SENATE COMMITTEE FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE PERIODIC REVIEW OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of FINAL ASSESSMENT REPORT
May 2012
Membership of Internal Review Subcommittee (IRS) External Reviewers: Dr. Françoise Noël, Professor, Nipissing University Dr. Kevin Kee, Canada Research Chair in Digital Humanities & Associate Professor, Brock University Facilitator: Dr. Nonita Yap, SEDRD
The Internal Review Committee (IRC) received the Final Assessment Report for the Department of History from the IRS on 25 February 2012. The IRC now presents an Executive Summary of the review, which includes the following:
- Introduction - Summary of the review process - Review Committee’s recommendations - Administrative responses to the report from the Chair, Dean, and Provost
INTRODUCTION
The Department of History is a mid-sized teaching, research and service unit, one of five in the College of Arts, and a prominent participant to the Bachelor of Arts degree in terms of educational offerings to undergraduates. In addition to providing a full History education to Honours and General B.A. students, the Department’s teaching provides inputs to other programs, including the Bachelor of Engineering, the International Development B.A., the European Studies B.A., the Criminal Justice and Public Policy B.A., and others. The Department participates fully in research, as home to two research chairs and a shared large-scale collaborative research project in digitized census research, which has become known as a prominent venture in the field of digital Humanities. The History Department is also home to the vibrant Centre for Scottish Studies, with its strong promotion of research and its remarkable outreach among the Scottish diaspora. History Department members are active in a wide range of service capacities, reflecting a strong Departmental tradition of engagement with the communities around us, and high level of participation in the strategic aims of the University. At the Graduate level, the History Department is a partner with Wilfred Laurier University and the University of Waterloo History Departments in the long-established and highly successful Tri- University MA and PhD programs. Hence, as a Joint Graduate Program, it is subject to a separate IQAP review that will be conducted by the University of Waterloo, the academic home of its current Director.
Academic Programs included in Review:
History, BA
SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW PROCESS
Submission of Self-Study by Department: 11 December 2011 (due 1 November) Site visit: 16/17 February 2012 Final Assessment Report received: 25 February 2012 Response of Chair: requested, 27 February 2012; received, 16 March 2012 Response of Dean: requested, 16 March 2012; received, 23 March 2012. Response of Provost: requested, 28 March 2012; received, 23 April 2012.
The IRS conducted their site-visit to review the Department's undergraduate academic program on February 16 and 17, 2012. Their agenda included meetings with (in chronological order): Anthony Clarke, Assistant Vice-President (Graduate Studies); Ann Wilson, Acting Dean, College of Arts; Peter Goddard, Chair of the Department of History; Edna Mumford, Department of History Undergraduate Secretary, and Barbara Mitterer, Department of History Administrative Assistant; seven undergraduate students (including members of the History Society Executive); eleven History department faculty members; Library staff members Scott Gillies, Head, Information Resources, and Helen Salmon, Information Resources Librarian; members of the department Undergraduate Committee (Peter Goddard, Jesse Palsetia, Renée Worringer); Serge Desmarais, Associate Vice-President (Academic). The IRS was available for meetings with department faculty from 1:30-3:30 on Friday afternoon, but none were requested. An exit interview with Assistant Vice-President Anthony Clarke had been reserved, but it was deemed unnecessary, and instead the IRS met with Anthony briefly by phone.
REVIEWERS’ RECOMMENDATIONS
The previous assessment of the Department, a "Senate Review", occurred in 2000. The 2000 Review recommendations called upon the department to: i. involve undergraduates in the research process; ii. seek ways to overcome resistance to cross-cultural appointments; iii. continue to sustain Scottish Studies interdisciplinary program; iv. secure funding for graduate and undergraduate Teaching Assistants; v. secure funding for Tri-University graduate integration. Twelve years later, the IRS saw evidence that each of these recommendations had been implemented.
In their Review Report, submitted 25 February 2012, the IRS considered that the Department is offering a high-quality undergraduate program. They were impressed by the collegiality among the faculty, which has been created and supported by strong and consistent leadership and mentorship of new faculty. The faculty members are producing important research that is also accessible to their students. They are engaged, thoughtful and student-focused and the relative youth of the faculty members bodes well for the Department's future research and teaching.
Recommendations
1. We recommend that the Department review the teaching practices and modes of delivery, and cultivate and support innovation within DE courses. 2. We recommend that the Department, or the university, provide a clear explanation to students of the course selection rules, so that the process is more transparent. 3. We recommend that the Curriculum Committee continue their review of prerequisites, and that with few exceptions only program level prerequisites remain, and only in exceptional situations. 4. We recommend that the Department create an e-mail policy that applies to all courses and that encourages both faculty and students to communicate by email only in cases where this is warranted. 5. We recommend that the University's IT services unit survey faculty impressions of the current grade loading software and take steps to implement improvements where necessary. 6. We recommend further resources in Canadian/North American history. 7. We recommend that the Department conduct an annual review of teaching assignments in the three categories of on-campus, Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses and monitor the quality of the Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses. 8. We recommend that the Department continue to monitor the student-faculty ratio, that the department and College determine an acceptable maximum student-faculty ratio and that resources be distributed in a manner that this maximum ratio not be exceeded.
Report: Internal Sub-committee Review of the Guelph University Department of History Undergraduate Academic Program
Submitted by Françoise Noël, Ph.D. (Professor, Nipissing University), Kevin Kee, Ph.D. (Canada Research Chair in Digital Humanities and Associate Professor, Brock University)
February 25, 2012
Introduction
We reviewed the Department's undergraduate academic program on February 16 and 17, 2012. Our agenda included meetings with (in chronological order): Anthony Clarke, Assistant Vice-President (Graduate Studies); Ann Wilson, Acting Dean, College of Arts; Peter Goddard, Chair of the Department of History; Edna Mumford, Department of History Undergraduate Secretary, and Barbara Mitterer, Department of History Administrative Assistant; seven undergraduate students (including members of the History Society Executive); eleven History department faculty members; Library staff members Scott Gillies, Head, Information Resources, and Helen Salmon, Information Resources Librarian; members of the department Undergraduate Committee (Peter Goddard, Jesse Palsetia, Renée Worringer); Serge Desmarais, Associate Vice-President (Academic). We were available for meetings with department faculty from 1:30-3:30 on Friday afternoon, but none were requested. An exit interview with Assistant Vice- President Anthony Clarke had been reserved, but we did not think it necessary, and instead met with Anthony briefly by phone. As per our itinerary, we completed our review at 4pm Friday afternoon.
The previous assessment of the department, a "Senate Review", occurred in 2000. The 2000 Review recommendations called upon the department to: i. involve undergraduates in the research process; ii. seek ways to overcome resistance to cross-cultural appointments; iii. continue to sustain Scottish Studies interdisciplinary program; iv. secure funding for graduate and undergraduate Teaching Assistants; v. secure funding for Tri-University graduate integration. Twelve years later, we saw evidence that each of these recommendations had been implemented.
Our review was the first -- of an academic department -- since the introduction of the "Guide to Developing and Assessing Learning Outcomes at the University of Guelph" (January 2012). As might be expected during the implementation of a new process, we encountered several procedural challenges. Most notable among these was that the "History Department Self Study", and the two documents that were to guide our evaluation and writing of this report (the "Objectives of the Internal Review of Departments/Schools" and the "Check List for External Consultants") were at times not aligned (for reasons that will be explained in section (a) below). Moreover, the "Self Study" document prepared by the department addressed matters that we have not been called upon to address in our report.
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On the recommendation of Assistant Vice-President Anthony Clarke, our report follows the "Objectives of the Internal Review of Departments/Schools", and the "Check List for External Consultants". The Objectives provide the section headings below.
(a) Consonance of the unit's undergraduate and graduate offerings within the general framework of the University's mission and strategic directions and with the University’s Learning Objectives, which are consistent with OCAV's Degree Level Expectations
As noted above, the documents that we reviewed, and were asked to use as guidelines, were not aligned. This was most notable vis-a-vis the "University's Learning Objectives". The heading above refers to the "Ontario Council of Academic Vice Presidents (OCAV) Guidelines for University Undergraduate Degree Level Expectations" (2008) and the related "University of Guelph's Learning Objectives" (April 29, 2008). In a follow-up to these 2008 documents, the university developed "A Guide to Developing and Assessing Learning Outcomes at the University of Guelph", which was distributed to academic units in January 2012.
The "History Department Self Study" was completed in December 2011. It does not refer to the January 2012 document, nor to the 2008 "Learning Objectives" document. Instead, it responds implicitly to the "Learning Outcomes of the University of Guelph" (2005), with specific reference to the Department's aims and objectives established in 2005 (see Self Study, page 9). Moreover, neither the 2008 "Learning Objectives" nor the 2012 Guide were included in our preparatory documents; we received the 2012 Guide after requesting it as our visit to the university was coming to a close on Friday afternoon.
As a result, we were not able to ask about, and we cannot comment on, the consonance of the department's undergraduate offerings within the framework of the "Learning Objectives", OCAV Degree Level Expectations, or the 2012 "Guide". Nevertheless, because of the similarities between the 2005 Learning Outcomes Document and the 2012 Guidelines document, we can comment on the department's offerings in relation to the university's general mission and strategic directions.
The department has given serious consideration to the ways in which their students proceed through the program. The department wisely differentiates its aims and objectives among three students groups: those taking courses as electives, those in the general program, and those in the honours program. It has also articulated specific aims and objectives for students at each level of the program. The emphasis is on specific skills that students should acquire (for example, 1000-level students should know "how to develop, articulate and defend a thesis effectively" (Self Study, page 10)). The department has articulated the methods by which these skills should be taught and the in- class time that should be allotted to these methods. It has also delineated reading and writing expectations. These objectives are thoughtful and appropriate, and our review of the program indicates that these are being met.
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(b) The appropriateness of the unit's academic objectives and degree level outcomes expectations, and its ability to meet them i. Admission requirements are appropriately aligned with the learning outcomes established for completion of the program.
Over the last five years the average of students entering the undergraduate program has held steady at 80%. Students at this level are capable of meeting the learning outcomes. ii. The curriculum reflects the current state of the discipline or area of study.
While we did not survey syllabi for specific courses, we saw significant evidence that the curriculum reflected the state of the discipline. Faculty teach 3000 and 4000 level courses related to their individual research interests. Specific examples offered in the Self Study include: Wilson’s seminar on Canadian Rural History (HIST4620) which relates directly to her own research (page 27); Carstair’s seminar on Canadian Cultural Identity (page 24); Gordon’s HIST3450 The Uses of History (page 23); and Kolapo’s HIST4100 Africa and the Slave Trade (page 22).
Several research centres and sub-programs offer students opportunities to learn with and from scholars doing cutting-edge research. Examples include: the Scottish Studies program connected to the Centre for Scottish Studies; the Ulster Scots project with support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation; research into food, animal and agricultural history (which will include a course in the field to be launched in 2013) and the related Rural Histories Roundtable. The Roundtable was specifically referenced by a student who highlighted the manner in which undergraduates were welcomed into the community of historians and graduate students in the field.
During our meeting with the undergraduate students, several references were made to practices that saw faculty incorporate their research into their teaching; students also approvingly noted the incorporation of primary source documents at all levels of the program. This appears to be a widely adopted practice. Especially notable is the incorporation of primary documents analysis in the first-year course, HIST 1010: Early Modern World. iii. Evidence of any significant innovation or creativity in the content and/or delivery of the program relative to other such programs
The Self Study (see pages 22-32) provided anecdotal evidence of innovation in several courses. Some of these innovations included technology, such as the use of clickers. Other innovations included the incorporation, noted directly above, of primary sources in the first-year courses. In the case of Professor Alan Gordon's HIST3450: The Uses of History, both the assignments and practices push in novel directions: course work includes team-based design of public historical plaques and hypothetical museum galleries on sensitive subject matter. The students with whom we met spoke
3 enthusiastically about innovative and creative learning practices across the curriculum.
Notable also is the Gateway Seminar, to be implemented in 2012-13: a series of presentations targeted to students at all levels of their undergraduate career. Some of these presentations will involve professors introducing their courses; others will be focused on student planning of pathways through the program; others will provide opportunities for History graduates to share their experiences of the "real world" with those still in university. This innovation speaks to the far-sightedness of the faculty, and their commitment to the students' well being. The members of the department not only anticipate what students require; they are willing to put in the significant effort to provide it. "What can you do with a history degree?" is a common refrain, and the department will provide opportunities for undergraduates to see the many opportunities available, and get peer advice about an often difficult transition period. iv. Mode(s) of delivery to meet the program’s identified learning outcomes are appropriate and effective.
In the 2010/2011 academic year, the department offered 10 Distance Education (DE) courses; according to the Chair, DE courses make up 20% of the course offerings. However, relatively few of the innovations provided by the department, with the exception of Ted Smith's courses, seem to be occurring in the DE component. Students indicated that DE courses involve more reading than typical history courses, and the material is presented in a manner typical of online education. The students with whom we spoke admitted avoiding DE courses when possible. They preferred the inter-personal contact with professors and their peers. The level of oversight of DE courses, whether by the Chair or another designate in the department, is not clear. Given that the DE component is offered within the department, and makes up approximately 1/5 of the department's offerings, we recommend that the department review the teaching practices and modes of delivery, and cultivate and support innovation within DE courses.
Students also expressed frustration related to course selection; at times they were able to get into their desired courses; at other times they were not. The university has developed what strikes us as a thoughtful and fair algorithm that ensures that, over the course of their degree, all students have an equal opportunity to register for their preferred courses. Unfortunately, this is not understood by students. We recommend that the department, or the university, provide a clear explanation to students of the course selection rules, so that the process is more transparent.
Students also expressed frustration with pre-requisites for upper-level courses, which limit their choice; this problem is exacerbated when the algorithm referred to above works against them. We note that the Curriculum Committee has recently reviewed these pre-requisites and removed most of them, and that those that remain are limited to program level (e.g. a student must take a 3000 level course in a field before s/he takes a 4000 level course in that field). As the department's course offerings decline along with declining student enrolment,, and given that the department's Learning Objectives address not content but scaffolded skills development at each program level, we recommend that
4 the Curriculum Committee continue their review, and that with few exceptions only program level prerequisites remain, and only in exceptional situations.
While email policies might not normally fall under the category of "modes of delivery", we note that the nature of student-professor contact (a relationship highly valued by students in the program) has changed with the increasing use of email and other online forms of communication. Faculty expressed a feeling of being overwhelmed by the volume of student emails, especially in larger courses. We recommend that the department create an e-mail policy that applies to all courses, and that encourages both faculty and students to communicate by email only in cases where this is warranted.
In addition, faculty expressed frustration with the current grade loading software. We recommend that the university's IT services unit survey faculty impressions of the software, and take steps to implement improvements where necessary.
c. The appropriateness of the pedagogical and evaluation strategies and methods applied to each of the programs; i. Methods for assessing student achievement of the defined learning outcomes and degree learning expectations are appropriate and effective.
The Self Study did not examine methods for assessing student achievement of these outcomes and expectations. The methods that we examined during our visit were both appropriate and effective. ii. Appropriateness and effectiveness of the means of assessment, especially in the students' final year of the program, in clearly demonstrating achievement of the program learning objectives and the institution's (or the Program’s own) statement of Degree Level Expectations.
