The Literary Studies assessment plan is built around goals and objectives articulated at the course level and the program level. It does not articulate unique goals and objectives for specific courses because competence in literary studies, as in all studies in the humanities, evolves incrementally over time and not primarily in terms of the acquisition of specific, isolated skills or the mastery of discrete bodies of information. Work in literary studies is profoundly implicated with and shaped by personal, aesthetic, philosophical, and cultural issues. Consequently, learning development in the humanities, as in cultural change generally, is long term and in some degree unpredictable and uncontrollable through an academic curriculum. Literary Studies has addressed this situation by spreading goals and objectives across levels and distributing them at various temporal points in the program. In that way, students anticipate the pattern of discovery and growth they will experience after graduation: learning is recursive, not linear, and although ideas are repeated they are never identical because they recur in different contexts. Nonetheless, we also know that some discrete skills are a part of learning development in Literary Studies, and the program's assessment plan does specify particular (though multiple) points in the program's structure where skills are to be presented and mastered.

 

The Literary Studies assessment plan rests primarily on English 5350, the Literary Studies Capstone. It is required of all Literary Studies majors, and it is the key point for the generation of data for assessment. This data includes a portfolio and an exit interview. The purpose of the portfolio is to gather together evidence of the student's work from all levels of the program. The portfolio demonstrates the student's mastery of the various level competencies, especially those connected with writing. Each fall the Literary Studies Committee reviews the portfolios from the previous year and determines the extent to which the goals and objectives of the program are being met. The exit interview is conducted from a random sample of five students from each section of English 5350. The goal of the interview is to assess the extent to which the program goals and objectives are being met. The interview is not an examination, but it is an attempt to discern the depth of the student's knowledge with respect to this one set of goals and objectives.

 

In addition to the capstone course, the Literary Studies Program gathers information from its alumni annually, through telephone interviews conducted through the Undergraduate Advisor's office. We seek information about job placement, career accomplishments, and post-graduation satisfaction with the program.