his thesis. Students in AMST 317 The Midwest) spend a unit of the course reading differing critical interpretations of what the Midwest is, an exercise which gives them experience in critical thinking.

Oral communication:  Students in all American Studies courses are expected to participate in informal and formal discussion and presentations. In AMST 217 (Introduction to American Studies) students engage in regular discussion, are notified in the syllabus that there is an expectation of such, and also participate in small-group discussions that result in brief, informal presentations. As it is an introductory-level course, full-fledged presentations are not required, but students do present their interpretations of advertisements assigned to them for an essay. Students in AMST 221 and 222 (The Twentieth Century I and II) complete group research projects for which they must use a variety of sources and for which they make a formal group oral presentation involving visual aids. AMST317 and AMST419 last Spring emphasized presentations: students gave formal presentations in a variety of forms (from in-class to public forum presentations), as well as in web form (Reed’s Oral History website, Sheumaker’s Clay County Web Museum)

Primary Sources: All AMST courses require students to engage in primary research for their projects. On the introductory level, such as AMST 217, students are assigned advertisements from the 1910s to 1970s, and are required to analyze the ad in relationship to secondary texts assigned in class. Students conduct independent research projects in AMST 317 and 417/419 – from oral interviews to working in local archives and artifact collections.

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