The weighting of capstone 4000-level Honours Seminar courses was recently changed from .5 credit to 1.0 credit, with the result that students must take only two of these courses (not three, as before) to graduate. Students therefore have more time in their final year to work in close proximity to a specialist in the field, and do primary source research (where possible). This change, and the resulting changes in assessment, result in the clear demonstration of achievement of the program's objectives.
d. The adequacy of the available human, physical, and financial resources to support the unit's programs;
Appropriateness and effectiveness of the unit's use of existing human, physical and financial resources in delivering its programs. In making this assessment, reviewers must recognize the institution's autonomy to determine priorities for funding, space, and faculty allocation.
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As made clear in the Self Study, over the last five years the department's resources have been constrained (a result of teaching load reduction, retirements and a hiring freeze), resulting in a 20% decline in course offerings. This reduction has taken place within the context of a 12% decline in the number of history majors, a number that is consistent with the decline experienced in departments across Ontario.
The department has coped well in this situation. History's success in attracting and holding post-doctoral fellows and Ph.D. students who can teach, and high enrolments in Distance Education courses, have mitigated the effect of the constraints. As noted above, the department recently conducted a full curriculum review; this resulted in the purging of courses that the department was no longer able to provide, and a decline in the student- faculty ratio to 28:3 (which is higher than the College of Arts as a whole). The department is still managing to offer a full range of courses and deliver an excellent program. As noted above, vigilance is required to ensure the highest quality in Distance Education courses. Further resource declines, however, will have an impact in the quality of the program.
The department has identified Canadian/North American history as a priority for further faculty resourcing. Given the high concentration of graduate students in Canadian and North American fields, that 40% of the core teaching is in Canadian history, and the high interest among undergraduates, the department may have difficulty in continuing to provide quality student instruction in this field. We recommend further resources in Canadian/North American history.
A positive relationship with library staff, and a reorganization of that staff, has also mitigated the effect of the decline in resources. The library recently replaced a Liaison Model with a Team Model, and this appears to have resulted in more effective resource sharing and communication with academic units. Several faculty members spoke glowingly of Dave Hudson, the department's library contact, who is facilitating the development and use of library resources among History faculty and students. The holdings of the library are sufficient, and faculty and students benefit from resource sharing with libraries at Wilfrid Laurier and the University of Waterloo. Furthermore, the move to digital resources has been especially beneficial to the History department, providing access to an increased number of holdings. Finally, the presence of a Data Resource Centre within the library, and the governance model - the Chief Librarian is also the university's Chief Information Officer - will stand the department in good stead as the acceleration to digital resources increases.
e. The unit's definition and application, where possible, of indicators to determine the learning outcomes of the programs, including applicable provincial, national, and professional standards; i) Faculty: qualifications, research and scholarly record; class sizes; percentage of classes taught by permanent or non-permanent (contractual) faculty; numbers,
6 assignments and qualifications of part-time or temporary faculty;
The department’s full time complement, excluding Professors Emeritus, consists of six full professors, fifteen associate professors, and three assistant professors. The faculty's research and scholarly record is appropriate, and in several cases very strong. The percentage of classes taught by permanent staff is excellent. The decline, from 2005, in the number of department faculty corresponds with a reduction in courses taught, and an increase in Distance Education Course offerings. At present, the core faculty tends to teach the on-campus courses, while the non-permanent faculty tends to teach the Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses. In order to ensure the quality of the Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses, we recommend that the department conduct an annual review of teaching assignments in these three categories, and monitor the quality of the Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses.
As noted above, the present student-faculty ratio is 28:3, 20% higher than the College of Arts as a whole. We recommend that the department continue to monitor this ratio, and we recommend that the department and College determine an acceptable maximum ratio, and that resources be distributed in a manner that this maximum ratio not be exceeded. ii) Students: applications and registrations; attrition rates; time-to-completion; final-year academic achievement; graduation rates; academic awards; student in- course reports on teaching;
We did not have the documentation to determine the specifics of these student outcomes. In general, the students with whom we spoke were very satisfied with the undergraduate program. They spoke highly of both the professors and the course material. As noted above, students were less glowing in their assessment of the Distance Education courses, and in the course selection process. iii) Graduates: rates of graduation, employment six months and two years after graduation, post-graduate study, "skills match" and alumni reports on program quality when available and when permitted by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). Auditors will be instructed that these items may not be available and applicable to all programs.
Because the University of Guelph Wealth Alumni Survey (also known as the Post Graduation Survey) has been temporarily discontinued, the department was unable to provide this information. The department did provide anecdotal evidence of student success following graduation indicating that graduates of the department were being admitted to elite professional and graduate programs, and obtaining awards and other support to continue their studies; these are clear indicators of success.
7 Concluding Remarks
The department is offering a high-quality undergraduate program. We were impressed by the collegiality among the faculty, which has been created and supported by strong and consistent leadership and mentorship of new faculty. The faculty is producing important research that is also accessible to their students. They are engaged, thoughtful and student-focused. The relative youth of the faculty bodes well for the department's future research and teaching.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
1. We recommend that the department review the teaching practices and modes of delivery, and cultivate and support innovation within DE courses. 2. We recommend that the department, or the university, provide a clear explanation to students of the course selection rules, so that the process is more transparent. 3. We recommend that the Curriculum Committee continue their review of prerequisites, and that with few exceptions only program level prerequisites remain, and only in exceptional situations. 4. We recommend that the department create an e-mail policy that applies to all courses and that encourages both faculty and students to communicate by email only in cases where this is warranted. 5. We recommend that the university's IT services unit survey faculty impressions of the current grade loading software and take steps to implement improvements where necessary. 6. We recommend further resources in Canadian/North American history. 7. We recommend that the department conduct an annual review of teaching assignments in the three categories of on-campus, Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses and monitor the quality of the Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses. 8. We recommend that the department continue to monitor the student-faculty ratio, that the department and College determine an acceptable maximum student-faculty ratio and that resources be distributed in a manner that this maximum ratio not be exceeded.
8 IQAP Review of History Undergraduate Program 2011-2012 Department of History, University of Guelph www.uoguelph.ca/history
History Department Self Study Fall 2011
This Self Study tells the story of the Department’s evolution since its last accountability review (SCIR 2000) and identifies the challenges we have faced in recent history, face presently, and will confront in the future.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1 Preparation of the IQAP Self-Study 1
2 Brief History of the Department of History 2
3 Analysis and Reflection on the Department and Its Undergraduate Program 4 A. The Faculty 4 B. The Staff 5 C. The Undergraduate Program 7 1. Aims and Objectives of Undergraduate History Program 9 2 Curricular Renovation to 2011 13 3 Delivering the Undergraduate Curriculum 14 4 Student/Faculty Ratio and Class Size 16 5 The History Major: Student Experience 17
4 Quality and Accountability in Teaching 21 A. Results of student evaluations 21 B. Teaching innovation in the Undergraduate program 22
5 History Bachelor of Arts Graduate Outcomes 33 A. History Honours and Majors after graduation 33 B. History Majors and SSHRC and OGS 39
6 Comparison with Other History Undergraduate Programs in the Region 40
7 Our Impact: Scholarship, Communication, Community Outreach 42
8 Priorities for the Integrated Plan and Beyond 55
IQAP Review 2011-2012 Department of History
INTRODUCTION
The Department of History at the University of Guelph is a mid-sized teaching, research and service unit, one of five in the College of Arts, and a prominent participant to the Bachelor of Arts degree in terms of educational offerings to undergraduates. In addition to providing a full History education to Honours and General B.A. students, the Department’s teaching provides inputs to additional programs, including the Bachelor of Engineering, the International Development B.A., the European Studies B.A., the Criminal Justice and Public Policy B.A., and others. At the Graduate level, the History Department is a partner, alongside Wilfrid Laurier and Waterloo History Departments, in the long-established and highly successful Tri-University MA and PhD programs (which will be subject to separate IQAP review). The Department participates fully in research, as home to two research chairs and a shared large-scale collaborative research project in digitized census research, which has become known as a prominent venture in the field of digital Humanities. The History Department is also home to the vibrant Centre for Scottish Studies, with its strong promotion of research and its remarkable outreach among the Scottish diaspora. History Department members are active in a wide range of service capacities, reflecting a strong Departmental tradition of engagement with the communities around us, and high level of participation in the strategic aims of the University. The Department strives to embody the ethos of efficient, effective and accountable practice in all of these areas.
1 PREPARATION OF THIS STUDY
The IQAP Departmental Self-Study (Undergraduate program) was carried out in Fall 2011 by the full Department. On 6 September, for the express purpose of the Study, the Department held an off-campus retreat that focused on Undergraduate Directions, including Learning Outcomes, Graduate Directions, Research Directions, and Engagement with University and Community. Additional consultation with the Executive of the History Society (Undergraduate) and members of the College of Arts Student Union provided History undergraduate input into the process. The draft was assembled by a team of History Faculty including Peter Goddard (Department Chair), Alan Gordon, (Associate Chair and Graduate Coordinator), Sofie Lachapelle, and Susan Nance. The Department discussed a draft of this study at its 22 November Departmental Meeting and a complete draft was circulated for comment.
1 IQAP Review 2011-2012 Department of History
2 HISTORY AT GUELPH 1964-2011: HOW WE HAVE CHANGED
The Department of History was founded in 1964 as part of the new University of Guelph. The first chair, W. Stanford Reid, arrived in 1965. The early Department offered a curriculum with Western Civilization focus and a lecture- and seminar- bound program that was reading and writing intensive. By 1966 the Department had developed a graduate program, including the first non-Science PhD program at the University of Guelph. In the early 1990s, the Department partnered with neighbouring Wilfrid Laurier and Waterloo University History Departments to create a joint graduate program offering a PhD program beginning in 1993, then in 1999, a Master of Arts program as well. Today, the Tri-University Graduate Program is a vital and rigorous shared program that delivers a graduate education that has become one of the most prominent graduate History programs (in terms of size, productivity, and communication) in Canada.
The History Department built its reputation in part through its strong record in undergraduate education, and its record of research and publication in Canadian, U.S., British (especially Scottish) and Continental European history. In the 1970s and 1980s, faculty contributed in diverse professional capacities including in national organizations (Canadian Historical Association) and in University administration. The Department produced one College Dean, David Murray (1984-2001) and has been the home base of one University President (Mordecai Rozanski 1993-2003) as well as Dean Jacqueline Murray, who arrived in 2001. Currently, Stuart McCook, Department Faculty in Latin American and Environmental History, is seconded to the College of Arts as Associate Dean (Graduate Studies and Research) for 2009-2016.
During the mid-1990s, the Department experienced slow growth in new hires and absolute decline in faculty and student numbers, reaching a low of 13.5 faculty full-time equivalents (FTE). We responded by redeploying faculty into new teaching areas and by concerted cooperation with our Tri-University partners at the graduate level. Following this nadir in terms of numbers, and coinciding with curricular change at the Ontario school level (i.e. elimination of Grade XIII; new History curriculum Grades 10- 12), the Department experienced steady renewal as enrolments surged and successive Deans were able to argue for additional hires in new areas. The Department reached a new high of FTE faculty at approximately 25 by the 2005-2006 academic year. New faculty members, including the first holder of the endowed Chair in Scottish Studies, and a convincing openness to new approaches on the part of existing faculty, enabled a dramatic makeover of History curriculum. Faculty expanded course offerings with major innovations in Latin American, South Asian, Chinese, Canadian cultural, environmental, gender and migration histories. We also added new Tri-University Graduate fields that likewise corresponded thematically and temporo-spatially to existing and new expertise in the Department and Tri-University Graduate Program more broadly, a pattern that has continued in striking ways as the post-2001 cohort of faculty has continued—and will continue—to develop its teaching and research trajectories while reaching the peak of its productivity.
2 IQAP Review 2011-2012 Department of History
Of particular note and pride to the Department, our Scottish Studies program, founded by W. Stanford Reid, has from outset worked closely with Department Faculty, and cohabits with History administratively and with respect to curriculum. Our two present research chairs, Graeme Morton, Scottish Studies Foundation Chair, and Elizabeth Ewan, University Research Chair, represent this close union and highlight the excellence of research and teaching in the Centre for Scottish Studies, which has become internationally recognized as among the top Scottish Studies programs in the world.
A Senate Committee for Internal Review (SCIR) assessment took place in 1998-2000. The SCIR review described the History Department as “strong overall (i.e. with respect to undergraduate, graduate and research programs), amply competitive in quality with its peers, and as contributing substantively to the university’s mission and strategic directions.” It noted “particularly strong focus on both learner-centreness ….and scholarly collaborations,” such that students interviewed about their experiences, “virtually universally attested to high level of respect for and satisfaction with Department.” At same time, SCIR issued various recommendations for the future: involve undergraduates in the research process; seek ways to overcome resistance to cross-college appointments; continue to sustain the interdisciplinary project of Scottish Studies by enacting further administrative integration to protect and promote this distinctive strength of our Department and College; support the graduate program and the undergraduate learning experience at once by securing stable and transparent funding for Graduate Teaching Assistants; in light of its imminent expansion into the Tri- University network, secure specific transportation, funding and Graduate workspace requirements. The Department was happy to receive this advice back then and is pleased to indicate that today we have indeed far surpassed the situations described in the 2000 report. Now what remains is the specter of resource shortfall, which could yet hobble us in continuing to successfully serve our and the University’s mission.
These major development since the 2000 review include significant growth and innovation in Distance Education/Open Learning, and increase in the courses that the History Department offers at the University of Guelph Humber, a new institution collaboratively established, and staffed, by the University of Guelph and Humber College. Our teaching community has grown to include instructors not only in the Guelph classroom, but in Open Learning and in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) component of Guelph Humber University. At same time, History Faculty at Guelph have followed the CoA Dean’s recommendation, and the rush of most of the other units in the College, to move in 2010 to a 2/2 teaching load (replacing the previous 2/3 or 3/2 load).
Due to the 1998-2007 recovery of faculty numbers, and their hard work and dedication, we experienced a reversal of fortune in faculty and staff personnel numbers as well as a stabilization of numbers of students at undergraduate and graduate levels. Thereafter, a wave of retirements in 2008-2010 thinned our senior ranks, including
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Canada Research Chair Doug McCalla, and Professors Crowley, Reid, Andrew and Cassidy, while a hiring freeze resulted in complete stasis of remaining faculty numbers. To be sure, the University as a whole was subject to the imperative to downsize. In January 2006, V. P. Academic Maureen Mancuso called for a targeted elimination of undergraduate course sections with an average enrollment less than 10 and mandated the reweighting of all fourth year (4xxx) courses from 0.5 to 1.0 credit, which required us to thin our upper-level Honours requirements and associated offerings. Thereafter, additional budgetary constraints in the College of Arts has led to an assault on our crucial “soft” budget spending, i.e. sessional instructor hires on which the Department has grown reliant in order to cope with faculty vacancies related to the hiring freeze and retirements.
In response, the History Department renovated our course offerings to both reflect sharply reduced faculty and sessional resources, streamlining the fourth year by reweighting honours seminar credit value and reducing the requirement from three such seminars to two as a condition of honours graduation. We have had to disband much of our sessional instructor workforce, and those who continue with us are mainly Distance Education specialists or Guelph Humber University instructors. With respect to on- campus teaching, sessional instructors are not a key part of program delivery in Guelph History. Rather, the bulk of our adjunct teaching is performed by post-doctoral researchers, who teach one or two courses as specified in contract, mentored PhD students, who each develop and deliver one course as part of the Tri-University PhD program, and our Distance Education specialists. Our renovation of our curriculum also made it easier for students to construct “pathways” as courses were renamed or re- described to better allow students to discern relationships between courses at different levels. Lastly, a renewed push to build the Distance Education element provided not only flexibility for students seeking History courses, but also an opportunity for our long- term sessional instructors after being forced out of their previous roles as on-campus instructors by budget cuts by moving into DE courses, which, at the levels we maintain, are money-makers that earn back the costs of instructors hired to teach them.
3 ANALYSIS AND REFLECTION ON THE DEPARTMENT AND ITS UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM
A The Faculty
At present, the faculty complement of 20.6 FTE tenured and tenure stream personnel is demographically stable, more rather than less balanced in terms of the current categories, and within a productive zone of career, with an average age of 45 (the youngest faculty member is 34 and the oldest is 58). We have additionally bolstered our ranks through the welcome that we extend, in teaching and research opportunity, to post-doctoral researchers. In the current academic year we host two SSHRC-funded post-doctoral researchers, Jennifer Bonnell and Ian Mosby, and two Census (“People in
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Motion”) project-funded post-doctoral researchers, Andrew Ross and Rebecca Lenihan, who join us in research and teaching. We have also been able to secure steady teaching activity in Distance Education and at Guelph Humber for our long-term sessionals, although they nonetheless labour precariously in the Department due to financial uncertainty. Additional teaching is provided on campus by mentored PhD students, each of whom instructs an undergraduate course as part of their program requirement. Likewise, our post-doctoral researchers also carry out limited undergraduate teaching as part of their Guelph appointments. Additionally, for the interval 2011-2014 the Department added one contractually limited faculty member, Dr. Christine Ekholst, who comes to us as compensation for the 2011 appointment of Jacqueline Murray to the position of First Year Seminar Director. Dr. Ekholst has stepped into a key role in Medieval/Early Modern/thematic teaching in the Department.
The structure of Departmental Governance in 2011 is:
Chair (2 course remissions) Associate Chair/Graduate Coordinator (one course remission) Chair of Curriculum Committee (Undergraduate) Committees for Tenure and Promotion, Curriculum, Graduate Program, Speakers, etc. Various ad hoc committees for planning, projections, responses to initiatives
Student representatives participate in all committees (except Tenure and Promotion Committee) and Departmental fora.
B The Staff
Our current staff complement consists of
Administrative Assistant (1.0) Undergraduate Secretary (1.0) Graduate Secretary (0.5) Tri-University Graduate Secretary (0.2 - our share of a 0.6 appointment)
Total: 2.7 staff. The Department has by significant margin the leanest staff complement of any unit in the College of Arts, compared with neighbour units (Department of Philosophy: 3; School of Languages and Literatures 3; English and Theatre Studies 3.5; College of Arts Dean’s Office 6+, etc.). Following the Winter 2011, we saw the replacement of our full-time graduate secretary position with a half-time one, the other half of which is claimed by duties in the School of English and Theatre Studies. Overall, the human resources of the Department are stable, yet strained by the level of activity we maintain.
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This table indicates rise and fall of faculty and staff complement in History 2005-2011:
Other Year Faculty Est. Total Est. FTE's FTE's FTE's 2005 20.48 4 24.48 2006 22.67 2 24.67 2007 22.71 2 24.71 2008 24.41 2 26.41 2009 25.18 3 28.18 2010 22.93 3 25.93 2011 21.94 3 24.94 2012 20.6 3 23.6
As does this graph:
30
25
20
15
10
5
0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Faculty FTE's Other Est. FTE's Total Est. FTE's
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C The Undergraduate Program: Honours, General, and Elective.
The Undergraduate Degree program requirements are described in the Calendar at http://www.uoguelph.ca/registrar/calendars/undergraduate/current/c10/c10ba-hist.shtml. Our program is distinctive for its comparatively restrained “core”, consisting of only four required courses (2.0 credits), described below,
- the first year level course, HIST*1010 Early Modern World
- three second year level courses drawn from HIST*2100, HIST*2600 Pre- and Post Confederation Canada, and HIST*2450 The Practicing Historian
Every element of the core involves seminar work in groups of 20 students or less, and this kind of small-class experience is at the heart of our Bachelor of Arts Degree in History.
In order to complete the degree requirements for Honours major or minor (8.0 and 5.0 credits respectively), students must complete courses from four distribution categories: Pre-Modern; Non-Western; Global and Thematic History. There are many courses to choose from in all distribution areas, so the History undergraduate pathway is characterized by both a strong central core and wide elective possibilities that allow students to discover their own talents and interests in the past.
The History Honours program is restricted to students who bring an average of 70% in History course attempts. At the first and second year level, access to courses is open, and History courses prove popular electives or part of distribution requirement for other BA and non-BA program students. At present, a number of courses serve a large volume of non-History Honours students as part of their degree requirements, including:
- HIST*1250 Science and Society, required by the B.Eng. program)
- HIST*1010 Early Modern World, required in a range of B.Comm options
- HIST*3130 Popular Culture and Punishment, 1700-1900, a popular distribution option for students in the Criminal Justice and Public Policy program.
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The following chart shows non-BA student participation in our courses:
Non-Arts Enrolments in History Courses: 2006-07 to 2010-11
Course Enrolment: 2006/200 2007/200 2008/200 2009/201 2010/201 Prog. Program 7 8 9 0 1 Totals BA (Hon Sci) 462.3 440 402.2 471 345 2120.5 BComm 262 239 354.6 430 420 1705.6 BSc(Eng)/BEng 182 201 164 315 353 1215 BSc (Hon) 400.9 401.5 365.6 375 334 1877 TOTALS 1307.2 1281.5 1286.4 1591 1452 6918.1
Non-Arts students are particularly prominent participants in four courses, where they often comprise the largest group. These courses include Hist*1010, Hist*1150, Hist*1250 and Hist*3130. These four courses account for the following non-Arts enrolments Non‐Arts Enrolments in Selected History Courses F06 ‐ W11 Overall Totals Year BA (Hons Sci) BASc BComm BEng/BSCEng BSC(Hon) Totals F06‐W07 136 8 142 129 140 555 F07‐W08 111 5 115 156 134 521 F08‐W09 93 1 122 130 122 468 F09‐W10 169 6 178 293 134 780 F10‐W11 146 11 174 332 109 772 TOTALS 655 31 731 1040 639 3096
Like other units in the College of Arts, the Department of History welcomes non-BA program students; we have stepped up this activity through partnership with the School of Engineering (for the course Hist*1250). Our strategic research profile, and our resultant ability to offer courses in environment, rural history, food history, health and wellness history, and History of Science, make our course offerings attractive and compelling to non-Arts students who seek challenge in fulfilling their elective requirements; as such, we demonstrate our commitment to engage all of the learners at this University.
The following is a five-part discussion of our Undergraduate Program, including:
1 Aims and Objectives of our Undergraduate History Program
2 Curricular Renovation to 2011
3 Delivering the Undergraduate Curriculum
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4 Student/Faculty Ratio and Class Size
5 The History Major: Student Experience
1 Aims and Objectives of our Undergraduate History Program
In 2005, the Department established the following aims and objectives for undergraduates who take our courses and who follow our program as Honours or History Minor students:
a. For Students Taking History Courses as Electives - a basic but broad knowledge and appreciation of the past - a mature understanding of the importance of History in their iberal education program. b. For Students in the General Program - a well-developed and broadly-based understanding of specific areas of history, both chronological and geographical, as well as of different types of history, e.g. economic, social, political, religious, national, etc. - a sensitive grasp of the historical background of contemporary society, in order to be able to live and work more effectively in the present - the intellectual skills of analysis, synthesis, interpretation, and criticism - the ability to present a well-constructed historical analysis and defend it orally as well as in writing c. For Students in the Honours Program - the ability to use historical sources for original research in one or more historical periods or topics - the ability to organize and write a coherent, well-integrated essay on a historical topic, using both primary and secondary materials, and including professional journals - the ability to criticize constructively and spontaneously one’s own and others’ oral or written research presentations - an understanding of the nature of historical interpretation and historiographical debate, as well as the ability to critique academic historical arguments
Further, the Department supports the idea of a pathway of skill and perspective acquisition, by course level as well as by core course and distribution requirement.
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Additionally, in a 2005 decision, the Department set out the following guidelines:
HISTORY UNDERGRADUATE COURSE OBJECTIVES AND CRITERIA ACCORDING TO LEVEL OF INSTRUCTION
1000-LEVEL To expose students to broad cross-cultural and thematic approaches to history (i.e., something beyond the traditional historical approach). To instruct students in the basic skills of analysis and argument: how to develop, articulate and defend a thesis effectively.
The ‘stream’ (core) course must involve both instruction in the writing of an essay and the actual writing of an essay, and must have seminars for all students in the course. Methods: in lectures, in a few well-chosen articles as good (or bad) examples to be discussed in seminars, in an essay, in an exam.
There will be one ‘stream’ (core) course: HIST*1010
Reading expectations: the equivalent of an article a week and a textbook chapter Writing expectations: the equivalent of a 1500-word essay using at least 7 sources
2000-LEVEL To expose students to the complexities of the process of historical development by examining broad areas of investigation defined either by one topic over a long period of time or by a variety of themes and topics in one national geographical area. To develop the basic background knowledge for more advanced courses (i.e., the courses tend to be basic building blocks); the courses assume no background in history. To hone the students’ skills in analysis and argument, either through essays or seminars; and ‘stream’ (core) course must involve both methods.
To develop basic literacy skills by requiring students to read and understand secondary literature; this would be tested in the ‘stream’ (core) courses by
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requiring students in the mid-term exam or assignment to articulate and critique the thesis of a required reading. To expose students to the differences between primary and secondary sources; both types of material should be used by students in the ‘stream’ (core) courses.
There will be three ‘stream’ courses: HIST*2450 and HIST*2100 and HIST*2600
Reading expectations: the equivalent of an article a week and a textbook Writing expectations: the equivalent of a 2000-word essay using a minimum of 10 sources.
3000-LEVEL In contrast to the 2000-level course, a 3000-level course is designed to facilitate in-depth investigation of specific themes or historical approaches over a more limited time period or geographical area.
To develop further students’ skills in oral argument by using seminar discussion wherever possible.
To develop research skills, with particular emphasis on bibliographic tools. To develop further student skills in written argument by requiring written assignments that involve a more sophisticated analysis.
To develop analytical thinking about a theme, a geographical area, or a limited time period, facilitating investigation in some depth (both in terms of factual material and of ideas broached).
To begin the development of an understanding of the nature of historical interpretation/historiographical debate and the ability to critique historical arguments
Reading expectations: equivalent of two articles a week, a monograph, and a textbook. Writing expectations: equivalent of a 3000-word essay, using both primary and secondary sources totalling approximately 15 sources.
4000-LEVEL A 4000-level course is designed for honours students and must address itself to the specific departmental aims for students in the honours program.
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To develop students’ ability to argue and research independently of the instructor (i.e., the instructor should not be as intrusive as at other levels); that ability must be demonstrated both orally and in writing.
Further development of an understanding of the nature of historical interpretation/historiographical debate and the ability to critique historical arguments to be demonstrated orally and in written assignments.
The majority of classroom time should be devoted to discussion (rather than lecturing).
Reading expectations: equivalent of three articles a week or a short monograph. Writing expectations: a 4,000-5,000 word essay, using both primary and secondary sources totaling approximately 20 sources.
2 Curricular Renovation to 2011
The following areas of curriculum were reformed in the past five years, driven in part by changes in Faculty complement, by restriction on employment of contract instructors, and by specific course redevelopment based on successful Learning Enhancement Fund application.
. Reconceptualized replacement courses for courses whose support level (in terms of faculty) had changed (for example, the two segments of the American survey were conflated into a single American survey, HIST*2300 The United States Since 1776.
. Conversion to Distance Education Format in order to continue the offering with contractual faculty: for example, HIST*2250 Environment and History and HIST*2260 Religion and Society.
. The development of new courses to reflect the student interest and Faculty interests. Recent new course developments include HIST*3200 Youth in History; HIST*3230 Spain and Portugal, 1085 to 1668, HIST*3440 The Global Sixties; HIST*3640 Madness and Psychiatry. Courses on the way include a Global Food History course and a new topic in Viking History for the senior year.
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. Renaming and redescription of courses to better indicate connections and pathways, i.e. HIST*1010, formerly the gateway “Europe in Age of Expansion” became “Early Modern World”; HIST*1150 “Twentieth Century Global” became “Modern World”; HIST*2450 “Historical Methods” became “The Practising Historian.”
. Rethinking of course in light of new target population, new techniques, and new strategic aims. This is the case for HIST*1250 “Science and Society.” Following the 2010-2011 Learning Enhancement Grant award for “Rethinking the HIST*1250 Experience in the Context of Global Awareness and a Diverse Classroom” Faculty have revised the course in light of its prominent role in campus-wide undergraduate learning, and its place as a required course in the B.Eng Engineering degree. The course will reappear as HIST*1250: “Science and Technology in a Global Context”.
. Reweighting of the fourth year seminar course. The Provost in January 2009 mandated the reweighing of fourth-year Honours seminars from 0.5 credit to 1.0 credit. With this change, the number of Honours seminars required at the fourth year level fell from 3 to 2, and Departmental offerings of such courses, capped at 20 participants, also fell. Pedagogically, the move has allowed instructors to reconceptualize Honours seminars as “Capstone” courses, with more attention to the research process, the integration of perspectives, and the polishing of presentation.
3 Delivering the Undergraduate Curriculum
This self–study of the History Department recognizes that our recent changes in terms of faculty complement have restricted our ability to deliver the maximal ranges of courses that our inventory of courses would allow. In fact, the combination of the retirement of five faculty members, the move for regular faculty to a 2/2 from a 3/2 load in 2010, the transfer of teaching capacity to new administrative role in a fast-growing, non-teaching College of Arts Dean’s office complement (resulting in 3 fewer courses per year for History 2008-2014 i.e. 15 courses, with direct impact on History, as well as LACS – which employs sessionals to deliver graduate program, and IDEV, a popular undergraduate program which struggles to find courses for its programs), together with the University-encouraged reweighing of 4xxx class credit (also in 2010) with
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concomitant reduction of demand for these courses, as well as the near- complete restriction on outside sessional hiring for regular class-room courses (beginning in Winter 2009) has created a 20% decline in course offerings over the past five years.
The following chart demonstrates the trend entailed by teaching load reduction, transfer of resources to Dean’s office through Associate Dean secondment; sessional hiring freeze, and faculty retirements (5):
2005 2006 2007 2008 Total courses Level W05 F05 W06 F06 W07 F07 W08 F08 these 4 years - 367 1000 4 3 4 4 (1) 3 4 4 (1) 4 14 18 19 15 20 18 2000 (5) (3) 15 (3) 14 (4) (2) (3) (3) 15 16 17 12 18 3000 15 (2) 17 (2) (1) 11 (2) (3) (2) 10 10 12 4000 (1) (2) 10 (1) 10 12 10 (1) 9
Totals 43 46 46 44 45 46 48 49
2009 2010 2011 2012 Total courses these 4 years - Level W09 F09 W10 F10 W11 F11 W12 F12 297 1000 4 (1) 4 5 (1) 4 4 3 3 3 or a reduction of 19% 17 14 13 (2 14 12 12 12 11 2000 (4) (4) ) (3) (3) (3) (3) (2) 15 13 3000 (1) (2) 11 11 11 13 13 12 4000 13 7 9 (1) 7 7 7 6 7
Totals 49 38 38 36 34 35 34 33
As is clearly seen, a 20% decline in faculty resources, and accompanying choking off of sessional teaching roles, produces pressure in our undergraduate
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program. This shrinkage in course offerings may help to explain the drop in the number of History majors, for example. Students themselves note fewer course offerings and especially the restricted course offerings in popular areas (including the migration of popular courses to the Distance Education format) as part of a reconsideration of the History option. And as we make clear later in this report, some areas experience particular difficulty, and our ability to renovate curriculum in constrained. Significantly, the teaching and graduate supervision shortfall in Canadian History is growing acute, while the gaps in our curriculum in important new or newer areas – aboriginal history and environmental history are two examples – is increasingly salient.
On the plus side, the Department has opened new fronts in course delivery. In terms of our regular classroom offerings, we have made a significant investment in attracting post-doctoral researchers, to whom we offer teaching opportunities as part of appointment to the University of Guelph. Recent post-doctoral appointments to the History Department including SSHRC (Bonnell; Mosby); Census (Kennedy; Lenihan; Ross; Bourbeau), and Ulster-Scots positions (Peatling; White; Rogers; Sherry) have played crucial roles in curricular delivery and offered excellent fresh perspective from which our students benefit enormously. The Tri-University PhD program requirement for mentored teaching allows our PhD students to step in and offer courses (one apiece) which again bring valuable training opportunity as well as exciting new perspectives for our students. And finally, History has increased its Distance Education course roster, with an average of eight DE courses offered per year in the past few years; each of these courses sustains an average enrolment of well over 90 students, maintain levels beyond the threshold established by the College of Arts as a viability point for sessionally taught DE courses. As the College of Arts shrinks in terms of faculty resources and its ability to deliver convincingly a range of programs, and has devoted more and more resources to its central administration, History has been highly resourceful in finding new sources of teaching.
15 IQAP Review 2011-2012 Department of History 2005 2006 2007 2008 Level W05 S05 F05 W06 S06 F06 W07 S07 F07 W08 S07 F08
1000 1 1 2000 5 2 3 3 2 4 3 2 3 3 3 3000 2 2 2 1 2 2 3 2 2 4000 1 2 1 1
Totals 6 2 7 6 4 1 4 5 4 7 5 5 56
2009 2010 2011 2012 Level W09 S09 F09 W10 S10 F10 W11 S11 F11 W12 S12 F12 1000 1 1 1 2000 4 2 4 2 2 3 3 2 3 3 2 2 3000 1 1 2 1 2 1 4000 1
Totals 6 4 6 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 45
This chart shows Distance Education offerings from History 2005-2012
4 Student/Faculty Ratio and Class Size
The attached Data Package demonstrates for the period 2006-2012 modest decline in course offerings, a 12% decline in History majors, and a slight decrease in student faculty ratio (S/F) from 2006’s high of 30.6 to today’s 28.3. While the S/F trend of the Department is to gradually align with the University’s ratio 26.8 (the University’s ratio has been rising), the History Department’s S/F ratio is a full 20% higher than the College of Arts as a whole, a demonstration of productivity, yes, but also of strain and the pattern of high number of small classes elsewhere in the College of Arts. At every level our classes are larger than the College average: in 2009-2010, for example: at the 1000 level History’s average size was 183, while the college was 71; at the 2000 level, History 93, College 50; at the 3000 level, History 40, College 30, and at the 4000 level, History seminars averaged 13, while the College average was only 9. Relative to the College of Arts, History enrolments are robust and teaching is efficient; and no part of our program is reliant on the continued employment of contract faculty.
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STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO FOR PAST FIVE YEARS Year History(1) Arts(1) University(1) History(2) Arts(2) University(2) 2006/200 7 30.6 25.9 24.4 35.5 29.4 31.3 2007/200 8 29.2 23.3 23.1 34.4 27.5 30.5 2008/200 9 25.4 22.9 23.2 31.5 27.2 30.7 2009/201 0 29.3 23 25.5 34.5 27.4 33.2 2010/201 1 28.3 23.6 26.8 32.8 27.8 34.5
Key: (1) is undergraduate ratio; (2) is undergraduate and graduate ratio
40
30 2006/2007 20 2007/2008 10 2008/2009 0 2009/2010 2010/2011 Arts(1) Arts(2) History(1) History(2) University(1) University(2)
(1) is undergraduate S/F ratio alone; (2) is graduate and undergraduate/faculty ratio.
5 The History Major: Student Experience
With over close to 500 students specializing (major and minor) in our program, History is a popular B.A. program course of study. The number of majors and minors has declined from its peak five years ago, a decline of 12% that closely resembles that of faculty numbers and course numbers, and may be impacted by the courses which have been withdrawn due to secondment to the Dean’s office as well as the History Department’s adoption of the 2/2 load, and the shrinkage of courses taught by sessionals. Entry averages are high for our
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program, breaching the 80% mark for the first time in Fall 2011. Students, through both course evaluation and through our other means of gleaning views (meetings with the History majors at beginning of Fall semester; meetings with History Society, the undergraduate body, and conversations with interested students) report satisfaction and often delight with the program. At same time, we are aware that the falling History Major count is a call to action, in terms of curricular revision and attention to teaching and teaching innovation; such steps will figure prominently in our planning in the new Integrated Planning cycle.
This chart reveals the trend in History Majors since F001, when there were 260 History Majors, while in F011, there are 415; numbers of History Majors peaked at 500 in Fall 2006.
600 500 400 300 200 100 0 F00 F01 F02 F03 F04 F05 F06 F07 F08 F09 F10 F11
Major
History
Honours
Three areas where we make a distinctive contribution to History learners and to the prospects of our History Major population beyond the Bachelor of Arts are:
- research and writing skills
- involvement in research process
- widening of perspective regarding vocational opportunities for History graduates
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Almost all of our courses and learning experiences involve the research and writing operation (see section 4B). And writing work in History is supplemented by new initiative, such as the Fall 2011 History Essay –Writing Workshop, conceived and led by Tri-University PhD students, who correctly note that significant infrastructure of writing help – “Learning Commons”, etc. – has not yet made much of a dent on undergraduate writing weaknesses – point to focused interventions in student writing practices in disciplinary context as the way forward. And research connection is a priority for the Department. As report readers will note in Section 7 below, History is a discipline highly amenable to the linkage between research and teaching; the “gap” between the research frontier and the classroom is far less than in almost any other discipline, and especially the science disciplines. Indeed, numerous students (detailed in section 7, below) participate in faculty research or in the integrated research clusters of Scottish Studies, Rural History, Census History, and the new Middle Eastern Scholars Seminar (MESS). A number of our courses specifically engage the topic of work and life beyond the B.A. (see Section 4.B) while all of our courses measure student outcomes through extensive written comments that not only assist students in understanding the rationale behind the grades they receive, but also engage students intellectually, over the ideas that are invoked in student writing.
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4 Quality and Accountability in Undergraduate Teaching
The History Department takes teaching seriously, and, as this section of our Self-Study demonstrates, leads in innovation in the classroom. Our standards are high and students overwhelmingly report strong engagement with our instructors and program.
A Results of Student Evaluation by level 2009-2011 (each rating from a possible 5.0)
semester level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 Fall 2009 4.07 4.34 4.58 4.76 Winter 2010 3.80 4.28 4.48 4.41 Summer -- 4.34 4.45 -- 2010* Fall 2010 3.54 4.18 4.25 4.52 Winter 2011 4.31 4.43 4.40 4.62 our measure excludes DE course evaluation for this year, as incoming on-line evaluations did not generate a sufficient response to provide trustworthy assessment.
. We welcome discussion with our Reviewers regarding our evaluation process, both in terms of quality, and quantity, and in terms of the process itself. The preponderance of 4+ (out of 5) individual scores as well as average scores attest to the strong teaching ethos and commitment to quality in the Department’s Teaching.
B Teaching in the Undergraduate Program
The History Department models the University’s strategic directions in learner centredness, collaboration, internationalism and open learning, and thus demonstrates significant successful attention to learning outcomes.
In Fall 2011, instructors in the History program at Guelph, in Distance Education, and at Guelph Humber, were invited to identify the innovations that improve learning in all of these strategic aspects. Faculty described developments that exactly correspond with University Strategic Directions, and with our own priorities to intensify the
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measure of student outcomes via writing and communication, and to prepare our students for the world beyond graduation.
In Fall 2011, instructors in the History program at Guelph, in Distance Education, and at Guelph Humber, were invited to identify the innovations that improve learning in all of the strategic aspects. Faculty described developments which exactly correspond with University Strategic Directions, and our own priorities to intensify the measure of student outcomes via writing and communication, and to prepare our students for the world beyond graduation. Innovations were noted in the following areas:
Improving student engagement and intensifying the learning experience in large first and second year classrooms Fostering independence and building a sense of community in distance education Globalizing the classroom Using latest generation of presentation software in the classroom Demonstrating the uses of history Building critical reflection through shorter essays and group processing Working with archival resources Students as producers of historical knowledge The benefits of peer-editing Peer leadership in seminars
Detailed accounts follow:
Improving student engagement and intensifying the learning experience in large first and second year classrooms
The Department of History offers a number of larger classes at the first and second year levels for which student interactions and engagement can be challenges. Over the last few years, faculty have introduced a number of practices and technologies to encourage and stimulate learning in classes of 100+ students.
In Fall 2011, Christine Ekholst and Peter Goddard further integrated iClicker brand interactive technology, originally introduced by Susannah Ferreira, to HIST*1010 (The Early Modern World), the program’s largest class with enrolment typically reaching towards 400 in Fall, and at least half that number in Winter. As core course, HIST*1010 has prominent historiographical skills component, but it also has to meet a large constituency of non-History majors who are interested in “bigger picture” themes;
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and it has to deal with its very large scale (mediated, however, by excellent weekly seminas). Their work with iClicker allowed Ekholst and Goddard to engage the class in discussion and exchange from the outset and helped them to gauge the “lean” of the class population as well as establish the theme of the day’s class as they began a lecture-based investigation. IClicker provided for a “gateway” experience of participation, and enlivened a large class by instantaneous polling data demonstration. Participation rates were high.
IClicker was also used by Elizabeth Ewan in HIST*2000 (The British Isles, 1066-1603) this year. Initially used to ensure the class understood the required primary source reading, iClicker became a tool to promote class discussion, despite HIST*2000 being a large lecture course. Ewan iClicker to encourage reflection on the themes of the day’s lecture and generate some discussion. She also used iClicker in conjunction with small buzz groups. She plans to expand their used in future large lower-level classes.
HIST*1250 (Science and Technology in a Global Context) is another large course taught to some history majors but mostly to students in the sciences and engineering. Depending on the semester, enrolment sits at between 160 and 300+ students. Since there are no tutorials in the course, student engagement is a challenge. As well, with limited teaching assistant resources, providing regular feedback for students is also difficult. To address both of these problems Tara Abraham introduced online weekly quizzes to promote student engagement in this large classroom. Students wrote nine quizzes in total, with their best seven quiz grades making up 15% of their final course grade. Each quiz was done completely online (on D2L) and consisted of 10 multiple choice questions each (randomized from a set of 12 questions). The quizzes tested students’ knowledge of the lectures and weekly readings, but were less an assessment of their learning than an assessment for their learning. Doing the quiz helped the students stay engaged with the course material. The results were positive. Class attendance improved from previous years, and students appreciated the regular feedback on their performance throughout the semester.
In ASCI*1000 (Science and Society: Historical Perspectives), Sofie Lachapelle included an e-portfolio assignment in which students were asked to write both a short profile description of themselves and a reflection piece on one of their three essay assignments for the class. Students were thus introduce to the e-portfolio tool and provided with the opportunity to reflect on their learning experiences. The short descriptions each student wrote had the added benefit to allow the instructor to get a better sense of her students. This assignment was then followed by one of increased difficulty in ASCI*1010 the following semester.
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In HIST*2890 (Early Islamic World), Renée Worringer dealt with the challenges associated with the students' lack of familiarity with both the physical geography and the political changes over time in the Middle East by using a number of maps of the region as well as many images—art, architecture, samples of documents, etc.— in order to illustrate the diversity and breadth of Islamic civilization over time.
Fostering independence and building a sense of community in distance education
The distance education format provides its own set of obstacles. Instructors speak of a disconnect between students and faculty and the potential for isolation or separation from the “classroom community.” At the same time, the format presents a number of opportunities including greater flexibility for students as well as the potential for increased independence. To this end, instructors have worked build on the strength of the distance education format and alleviate some of its weaknesses.
In HIST*3540 (World War II), Rob Davison introduced a new format to the course. Students were given the option of participating in online seminars where they were given the opportunity to present course material and manage the resulting discussion. The outcome was a resulting discussion of a very high calibre. Davison also introduced a more rigorous research component that gave students the option of devising their own research projects. Students were very forthcoming about the projects they wish to pursue and showed an impressive ability to use research methods and concepts developed in other courses even those outside the History Department.
On the Guelph-Humber campus, Gregory Klages introduced a number of features to ensure flexibility while encouraging development of a sense of community to AHSS*2240 (Contemporary Canadian Issues.) Podcast summaries of each class unit were made available for download. A number of students commented that they found these useful to listen to while commuting or working out, sometimes simply to confirm that their understanding of the written material was correct. Similarly, students were strongly encouraged (through assignment of a participation grade) to debate a weekly topic within a small online discussion thread group of between five and eight students. These groups remain permanent throughout the course, allowing students to build a sense of community with a least a few students in the course.
Ted Smith has been redesigning his DE courses to reflect a non-linear approach, in order to stress the multiple interconnections of religion in a social historical context. Students will see a clickable timeline combining overviews of historical periods with more traditional weekly units of course material. They will also be presented with a
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‘star field’ graphic showing all the course material units and their connections. Students will be able to click on any of these units labelled and connected to 'star' graphics that take them to detailed class notes and links to scholarly references.
Globalizing the classroom
Kris Inwood has developed many levels of exchange with international partners in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Guatemala, including exchange agreements which bring international scholars to us. In HIST*4450 (History with Numbers), he used Skype to involve Brazilian students in the seminar. Moreover, HIST*4450 engaged students in original quantitative research: students developed their own projects, and participated in an all-day research workshop as a capstone experience.
Femi Kolapo asked his students in HIST*4100 (Africa and the Slave Trades) and HIST*3410 (Pre-Colonial Africa) to each review prescribed books that directly addressed one or a couple of the major themes in their respective courses. He then asked the authors of the books, both accomplished professors in their field, to speak with the students via SKYPE. Each conversation lasted about 1.15 hours. Students reported that they appreciated the opportunity to speak with the authors and experts; noting that they had never had such an opportunity in any of their other courses. This, in itself, was a good thing. Students also got to hear both professors discussing the politics of publishing and the delimitations put on them as authors by the publishers in respect of pages, images, sources and book title. Authors also engaged in discussing their research and what prompted them to write the books. Thus, the discussion introduced students to "doing" history in real life. Two of the students were also able to ask quite intelligent questions to which the emeritus professor responded that he did not have an answer - thus bringing expertise not only close but down to earth and enhancing the quality of the their class experience.
Using latest generation of presentation software in the classroom
In his classroom teaching at Guelph Humber, Ted Smith has begun to use the Prezi.com presentation software, in conjunction with more typical Powerpoint [Keynote] software. Prezi allows him to show complex interconnections and linear cause-and-effect lines, together in one image. Prezi also allows for editing while teaching, in response to student queries and comments, or to emphasise or alter points as they arise. Smith finds this last feature particularly useful as his teaching style is conversational. Use of Prezi encourages student interaction with course material in a fluid and critical fashion.
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Demonstrating the uses of history
In the second-year historical methods class, HIST*2450 (The Practising Historian), which is required as part of the core curriculum for Majors and Minors in our Honours programme, Kevin James surveyed student opinion over the course of two years to determine what specific needs students felt they required in terms of training, with the intent of incorporating them in the course. The result was a resounding request for more information on the ways in which History degrees prepare students for employment, in the context of a challenging labour market, as well as greater discussion of potential career avenues beyond teaching employment. James developed a week of lectures focussed on this theme, exploring diverse categories of ‘Humanities-related employment’ (as defined by the American Historical Association), but also examining other occupations for which the skills-set that students hone in History can be applicable. To this end, James developed a ‘skills-portfolio’ exercise in which class members identified their transferable – communication, independent research, critical analysis and others – skills that could be used in employment. They then developed a list of occupations and occupational categories that demand such skills, and aligned the requirements of these careers with the skills-set they were developing. Students and instructor discussed how to write a resume in which these skill-sets would be highlighted, and which underscored the value not only of a specific disciplinary apparatus, but also of a broader humanities training, in developing critical, aesthetic, moral, and other faculties. James also established contact with a number of our graduates in diverse fields – the Law, teaching, human resources, media and entertainment, information management. They contributed reflections on how the History programme helped them to develop skills that they employ daily in their work. The result has been the integration of forward-thinking, career-oriented skills- development, tailored to the demands of the labour market, within our methodological training framework.
It is a simple fact that the vast majority of History majors will not find employment in an academic environment. Recognizing this, Alan Gordon redesigned his third-year introduction to public history course (HIST*3450 The Uses of History) to create hands- on preparation for work outside a university setting. Assignments in the course were designed to allow students to see how their historical research and communications skills could be used in different settings. The course made use of a variety of hypothetical cases to teach the communication of complex ideas to different
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kinds of audiences. The first assignment involved the creation of a plaque to mark a historic site. The assignment called for distilling complex historical issues into basic information for public presentation, and a reflection essay on the decision-making process of the task. Secondly, working in teams, students designed hypothetical museum galleries on topics in the history of human rights. The subject matter was chosen to help students use historical understanding to develop moral maturity, two of the university's key learning objectives. By making judgments about issues of rights and the abuse of rights, by consulting with their team members about the presentation of difficult and often graphic materials in ways appropriate for public display, students engaged in small group discussions to make moral choices. The group work of the gallery design was accompanied by a research essay exploring the issues that emerged from presenting history in public settings. These galleries were presented to the class at the end of the semester, creating another opportunity to work with the selection and presentation of historical materials. In a protected environment, students thus had opportunities to adapt their regular course-work skills to a variety of different writing assignments aimed, albeit hypothetically, at different audiences. They gained experience working in teams and were introduced to ways that History can help create a better world.
Building critical reflection through shorter essays and group processing
Catherine Carstairs has been asking students to write a short essay (due on the second day of class), which engages them with the major questions raised by the course material. For example, in her fourth-year seminar on Canadian Cultural Identity, student had to write a 500 word essay on what being Canadian meant to them. Similarly, in her seminar on the history of disability, students wrote a short essay about disability rights. Students were then asked to re-visit these essays at the end of the course and write a further 500 word reflection piece on how the course material changed, or did not change, their mind about what they wrote at the beginning of the semester. The idea has been to give them some time and space for reflection about the course, as well as giving them more experience at writing. They still do research essays, presentations and other more typical assignments, but this provides them with an assignment that allows them to see the "real world" implications of what they are studying, and encourages them to summarize what they learned in new ways.
Over the past few years Jacqueline Murray has transformed her fourth-year seminar, HIST*4710 (Sex and Sexuality in the Middle Ages). The course now focuses on the critical analysis of secondary sources to develop a high level of historiographical sophistication. The group of 20 students is divided into two groups of 10 and these
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never meet together. Students read a number of articles about a topic written from various theoretical, methodological, ideological, etc. perspectives. A group meets together once a week, on their own, to discuss the readings. Each student writes a short (ca. 5 pp) historiographical paper which serves as an admission ticket to the next group meeting where they work through the arguments and issues posed by the articles. Because the students have already read the material and written about it, the discussion is of a much higher order than in previous approaches. Everyone participates because everyone has something to say. The size of the group at 10 students rather than 20 is less intimidating to shy students and allows for the development of group cohesion and mutual support. This also reinforced through the use of Group Processing. At the end of every meeting every student (and the instructor) provides specific feedback to every other student (and the instructor) on their contributions to the day’s discussion. Over time, mindless compliments turn into balanced assessments and the students practice giving and receiving constructive criticism in a safe environment. This supports the written peer and self assessments that form a significant portion of the final grade. This pedagogy has transformed the learning outcomes for the course and while content remains important, so does historiographical expertise. Moreover, because students write essays in 10 of the 12 weeks of semester, their writing improves significantly, as do their analytical reading skills and ability to use evidence.
In Norman Smith's third and fourth year courses, students are required to complete a critical evaluation assignment. This assignment requires the student to evaluate a primary document, producing a one-page critique of it. The student provides a copy of the critique to every member of the class, delivers a 5 minute presentation based on the critique, and then leads a 15 minute discussion session. This assignment has proven very popular with students. It encourages them to think critically about the source and then share their ideas with their peers and instructor. Further, this assignment provides students with public speaking experience and increased opportunities for interaction with their peers.
One of Nadine Hunt's teaching goals includes creating and maintaining trust in the classroom. It is important for students to share their thoughts and ideas, while learning how to remain sensitive to the beliefs of their peers. For Hunt, it is important for a professor to create a safe space in tutorials, so students will openly discuss weekly readings and share their thoughts on the subject matter. One way for students to share their thoughts and reactions to the course is to write a reflection or reaction paper of 250 words. Reaction papers allow students to share their thoughts in “private” about the weekly readings, lectures or something relevant to the course. Hunt then selects several papers to read to student and open for class discussion in tutorial.
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In HIST*2510 (Modern Europe Since 1789), William Cormack uses the short paper as an introduction to complex topics. For this assignment the students must choose one of six topics and write a short paper (approx. 1000-1250 words) in which they analyze two or three primary source documents from Marvin Perry, ed., Sources of the Western Tradition, Vol. II (Boston, 2011). The assignment asks the students to identify each document and its author, to analyze the specific ideas and evidence it provides, and then to use this analysis to develop a modest argument regarding the larger topic. Such an argument comes from the student’s reflection on how the documents provide some larger or more complex understanding of the topic which links them together. Thus the assignment is intended to mirror the seminar discussions in the same course, which are also based on primary source readings from the Perry collection. Cormack has been delighted at the extent to which this term’s class has recognized this connection and therefore appreciated the importance of such documents. The assignment’s bigger objective, however, is to introduce students to reading and analyzing primary sources with the goal of encouraging them to incorporate such analysis into their research essays.
The most crucial teaching practice that Matthew Hayday has been using at all levels of his teaching, including second- through to fourth-year undergraduate courses has been the annotated bibliography and research proposal assignment. This serves as the first stage in the essay writing process. For this assignment, students must produce a preliminary bibliography of primary and secondary sources for their research paper, and provide annotations for a set number of these items indicating how these sources will be useful for their essay. They must also provide a short overview of 250-500 words in which they discuss how they will take one of the suggested essay topics and develop this into a workable framework for an essay. This includes developing more focused questions that can be the basis of an argumentative essay, discussing how and why certain primary sources will be used, and explaining some of the historiographical debates with which they might engage. Some students may also include a working thesis statement. This assignment both gets students thinking about their essays much earlier than would otherwise be the case, but more importantly it provides the instructor or the TAs with the opportunity to provide detailed feedback to the student, suggesting additional sources and guiding the students towards more viable approaches to their topics, if this is necessary. Hayday finds he probably spends at least as much time and effort, if not more, on providing feedback for this short assignment as he does for the research essay itself. Over the years he has found that this produces much better quality final essays in the students who take this advice and incorporate this feedback.
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Working with archival resources
In HIST*3570 (Modern European Women), Sofie Lachapelle tried to provide students with a wider range of experiences with primary sources. To the end, she collaborated with Dave Hudson and brought the students to the university archives to discover the cookbook collection. She also collaborated with Bev Dietrich at the Guelph Civic Museum and organised a trip during which students were shown part of the clothing collection. Students got to see and touch some of the more fragile items (with gloves) and try on some of the costumes usually used in theatre productions.
Students as producers of historical knowledge
As an instructor, one of Susan Nance's main goals always is to find ways to help undergraduates see themselves not just as consumers of historical writing, but also as producers of it. In the fall of 201, the students of HIST*2300 (The United States since 1776) collaboratively wrote a book on the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikibooks site. Entitled History of Hawaii, the book is a brief survey of the Hawaiian Islands from earliest times to the late twentieth century. The project had two stages. First the class and Nance built a table of contents, students signed up to write for one section, then composed from scholarly sources five hundred words for their section, which they submitted with citations for half the project grade. Second, for the rest of their marks, an editing window of seven days opened during which students altered their writing according to Wikibooks guidelines, deposited it into the appropriate chapter, then edited the chapter collectively for clarity, concision, accuracy and analysis representing the perspectives of all historical actors in Hawaii. The project asked the students to think about and write scholarly history, but also learn how to translate it into publicly accessible history for a broader audience, thus asking them to be more versatile writers. They also picked up some editing skills along the way. As a souvenir of the experience, both students and instructor will be able to check in on the book in future and see what the public makes of it. The book can be viewed (and edited further!) at: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/History_of_Hawaii
In HIST*4620 (Canadian Rural History), Cathy Wilson shares her enthusiasm and her sources for a SSHRC-funded research project with her students. She is using farm diaries in an intensive and systematic manner to understand neighbourhood and students are using these sources to follow their own interests. Students select a nineteenth or twentieth-century farm diary from Wilson's collection and proceed with
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weekly analytical tasks which assist them in critiquing, decoding, tabulating, and contextualizing their diary. They read extensively in the North American literature on rural history and attend the optional Speakers’ series, Rural History Roundtable, organized by Wilson. There, they are exposed to work being done by scholars working on rural topics as diverse as subsistence farming in Glengarry County to inheritance patterns in nineteenth-century Brazil. Some of their initial research is done in groups and discussed on D2L, they then develop their own individual papers. By the end of the term, students have the skills of document analysis, numeracy (tables and graphs based on countable diary entries), individual level tracing (matching diary people with the census and historical maps etc.), secondary research and writing. Their resulting papers are highly original and often tackle scholarly debates. They present their work to each other at the end of term in a conference format. Their micro-historical level of understanding and engagement with the primary sources has instilled a love of history like no other course Wilson has taught and their enthusiasm has spread beyond the class. Two have gone on to do undergrad theses using the material, six have submitted their essays to the journal Wellington County History for publication, several have deposited their essays in the regional archives containing the original diary, three have since entered MA history programs, four more are currently applying, and others are working in regional museums. After completing the class, Wilson further trained six of these students to do advanced archival research and diary analysis with her SSHRC grant. Next term, the class will prepare a College Royal display featuring the work of former students and their own diary analysis.
The benefits of peer-editing
In her fourth-year seminar, Elizabeth Ewan experimented this year with peer-review of essay drafts, providing the students with a rubric for the purpose. Ewan found that this had a number of positive effects 1) it ensured timely completion of research and drafts, due to peer pressure 2) it helped students look critically at their own work as they assessed the work of others 3) it resulted in a higher standard of the final essays. The students were very positive in their assessment of this requirement.
In HIST*3060 (American Society), Andrew Ross introduced a peer review week that required students to produce a draft of their paper for criticism. In the first class, students discussed appropriate criticism techniques and questions and divided up the papers. In the next class, students brought a marked-up copy of the paper and a written report that they presented to the author and discussed with them. The discussions were very lively. Many students welcomed the opportunity to get criticism for their papers, and suggested they had not done any similar activity in other classes. Peer review has
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several advantages. First, it teaches appropriate criticism, which is the foundation of academic work. More important perhaps is that it addresses one the main deficiencies of student papers - that the version handed in is often the first draft. Review of other papers helped students see their own strengths and weaknesses and certainly contributed to an improved final product.
In ASCI*3100 (Case Studies in the Arts and the Sciences), to help students hone in their research and writing skills, Sofie Lachapelle worked with Dave Hudson from Library and J.P. Lewis from Learning Commons. Students learned to peer-edit each other's essays. They were then graded on both their final essay and their peer-editing of 2 other students (by submitting the electronic word files of their peers with their track changes and comments.)
Peer leadership in seminars
Christine Ekholst's fourth year seminar has been continuously peer-led. Two students each week were asked to prepare the readings and outline discussion topics for the rest of the class. The format stemmed from an idea to have two presenters introduce discussions by brainstorming around the main arguments as well as main problems with the text. It turned out that the students responded really well to having the entire class led by their peers. It seemed to take some pressure of students to perform since there is less of a need to prove oneself when the presenter/leader is in the same position. The benefits with the format have been many. For the instructor, it has revealed difficulties with texts that might not have been discovered by Ekholst alone. Also, discussions have been led in new and interesting directions. For the students the benefits have been several; it provided a stronger sense of security in the classroom. The peer-led seminars have created a sense of community and teaching becomes entirely focused on the students. Ekholst actively engaged the presenters in this pursuit to have also the shy students participate and many showed great ability to support and encourage their fellow students. This furthered the sense of a learning community even more. Students still looked to the instructor for explanations, and she often intervened, but discussions could flourish more freely when she did not attempt to control them. Another benefit was that the written assignments were far more independent and critical since the students had been deprived of a teacher’s authority to tell them what was right and wrong. Many presenters reported felling very empowered by the presentation; they claimed that they afterwards felt more secure in their interpretations of the readings. Several expressed that unlike a traditional presentation the facilitation of discussions helped them develop leader skills and
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practice improvisation. Many also felt empowered and got a sense of satisfaction by the simple fact that their questions led to intense discussions. A possible negative outcome of having peer-led discussions would be the pressure put on the presenting students. If their questions do not lead to discussions and/or the class answers with silence it can be hard on students, in particular shy students. The teacher’s role to facilitate and take over in these situations is imperative. It has unfortunately also been clear that the estimated outcome for so-called shy students, that they felt empowered and would participate much more, has not entirely come true. They have participated more but Ekholst cannot see a big difference. Possible improvements in order to achieve this would be to have a rotating schedule so that all students get to present/facilitate during a seminar early on. That might indeed have an effect.
Renée Worringer has been teaching a fourth-year seminar on “Orientalism and Middle East Film” in which students and instructor explore Hollywood film portrayals of the peoples of the region, some documentary works, as well as films made by Middle Eastern filmmakers who have a particular approach to the history and culture of the Middle East. Each week 4 students work as a group to pre-screen the film for that week. They research the relevant issues that form the backdrop for a particular film and do a presentation at the beginning of class for the other students, all of whom have been tasked with doing some independent research of their own about the subject matter. Students then see the film as a class and have a post-film discussion run mainly by the group (but moderated by the instructor.) Students delve further into questions raised by the film in online discussions on D2L. Worringer has found this class to be a very successful one in terms of a method that allows students to do independent research while also having to present their findings in a scholarly manner to the rest of the class. Students have really engaged in this course beyond her expectations – the films have opened their eyes to historical and cultural issues at play in the region in a way that is “media heavy” but very timely. Students have told her they even continue their discussions outside the class and D2L in other social networking sites.
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5 History Bachelor of Arts Graduate Outcomes
The University does not track systematically the outcomes of undergraduate education in the B.A. Program, so instead the Department relies on individual instructor information about the activities of students post-graduation (see section A) based on the results of letters of reference and other forms of communication which our faculty extend to our students. As well, we are able to tabulate the success rates of our undergraduates in Tri-Council and Ontario Government Scholarship competitions (section B).
A History Honours and Majors Graduates After Graduation
The question of “what to do with a History degree”, will become more urgent over time, as a changed economy emerges from the current period of crisis will present a different face to the graduate. We can hold up examples of our most prominent graduates over the past few decades – these include Donald Rennie, BA History 1975, who was sworn in as judge of the Federal Court in November 2010, Ty Burt, BA History 1980, Chairman of Kinross Gold as well as recent Chair of the Board of Governors of the University of Guelph, or Tom Dimitroff, BA History 1990, current General Manager of the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (US).
For purposes of this study, however, the Department asked Faculty members to produce sketches of recent graduates they have come to know best:
Renée Worringer: Since 2007 I have had one student continue for an MA thru the Tri-U program, study Arabic language at Middlebury College’s intensive summer program in the US in 2011, and he is going to apply to grad schools in Canada and the US this coming year. He is planning to apply to the next level at Middlebury again this summer. He has delivered papers at conferences in Canada and the US on his MA research and received an award for the best paper at the conference in MI.
I have a student who has done an MA degree with me here who is now applying to PhD programs in Ontario in Middle East history. I have another student who went on to study Arabic language in Morocco and is now in the MA program in History at the U of Toronto. I have a student who is now in the MA program in Political Science at McMaster University.
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At least six students have gotten into and are attending law schools in Canada, and another five have applied this year for law school. Quite a few students have applied to programs for teaching certificates here in Canada and also in Australia.
Cathy Wilson reports: Between Winter 2009 and Winter 2011, five students pursued a Master’s Degree in History (two with SSHRC grants), one student working on a PhD at Queen’s University, one completing a Public History MA at Carleton, one in law school, three in Library Science programs and one earning a Master’s of Journalism.
Norman Smith identifies: Holly Karibo, finishing a PhD in History at the University of Toronto Tim Krizner, working at Health Canada Amrit Dhatt, went on to complete an MA in social work at SFU and now working at INDI Magazine Carly Naismith, teaching English for JET in Japan Deanna Duplessis, working with YCI in Zanzibar on HIV/AIDs prevention Ryan Scheiding, working on an MA in History at the University of Waterloo Sarah Lee, working on a PhD at the University of London (UK) John Dickieson, working on a law degree at Dalhousie
Catherine Carstairs reports: Paige Schell, '08- finished an Master's in Public Health in 2010 and was awarded an OGS to do this degree. Now working in Waterloo in her field, she was a BAS student in History and Food Science.
Sydney Kruth '10, is currently doing a Master's Degree in English at the University of Western Ontario. She was also admitted to law school, but decided to pursue English instead.
Tim Bruton, '09, had plans for Teacher's College, but he is currently rocking the country as a member of the band, Forest City Lovers.
Brianna Greaves '08, is now doing an MSW at the University of Toronto. Kelly Wiley, '09 is currently doing an MA in history at Laurier. Lisa Baumander '09 is currently doing an MA in history at Laurier. Zane Yager, '10 is currently doing an MA in History at Queen's. Nora Milne '10 is currently doing an MA in History at McGill.
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Elizabeth Ewan noted that her students had done the following: Teacher's College, secondary school teachings (English and History), Master's of Library Science, ESL in Japan, History MA program,
Karen Racine has former students who have: - with an MA in colonial French Canada at the Université de Québec, successfully passed the civil service exam for job in Dept of Indian Affairs
- with an MA from the program in International Environmental Studies at Columbia, making plans for law school
- earned an MA at University of Warwick UK, then PhD program at Penn State
- earned an MA in history at Queens (two students on this path), Brock, University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, and a PhD at U of T
- completed an MA in journalism and media at UBC; now with MacLean’s as university affairs correspondent
- earned an MA in Museology and Curatorial Practices at the University of Sheffield UK
- earned a Masters in Library Science and Information, University of Western Ontario, working as librarian
- attended various law schools including Dalhousie (2), Ontario Teachers’ College
- completed a certificate in real estate development, working at real estate firm in Barrie
- worked at progressive community radio station in Toronto while applying to PhD programs
- earned an MA in Social Work
- entered the MA program in Latin American Studies and International Development at New York University
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- accepted a job with the international One-Laptop-Per-Child program
- joined the officer corps of the Canadian Armed Forces
- earned a postgraduate certificate in Sports and Event Management in Ottawa
Matthew Hayday notes: Brooke Anderson (2011) - Accepted into MA in History at Queen's with scholarship Rachel Schumann (2011) - Accepted into MA in Criminology & Criminal Justice at Guelph Andrew Newman (2008) - Accepted into MA Program in Political Science at U of Calgary Chris Los (2011) - Accepted into Osgoode Law School (from Guelph MA) Chris Buchanan (2011) - Accepted into MA Program in Public History at Carleton Zo Nissen (2010) - Accepted into MA Program in History at Trent with scholarship Lewis Kavanagh (2010) - Accepted into MA Program in History at Western
Ted Smith on one of his students, as found in his “Linked-In” account: Jordan Milne, Author of Winning Without Losing: Canada Venture Capital & Private Equity Currently: Co-Founder of eCamb, The Global Business Accelerator and Contributing Editor at aiCIO Past Professional Experience: Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship at University of Cambridge, Ambassador at Startupbootcamp Business Development/Marketing at Project Amuso Education: University of Cambridge Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management University of Guelph Grenoble Ecole de Management - Grenoble Graduate School of Business Stanford University Graduate School of Business University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business
Ted also mentions: Catherine Grinyer – she took two of my courses and I wrote a letter of reference to several law schools for her - she was admitted to the program at U of Calgary - a rather amazing young woman who studied full time and ran her parents'
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racing horse farm while they travelled the circuit in North America - supervising a large staff and the care of the stables while studying religious history and history in general at Guelph.
William Cormack: Here are some recent examples of students for whom I have written letters of reference and indications of what they are doing now (in part, perhaps, because of their training in History at Guelph):
Kate Goodale - MSc in Environmental Science at Dalhousie University
Laura Imrie - Masters in Museum Studies at University of Toronto
Carrie Amborski - MBA at Ryerson University
Alan Mark - MA in History at York University
Andrew Christian Brands - Law at Dalhousie University
Jehan Husain - MSc in Education at Medaille College (Williamsville, New York)
I am most proud of my association with Erin-Marie Legacey, for whom I have written many letters (most recently to support her application for a SSHRC Postdoctoral fellowship). After completing her BAH at Guelph, she went on to do an MA at Queen's University and a PhD at Northwestern University and she is currently teaching History at Eastern Connecticut State University. – Bill Cormack
Jacqueline Murray’s extensive contacts with our graduates include: Yvonne Su in International Development: I taught her multiple courses including a Field Course/Independent Study in Botswana and I supervised her Honours Thesis for ID: currently pursing an MA in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at Oxford.
Erica German, who I supervised Honours Thesis and taught as MA here now doing PhD at UBC
Ricki St. Pierre, supervised Honours Thesis, went to Regent College, UBC for an MA
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Will Elbeck, supervised Honours Thesis, went to University of Iceland for MA
Gillian Shaughnessy, supervised Honours Thesis, went to Faculty of Education, Nippising
Cara Patterson and Laura Thorne, Masters of Information Science, Univ Toronto
Hilary van de Kamer, law school
Clarissa Allen, BAS, supervised Honours Thesis, MA in Biomedical Ethics (thesis published) McGill University, now in Law School
Kevin James’ report includes: Owen Fletcher: Nursing programme, UofT (2011) Carly Naismith: History MA programme, UOW (2011) Tom Abel: Romero House , refugee settlement Toronto (2009) Fiona Stevens: Teaching employment, Ireland (2011) Brad Both: Entrepreneurial activity after obtaining an MBA in Scotland (2011) Christopher Campbell: Independent television production work after obtaining two further degrees in the UK (2010) Meaghan Macdonald: Habitat for Humanity, Northumberland Co. (2011) Hilary van de Kamer: Law School (2010) Wade Cormack: MA Programme, University of Guelph (2011) Erica German: PhD Programme, UBC (2010) Monica Finlay: MA programme at University of Guelph, Library and information Science, University of Toronto (2011) Eamon O’Flynn: MA in Political Science and NGO employment (2011) Stu Clark: Law School at Windsor and articling in Toronto (2011) Jennifer Althouse: B.Ed at Lakehead and currently teaching in Toronto (2011)
Other faculty reported that their students have fanned out to Law School, Graduate School in History, Archival and Museum Science, Administrative Studies, Education, Civil Service, Business, in a wide range of industries, journalism, politics and police work. In general, our Honours graduates make firm strides following the BA, and can be seen making or beginning to make strong contributions in their chosen fields.
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B History Undergraduates and Graduate Study in History
Of course, strong students in our program will likely consider Graduate Studies in History as the next step. In this connection, our students have particularly good record of acceptance into Graduate school (recent highlights have included University of London, Stanford [2], Edinburgh, Michigan, Florida, as well as a wide range of Canadian institutions.
Our students have been successful in competition for Tri-Council and provincial graduate funding. Our record in OGS Fall 2007-Fall 2010 inclusive: 15 applied, at least 4 successful (we don't know about reversion list for students who went to another institution). Our students’ record in SSHRC Masters: 2006-Fall 2010 inclusive: 16 applied and 6 were successful.
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6 Comparison with Other History Undergraduate Programs in the Region
Consider the following. The first is a regional comparison of degrees awarded in History in the last American Historical Association data compilation:
Next is enrolments in History programs in same period:
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This data demonstrates that the University of Guelph’s History Department has a robust program with good representation at all three levels (undergraduate, MA and PhD). This representation also allows one to see that combined totals from the Tri-University Group (Guelph, Wilfrid Laurier and Waterloo) produce a History program population in the top three of the province of Ontario.
In practice, the closest comparisons to us are the three Universities who are closest to us geographically: Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier and McMaster. Here we see broad parity, indicative of the strength of this part of South-Western Ontario in the Ontario and Canadian higher education system. Each of these programs boasts comparable strength in terms of dynamic faculty, strong undergraduate enrolments, teaching excellence, and, especially within the Tri-University Group, commitment to working together to create greater impact.
Guelph History is distinctive among this group for its strengths in the specific research themes of Scottish, environmental, Canadian political and cultural; food, animal and agricultural history; medieval and Early Modern; science and technology; global, migration, and Developing world. Our undergraduate teaching reflects these specializations, and makes possible our undergraduate combinations with International Development; Hispanic and European Studies, the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences. And as the previous section should have indicated, the History program overwhelming delivers learner-centred, writing and research intensive curriculum at Undergraduate level.
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7 Our Impact: Scholarship, Communication, Community Outreach
A Research
The Department maintains a high level of activity in scholarship, in a range of forms. Faculty excel in competition for SSHRC Standard Research grants, at a far higher rate than any other unit in the College of Arts. In the past five years, more than 60% of faculty have carried major grant support in multi- or single-year form. Recognizing the centrality of teaching and training to the Department's mission, faculty make regular use of research-grant support to engage graduate and undergraduate students in research agendas as enhanced learning opportunities. Faculty members are deeply committed to student involvement in research, and in communicating research to a larger forum. Department faculty demonstrate strength in areas of the history of food, drug, and alcohol, rural and agricultural history, gender and sexuality studies, history of tourism, history of science and the environment, community and identity studies. These research strengths are reflected in recent curricular change at the undergraduate level.
The Scottish Studies Program, embedded in the History Department, is another area of unique strength. Many collaborative projects overlap with the innovative work of the Historical Data Research Unit, hosted jointly through the College of Arts and the College of Management and Economics. The “People in Motion” Project this year secured $375,000 from the Canadian Fund for Innovation to construct a database from Canadian, British and U.S. censuses 1871-1901 and military medical exams 1899-1902 and 1914-1919. History faculty are engaged in a range of interdisciplinary, cutting edge projects and Department members produce a steady stream of well-regarded, often ground-breaking work in monographs and article, conference presentation and public events.
History faculty are active in bringing international conferences to the University, such as the 2004 Latin American and Caribbean Studies Association Conference and the 4th Annual Drug and Alcohol Conference, Global Approaches, held at Guelph in August 2007. Faculty also organize smaller events, such as last spring's one-day workshop on "Rethinking the History of Science and Technology in a Global Context." Department faculty regularly participate and help organize the Tri-University Conference and the annual spring and fall Scottish Colloquia. Faculty additionally participate in research dissemination, serving as editors, guest editors, and advisory board members for a range of scholarly journals.
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B Research: Involving Our Students
As the following examples demonstrate, the History Department creates research opportunities for our undergraduate students that imbue them with the profound idea that they can be the authors of scholarly history and think about how to see and produce history that is relevant to contemporary life.
Departmental Faculty contributed the following information on student involvement in scholarly research by way of University Research Assistantships (URA), of which History is typically allocated four per year, as well as research supported by Faculty SSHRC grants or our major collaborative research in Census, Rural Studies, Scottish Studies, and Digital Humanities:
Susan Nance: In the summer of 2011 Denny Brett was my URA for a proposed history of the rise and fall of regulated commercial dog racing in the US, "American Greyhound: The Rise and Fall of a Gambling Empire.” The outcome was that Denny developed very sophisticated skills in retrieving all nature of materials relating to the topic--from veterinary journal articles to state gaming legislation to USDA reports to popular media accounts of the business--skills he has used to improve his own grades in his remaining undergrad coursework (and I believe he has plans grad school in History next).
In the Winter semester, 2007, Christi Garneau was my URA for my history of the development and lives of rodeo animals, "Born to Buck: Rodeos and Rough Stock since 1800.” She collected a similarly diverse array of materials (as above) for that project. Christi is now using her skills in interdisciplinary research to finish an MA thesis in History at Simon Fraser University on the topic of nineteenth- century beagle breeding and manhood in the United States. Meanwhile, my rodeo project will have been accelerated by about one year because I have all the materials that she collected for me on hand already.
Karen Racine: My students performed in various roles as part of her extensive research program (I prefer to keep these students unnamed)
Student 1: traveled with me to Mexico as a research assistant and completed archival research in the Archivo General de la Nacion. Material utilized in book manuscript and published articles
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Student 2: Undergraduate Research Assistant (URA) one summer; read through US congressional reports and presidential papers, extracted and filed materials related to Latin American independence.
Student 3: Undergraduate Research Assistant (URA) one summer; built a bibliography of primary and secondary materials related to Spanish Americans in the US. Acquired items on interlibrary loan and filed; built a list of Latin Americans residing in the US between 1790-1834
Student 4: read 20 English-language travel accounts of British soldiers and visitors to northern South America in the independence era; identified and extracted all passages and references to alcohol and drunkenness, copied and filed. He received named credit in the subsequently published article
Student 5: acquired and digitized articles from Irish newspapers 1820 related to Spanish American independence
Student 6: printed and filed over 700 items (letters, pamphlets, documents, decrees etc) that I had transcribed while at the John Carter Brown Library
Student 7: researched and built a bibliography of secondary works on liberty, patriotism and nationalism
Student 8: began process of transcribing the handwritten letters of J R Poinsett as part of my ongoing project to publish a collection of his work in South America 1810-1815
Norman Smith: Sheena Marti helped with my forthcoming book, "Intoxicating Manchuria." In Summer 2006, she prepared several secondary bibliographies that helped lay the background for that research.
Kris Inwood: In 2011, the History undergraduates working on the People in Motion project and/or the 1871 Census project, many with respect to aboriginal history, are Jennifer Fraser, Lauren Kelly, Wade Cormack, Matthew Stock, Aaron Van Tassel, and Katherine Pendrill. In addition, Stephanie Lalonde and Lauren Ramsay have other B.A. specializations, and Allegra Fryxzell has been a UoG History student but finished her degree at the University of Toronto after working
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with us.
Elisabeth Ewan: WISH (Women in Scottish History website) - Devin Cassidy and Hugh Cassidy, as undergraduates (early 2000s), designed and built this project’s website.
Women in Scottish History online bibliography – in 2007 Meghan MacDonald performed crucial research in order to add entries and confirm details of existing entries.
Catherine Carstairs: Sydney Kruth, Summer 2009, Winter 2010 Project, “Disability and Citizenship in the Life and Fiction of Jean Little." Sydney and I co-presented a paper at the Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting in 2011 and have now submitted a jointly authored article with the same title as above to Histoire Sociale/Social History.
Paige Schell, Fall-Winter 2008. She did a thesis on the pasteurization of milk in Ontario. We co-presented a version of this paper at the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine in 2010.
Rachel Elder, Research Assistant, Summer 2005, Summer 2007. We co- published an article on fluoridation in the Canadian Historical Review.
Sofie Lachapelle: Jenna Healey, “Wonder Animals and Psychology,” URA Summer 2008, Summer 2009. We co-presented a paper titled "On Hans, Rolf, and Others: Wonder Animals in French Psychical Research and Early Psychology" at the 2009 conference of the History of Science Society (in Phoenix) and published an article in an international peer-reviewed journal of history of science: Sofie Lachapelle and Jenna Healey: “On Hans, Zou and the Others: Wonder Animals and the Question of Animal Intelligence in Early Twentieth-Century France.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C 41 (2010), 12-20.
Heena Mistry, A History of Aquariums and the Global Trade and Transport of Sea Life, URA (Summer 2011): Heena and I applied to the 2012 conference of the French Colonial Society (New Orleans, May 2012) to co-present a paper titled "The Aquarium of the 1931 French Colonial Exposition." Heena has also signed up for an independent studies course with me in Winter 2012 during
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which we will write an article tentatively titled "Exotic Fish for a Colonial Theatre: The Aquarium of the 1931 French Colonial Exposition" (to be submitted to an international peer-reviewed journal of history in summer 2012.)
C Communicating Our Research and Engaging the Community
Guelph History Faculty and Students conduct innovative research on topics of significant contemporary interest to both the academic community and the public. As such, we reach out to the University Community and beyond with news of this research and contribute in this regard very strongly to the strategic research directions of our university. Indeed, over the last year or so, more stories have appeared in the University’s premier communication vehicle, At Guelph, about the Department’s research programs than any other unit in the College of Arts. These stories show our researchers to be very productive and engaged with other areas of the campus community (for example the Ontario Veterinary College) while providing answers to questions the public seeks and will understand. At Guelph is a weekly publication that covers new and publicly relevant events and research at the University:
Post-Doc Relays History of Toronto’s Don River, November 14, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/11/post-doc-relays-history-of-toronto%E2%80%99s-don-river/
OVC Memorabilia Shows Evolution of Veterinary Profession, September 15, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/09/ovc-memorabilia-shows-evolution-of-veterinary-profession/
Guelph Students Lead Tours at Vimy Ridge, July 25, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/07/guelph-students-lead-tours-at-vimy-ridge/
New Book Sheds Light on the Supernatural, August 17, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/08/new-book-sheds-light-on-the-supernatural/
Canada Day Celebration Frames Canadian Identity, June 29, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/06/canada-day-celebration-frames-the-canadian-identity/
New Research Explores Masculinity Among Indigenous Men, June 17, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/06/new-research-explores-masculinity-among-indigenous-men/
PhD Research Explores the Death Penalty in Canada, June 13, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/06/phd-research-explores-the-death-penalty-in-canada-2/
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Historian Explores the Dark Side of Coffee, April 27, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/04/historian-explores-the-dark-side-of-coffee/
Photography Shapes Our Image of Rural Life in Ontario, April 18, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/04/photography-shapes-our-image-of-rural-life-in-ontario/
PhD Student Explores Back-to-the-Land Movement, March 29, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/03/phd-student-explores-back-to-the-land-movement/
Historian Looks at the Role of Animals in Entertainment, March 8, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/03/historian-looks-at-the-role-of-animals-in-entertainment/
Historian Says Livestock Breeding is Both ‘Art’ and ‘Science’, February 28, 2011 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/02/historian-says-livestock-breeding-is-both-‘art’-and-‘science’/
Researcher Studies History of NHL, December 15, 2010 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2010/12/researcher-studies-history-of-nhl/
Fluoride Debate Continues: History Prof Looks at Water, December 1, 2010 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2010/12/the-fluoride-debate-continues/
Why We Worry About What We Eat, October 7, 2010 http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2010/10/why-we-worry-about-what-we-eat/
By any measure, and certainly relative to the other units of the College of Arts, and the College of Arts itself, this is a remarkable profusion of communication of Departmental activity to the wider community.
As part of this Self-Study, we asked the At Guelph staff to explain the apparent attraction of Guelph History research to their readership. Here’s what Lori Bona Hunt, Editor, noted about our work:
The History Department is a great source for stories because there is a good combination of interesting people who are studying interesting subjects. And history is universally appealing; people are always interested in hearing about the past and how it connects us to and affects us in the present.
History is also a subject that everyone can understand, whether you are a
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scientist or engineer or philosopher or artist. This makes writing stories about things going on in your department of interest to a wide audience.
Also, historians provide commentary on things happening now, for example, Matthew Hayday’s research on bilingualism and Andrew Ross’s work on history of the NHL. These are things “in the news” so such research makes for great feature stories.
Ms Bona Hunt, representing the University’s communications hub, conveys crucial understanding about the role of History at Guelph: Historians are engaged in current concerns; historians have ways of communicating fluently and comprehensibly to a larger public, and Guelph Historians are interesting in the ways they go about it. History speaks directly to a larger public, and we engage the strategic research, and teaching themes of our University.
The History Department additionally produces its own communication about its activity in research and engagement. Numerous examples can be viewed on the Departmental Website, but representative recent issues of the Newsletter of the Department are linked below, and we encourage IQAP report readers to take a look at this colourful and informative document:
Winter 2011 http://www.uoguelph.ca/history/sites/uoguelph.ca.history/files/Dept.Hist_.News_.Winter.2011.reduced.pdf
Fall 2010 http://www.uoguelph.ca/history/sites/uoguelph.ca.history/files/Dept.Hist_.News_.Fall_.10.small_.pdf
D Publication Summary for 2008-2011
The Department Newsletter offers a quick survey of recent publications and presentations from across the Department that reveals the range of contributions to scholarship from Guelph History. Despite the current decline in faculty numbers, research output has been increasing recently, in part as a result of younger faculty hitting middle-career stages. Since the Fall of 2008 (arbitrarily the start date of the current chair), faculty have reported the publication of thirty-one articles in refereed journals and edited collections, as well as over 200 public talks, conference
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presentations, and invited lectures. This is a remarkable output over three years by any measure and speaks to the Department's commitment to the model of the teacher- researcher. An exhaustive report would run to pages, and would reproduce information available in members' enclosed CVs. By way of a sample of research output, the following is a list of monographs, textbooks, and edited volumes produced by faculty members since 2008:
Susan Nance, Elephants, Agency and Power in the American Circus, 1795- 1907 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming 2012)
Andrew Ross and Andrew D. Smith, Canada’s Entrepreneurs: From the Fur Trade to the 1929 Crash, Selections from the DCB (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012)
Norman Smith, ed., Beyond Suffering: Recounting War in Modern China (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011)
Robert L. Davison, The Challenges of Command: The Royal Navy’s Executive Branch Officers, 1880-1919 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011).
Jodi A. Campbell, Elizabeth Ewan, and Heather Parker, eds., The Shaping of Scottish Identities: Family, Nation, and the Worlds Beyond (Guelph: Centre for Scottish Studies, 2011)
Tanja Bueltmann, Andrew Hinson, and Graeme Morton, eds., Ties of Bluid, Kin and Countrie: Scottish Associational Culture in the Diaspora (Guelph: Centre for Scottish Studies, 2009)
Sophie Lachapelle, Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metapsychics in France, 1853-1931 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011)
Karen Racine and Beatriz Mamigonian, eds., The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, 1500-1850 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
Alan Gordon, The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the Uses of Jacques Cartier (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010); short-listed for the 2010 Canada Prize for the top SSHRC-subvention book in the social sciences
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Richard Reid, ed., Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010)
Audrey-Beth Fitch, The Search for Salvation: Lay Faith in Scotland, 1480-1560, ed., Elizabeth Ewan (Edinburgh: Birlinn Press, 2009)
Linda Mahood, Feminism and Voluntary Action: Eglantyne Jebb and Save the Children, 1876‐ 1928 (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2009)
Susan Nance, How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790‐ 1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009)
Norman Smith, Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers and the Japanese Occupation (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008); winner of the 2008 Book Prize from the Canadian Women's Studies Association/l'association canadienne des études sur les femmes
Catharine Wilson, Tenants in Time: Family Strategies, Land, and Liberalism in Upper Canada, 1799‐ 1871 (Montreal; Ithaca: McGill‐ Queens University Press, 2009); winner of the 2008 Floyd S. Chalmers Award in Ontario History awarded by the Champlain Society, the Canadian Historical Association’s Clio Award for Regional History, and the Ontario Historical Society’s J. J. Talman Award
Femi Kolapo, ed., Immigrant Academics and Cultural Challenges in a Global Environment (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2009)
Susan Armstrong-Reid and David Murray, Armies of Peace: Canada and the UNNRA Years (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008)
Marie Hammond-Callaghan and Matthew Hayday, eds., Mobilizations, Protests and Engagements: Canadian Perspectives on Social Movements (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2008)
Michael Behiels and Matthew Hayday, eds. Contemporary Quebec: Selected Readings and Commentaries. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011.
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E Faculty Research in Progress: New Projects
Research development in History is often a long term or multi-year prospect since projects require advance preparation to locate repositories of suitable historical source evidence before the research itself can be carried out. Faculty in the History Department are committed to developing projects together as part of long-term research programs exploring broad thematic historical patterns and questions that can help us understand the present and predict the future. As a result, History department members are normally working on a number of projects at various stages of development. A sampling of our research in progress:
Kevin James: I am working on a new SSHRC application to fund a program of research investigating the social and cultural history of the Irish hotel. It employs an extensive source base, and uses five hotel visitors’ books – from establishments in Belfast and rural Cos. Donegal, Galway, and Wicklow – as windows onto social, cultural and spatial practices from 1840, when the first extant book begins (just a few years before the Great Famine) to 1919 (the end of the Great War).
Also, I have consulted recently on three shows (beyond 'Ancestors', which wrapped in 2009): 'What's in a Name?' (History TV 2011); 'Scots who Found the Modern World (BBC Scotland 2011), and 'Grand Tours of Scotland (BBC Scotland 2011 and a new series in 2012).
Matthew Hayday: My current research project is an examination of the promotion of bilingualism in English speaking Canada, and an analysis of the various ways that Canadians responded to these efforts or participated in political and social action related to these promotional efforts. I'm particularly focussing on the efforts by interest groups (Canadian Parents for French, the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada) and quasi-state actors (such as the Commissioner of Official Languages), in these debates and promotional campaigns. I've also thus far paid particular attention to some of the more unconventional ways of addressing this issue, such as the development of language-based board games, in addition to more traditional school classroom-based efforts.
Beyond this major research project, I've also taken on the role of Associate
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Editor of the Journal of Canadian Studies, and part of my early work in this role is co-directing a special issue on queer issues in Canada, in connection with the 40th anniversary of the first gay rights demonstrations on Parliament Hill. I've also been working with Oxford University Press as a series editor for a new Canadian history series aimed at upper-year courses in Canadian history.
Karen Racine: Karen Racine is part of the editorial team of a fifteen-year, twenty-volume scholarly edition of the Diary and Reminiscences of Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) under contract to Oxford University Press and set to appear in both print and digital editions. She has primary section responsibility for Spain and Italy.
Ted Smith: My current project began as a textbook project to fill a need for my Hist2260DE course as there are no textbooks that cover the historical relationship between religion and society in the Atlantic world. Over the past two years, I decided it must be a fully online, multimedia book in line with my philosophy of online teaching that everything offered in that context should be available online. Multimedia because religion cannot be studied properly without a sense of both the visual, and the auditory aspect as it expresses and relates to the social and theological for followers and opponents at all levels. I am taking as my model the series of multimedia books published by Columbia University Press and the American Historical Association: http://www.gutenberg-e.org/
Catharine Wilson: My SSHRC-funded project on barn raising bees and other forms of reciprocal labour benefits our understanding of neighbourhood economies and social sustainability in Ontario’s past. Six undergraduates and four doctoral students have worked on this project. I continue to coordinate the Rural History Roundtable a speakers’ series entering its 10th year in 2012, and I am also updating the Rural History Website at www.uoguelph.ca/ruralhistory/.
.
Kris Inwood: 1. I began last summer to link Canadians who self-identify as aboriginal or mixed race in 1901 census to WWI personnel records. One paper partly drafted, others coming.
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2. I am now planning a paper that links English-born in Australian WWI records to English census and Tasmanian-born in Australian WWI to Tasmanian birth and marriage records, and then compares. 3. I’ve also begun a new paper re-considering influence of ocean transport costs and US and Canadian tariffs on US and Canadian industry 4. My new SSHRC Partnership application is being drafted for NOI submission in January.
Alan Gordon: My current projects include a history of Canadian living history museums, which is projected as a book as well as a study of urban heritage tourism in the 19th century. The first result from this project is a chapter of an edited collection being prepared for the University of Toronto Press (copyedit stage November 2011). For my next project, I am exploring a comparative history of archaeology with a focus on the 19th century search for lost civilizations.
Femi Kolapo: I am exploring the nature of the relationship between the acclaimed Pentecostal revolution of Nigeria and political and civic participation among Pentecostal adherents in Nigeria and, after these Pentecostal Nigerians immigrate, in Canada. To what extent is the current claim among some scholars of the phenomenon that it packs powerful political force in Nigeria valid; and in what ways does the positive modernist, democratizing and progressive tendencies associated with Nigerian Pentecostal revolution carried over into the diaspora when Nigerian Pentecostals migrate into places like Canada. How does the Pentecostal identity built in Nigeria, which includes clearly religious modes of thinking, impact the practical lives of the Nigerian immigrants in the city, municipality and in the general political realm of secular Canada?
Susan Nance: My research helps give our Department a foothold in the burgeoning and increasingly important area of the history of human-animal interconnections. That field is a broad one informed by environmental history, the history of science, cultural animal studies, and, in my case, the histories of business and consumption. It connects the classic questions of US history to topical public concerns over global climate change, the acceleration of plant and animal extinction, and the human activities that are producing these phenomena. The main thrust of my research agenda investigates how nineteenth-century commercial entertainment shaped the ways Americans determined their identities in consumer capitalism by engagement with global cultures and the
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natural world.
My most recent book (forthcoming in 2012 from Johns Hopkins University Press), Elephants, Agency and Power in the American Circus, 1795-1907, tracks how, paradoxically, the nineteenth century saw an escalation of violent conflict between people and elephants in the US while audiences came to trust for-profit enterprises like circuses, animal shows and zoos to supply the public with experiences of wild animals, an attitude that marked the advent of the now- global phenomenon of the privatization of nature.
I have won substantial funding awards for my research from institutions including the Friends of the Princeton University and the Stanford University Bill Lane Center for the American West. Most recently, I was awarded a grant of $43,000 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for my current project investigating the nineteenth-century origins of rodeo sports, Born to Buck: Rough Stock and Rodeos since 1800. The project asks how nascent American modernity shaped animal life and, by extension, the most basic historical question of all: what was it to be “human” in such a context?
Elizabeth Ewan
AS well as my ongoing projects, I am carrying out a new SSHRC-funded study on masculinity in medieval and early modern Scotland, examining such issues as honour,violence, education, health, and the famiky. For this project, I am also heading an international collaborative Partnership Development Grant application to SSHRC with colleagues from Scotland and across Canada. I am working on the further development of my website, Women in Scottish History, and co-editing a collection of essays on Childhood in Scotland. I have also consulting on OLN, 'Deals from the Dark Side', and BBC Scotland 'Killers in Scotland'
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8 The Department of History: Priorities for the Integrated Plan and Beyond
The Department is committed to the strategic directions of the University of Guelph: research intensiveness; learner centredness; collaboration; internationalism and open learning. We seek to engage major shared research interests emphasized in our University’s “Better Planet” initiative in the areas of Food, Health, Environment and Community in its various forms. And we are keenly aware of expectations of accountability, outcomes and transparency. Thus ten initiatives we hope to undertake in the undergraduate program, or have already begun, in support of this mission we have presented to the University’s Integrated Plan 2012-2017:
Deepen the vertical integration of our research expertise by linking faculty, post-docs, graduate students and senior undergraduates in strategic research areas. As modeled by the highly successful Rural History Round-Table, this structure brings together students from every level with faculty from this University and beyond to share research in Rural History, which is a particular and unique strength of the Department. Likewise, the Scottish Studies program makes our Department globally distinct and respected and is known for book and journal publications, its bi-yearly colloquia, and its active engagement with students and the Scottish diaspora community in Canada. The “People in Motion” project also provides such gathering of undergraduates, graduates, post- docs and faculty in its summer-time seminar series in the production of vital research findings. We also look forward to seeing our new Middle Eastern Scholars Society (MESS) flourish similarly.
Continue to build opportunity for our students to participate in scholarly research. Included in this initiative is the commitment to build training into SSHRC grant applications and large-scale collaborative research grant applications.
Continue to aid our faculty and students in contributing their research findings and insight into contemporary events to other parts of the University of Guelph community. Our focus on the research priorities in the Better Planet Report and our natural ties with the founding colleges of this University give us and excellent platform for further work. In this connection, we are pressing for a larger allocation (given demonstrated student research involvement) of University Research Assistantships.
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Build on our solid record of community engagement with various community Historical societies, Third Age Learners, local high schools, the Guelph Civic Museum, the Guelph Wellington Continuing Educations Arts and Archeology speakers series, wider media contributions, and more. Thus we will continue to fulfill the University mandate to uplift, enlighten, share and build with the community, while further sharpening our public image. For instance, one of our specific initiatives will have us time a major public lecture to coincide—or indeed to be part of—the University’s “College Royal” Open House, held mid-March every year.
Protect and cultivate the Department’s reputation as an attractive and supportive base for post-doctoral research by continuing to involve post-docs in collaborative research, public and scholarly fora, and teaching. Post-docs help us to build research, training and communication in the University’s key strategic areas, and indeed no unit in the College of Arts has as substantial a record in this work as the Department of History. We know that our success in building a place for post-docs helps the Department and College visibly contribute to the emerging priorities (“Better Planet” project, for example) of our University.
Develop and consolidate systems of outcome assessment that link student outputs across courses and levels of the History major. We can achieve this by continuing to articulate learning expectations for each and every diagnostic or evaluative element of our courses, and continue to excel at the provision of detailed written comments in response to student writing.
Expand the ways we boost the writing performance of our students. We can do this by continuing to stress the writing and communications aspects present in every one of our courses, and by extending to our students opportunities to focus on writing. Representative of this approach is the Graduate Student-led “History Essay Workshop,” which in Fall 2011 helped thirty-five History students to build their research presentation capacity.
Enrich the cohort experience of History Majors through better communication, and closer coordination with the Undergraduate History Society. In this connection, develop opportunities to model the range of opportunities and vocations for which the History B.A. provides a foundation. A specific initiative for 2012-13 will be the inaugural “Gateway Seminar”, for first and second year History Majors. This seminar, to be held two or three times in each of Fall and Winter semesters, will set out following goals for History majors:
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1. be acquainted with members of the History department faculty, and know a little about their research and teaching. 2. understand how the history major is organized, and how you will be evaluated in history classes. 3. be able to work more effectively with your advisor in independent research or reading course. 4. have a clearer idea of the career paths history majors pursue. 5. understand how to find, evaluate and use archival, primary and secondary sources in print and online versions. 6. gain knowledge of critical analysis and written communication in the field of history.
Create senior year seminar course or courses with explicit emphasis on project delivery. Right now, HIST*4620 Seminar in Canadian Rural History exemplifies this outcome, with a widely publicized poster session of student research as the final assignment, which in 2012 will be featured at the University’s College Royal Open House. We will develop a course in Digital History, which would again have as prime activity the presentation of research to a larger audience.
Push for new teaching and research support in the emerging strategic area of Aboriginal/Indigenous Studies. As the University belatedly generates a coordinated approach to Indigenous Studies, it is important that the History program be prominently present. Presently the College of Arts is notably missing in action in that venture, and a combined Canadian/North American/Indigenous History appointment makes sense for us, the students, the College of Arts and the University. We will carry out a scan of all available expertise in indigenous topics (Latin America; North America; Europe; Asia and Africa) across the faculties, and we will aim to mount a multi-presenter seminar to address this need.
Rethink and innovate the Canadian History field in the undergraduate program in terms of course structure and place in History B.A. Core to ensure it is one of the best in the province, and to support the extensive graduate and postdoctoral work in this area. To this end, we will assertively seek new faculty resources that support this work, namely an appointment in Canadian/North American History.
57 UNIVERSITY g;-GUELPH
COLLEGE OF ARTS Office of the Dean
To: Anthony Clark, Assistant Vice President, Graduate Studies and Program Quality Assurance
From: Ann Wilson, Acting Dean--College of Arts
Subject: Response to Review of Department of History, Undergraduate Program
Date: 22 March 2012
On behalf of the College of Arts, I want to thank formally the assessors for their careful review of the Department of History. As the assessors note, the Department of History continues to provide an excellent program, despite the fiscal constraints facing the College of Arts, the University of Guelph and, indeed, all universities in the province. The Department continues to present curricula, at all levels, which strongly ground students in the current state of the practice of history. As well, there is pedagogical innovation in many areas, including the introduction of the Gateway Seminar in 2012-2013 which offers students pathways through the program and talks by graduates on how the study of history articulates with life after graduation. The Department of History is an excellent program in which the University should take great pride.
Responses to Recommendations
1. That the department review the teaching practices and modes of delivery, and cultivate and support innovation within DE courses.
In teaching in a distance education format, it is crucial for the instructor to be aware that the digital classroom has very different dynamics from the face-to-face classroom. It is important for the College and the units within it to ensure that instructors, particularly session al instructors, who are new to teaching distance education courses are directed to the appropriate resources (such as the Centre for Open Learning and Educational Support.)
2. The department, or the university, provide a clear explanation to students of the course selection rules, so that the process is more transparent.
It is unclear what concerns this recommendation seeks to address. Students do have
GUELPH • ONTARIO • CANADA • NIG 2Wl • 519·824-4120 • FAX: 519·837-1315 information on course selection which is posted on Web Advisor. Faculty advisors within the Department, as well as counsellors within the BA Program Office, are available to respond to concerns.
3. The Curriculum Committee continue their review of prerequisites, and that with few exceptions only program level prerequisites remain, and only in exceptional situations.
As the report indicates, this is a matter for the Department to address internally. In upper year courses, particularly 4000-level courses geared towards majors, prerequisites may well be appropriate for what are capstone courses. While allowing access to courses, the challenge is to ensure that students are not met with surprises as they near the end of the degrees, and find that some courses have perquisites .. In my view, the Department of History manages prerequisites appropriately, balancing student needs against students taking upper level courses with appropriate preparation.
4. The department create an e-mail policy that applies to all courses and that encourages both faculty and students to communicate by email only in cases where this is warranted.
Around this recommendation, I worry about the freedom of faculty. Instructors are free to establish a policy around email for their courses, with the caveat that the policy is included in the course outline. The Department may wish to have a discussion of best practices regarding email communication between instructors and faculty.
5. The university's IT services unit survey faculty impressions of the current grade loading software and take steps to implement improvements where necessary.
The College of Arts has a policy that grades will be submitted through Courselink which has a user-friendly grade book. The Centre for Open Learning and Educational Support provides support, several times per week, for instructors who are encountering problems with Courselink, including the grade book function.
6. Further resources in Canadian/North American history.
The College of Arts and University of Guelph are committed to strategic planning which is the appropriate context for these considerations. The Department of History has identified the loss of faculty in Canadian and North American histories in its strategic plan, noting these losses are serious given the strengths of the Department in these areas, particularly in Canadian history. As a result of the losses, the remaining faculty carry heavy loads in terms of teaching and graduate supervisions.
7. The department conduct an annual review of teaching assignments in the three categories of on-campus, Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses and monitor the quality of the Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses. The Department of History retains its commitment to teaching, regardless of the level of the course or its mode of delivery. There is no indication that, within the Department of History, in terms of face-to-face courses, there is a problem. Distance Education courses were addressed through recommendation 1. Courses offered through the University of Guelph-Humber, as per the policies of Senate, have procedures for addressing curricular concerns.
8. The department continue to monitor the student-faculty ratio, that the department and College determine an acceptable maximum student-faculty ratio and that resources be distributed in a manner that this maximum ratio not be exceeded.
The issue of student-faculty ratios is monitored by the College and, indeed, by the University. As the University moves into a phase of intentionally identifying learning objectives for programs, and within programs, discrete courses, the question of student-faculty ratios, appropriately, will figure as a key consideration. In the climate of budgetary constraints, committing to ideal instructor student ratios is difficult.
To: Dr. Anthony Clarke, Assist. V.P. (Graduate Studies & Program Quality Assurance)
From: Peter Goddard, Chair, Department of History
Re: Report from the Internal Sub-Committee Review of the Guelph University Department of History Undergraduate Academic Program (received 27 February 2012).
Date: 12 March 2012
The History Department appreciates the careful and thorough report based on the two-day visit made by IQAP External Assessors, Dr. Françoise Noëlle and Dr. Kevin Kee, with help of the University of Guelph Senate’s IQAP representative Dr. Satzuki Kawano. We particularly value the set of recommendations which our Reviewers generated on the basis of their extensive study of and conversation with History at Guelph. In this response, History will show how these recommendations could be made to work for the Undergraduate Academic Program .
The History Department is pleased that the Reviewers identify a “high quality undergraduate program”, and that our Reviewers draw attention to the many forms of signficant investment and commitment to the inculcation of research and communications skills together with the broader critical perspectives which are central to History education. At same time, the Reviewers perceptively note the strains and stresses in the History program, which already teaches at a significantly higher faculty-student ratio than the College of Arts as a whole, and one which does so at a minimal use of contractual faculty, and with the smallest staff complement. The Reviewers are particularly concerned by most notably the heavy pressure on the core Canadian History teaching functions (at both Undergraduate and Graduate levels), and difficulty the Department confronts in pivoting Canadian history in new directions in an environment of absolutely restrained faculty resources. As described in Report, the Department has responded to the sharp decline in teaching resources by developing a strong suite of Distance Education courses (which comprise 20% of enrolments, including 100% of Summer Semester enrolments ; not, as stated in Report, 20% of course offerings). We have also emphasized the attraction of post-doctoral researchers, who bring leading edge research and fresh approaches to the undergraduate classroom. And we have taken steps to streamline and also integrate our undergraduate offerings, providing both History majors and the large non-History population who take classes with us clear pathways of progress, and clearly demonstrated expectations at every level.
The Reviewers also alert us to the lagging quality standards in the post-secondary Distance Education platform. We are fortunate to have innovative and dynamic instructors in DE situations, but we recognize the need to share their innovations more broadly, and to increasing effective exposure and training in the arts of DE instruction and DE learner engagement.
History response to the nine Recommendations presented in the IQAP reviewers’ report (Recommendations in green):
1. that the department review the teaching practices and modes of delivery, and cultivate and support innovation within DE courses.
The History Department is committed to innovation in Distance Education, with both new courses (for example, new AHSS DE at Guelph Humber, including History of Animals) and complete renovation of older courses (Hist*2260 DE ; Hist*2450 DE, both of which received complete OOL/COLES redevelopment funding). We note the high ratings of some of our DE courses (as well as mediocre ones for others). To share good practices and generate new strategies in DE History courses, we have contracted with Dr. Ted Smith, longtime History instructor and current recipient of the Provost’s Study and Development Fellowship for his work on Humanities education in Distance education, and who has pioneered innovation in DE at both Guelph and at Guelph Humber, to carry out a series of workshops in History teaching and History learning in the Distance Education format; the first of these, for our GH and UG DE instructor pool, will be held in April 2012. COLES personnel have also been included in this initiative.
2. the department, or the university, provide a clear explanation to students of the course selection rules, so that the process is more transparent
The History Department notes some anxiety and sense of unfairness in course selection; our students are aware that there are fewer courses to choose from, and more competition for places at a number of levels. History has taken steps to alleviate concerns by circulating course projections via listserv to History Majors and Minors, in advance of posting at WebAdvisor; we use this technique to publicize new courses, trial offerings, instructor changes, etc.
3. the Curriculum Committee continue their review of prerequisites, and that with few exceptions only program level prerequisites remain, and only in exceptional situations.
The History Department has already moved to eliminate almost all particular course Prerequisites in the Undergraduate program. We continue to want students to take advantage of streamed, staged arrangement of a very restricted number of fields i.e. Middle Eastern History, where the introductory course Hist*2890 Early Islamic World provides critical background perspective to the modern middle eastern history courses at 3xxx and 4xxx levels. History has overwhelmingly moved to “level” as measured by credits, rather than specific course.
4. the department create an e-mail policy that applies to all courses and that encourages both faculty and students to communicate by email only in cases where this is warranted.
Department discussion reveals that it is unlikely that a standardized e-mail policy could meet all classroom situations, and, current practice of clear syllabus statements regarding communication serves well. Specific situations of course can be addressed.
5. the university's IT services unit survey faculty impressions of the current grade loading software and take steps to implement improvements where necessary.
The History Department has identified issues in transition between grade loading systems, but fully understands that adaptation to technology is part of the professional work we do, and suggest only that the University consider adaptation aspects when cycling through different web platforms.
6. further resources in Canadian/North American history.
Following the reduction of Faculty complement (by a third) through accelerated retirements 2008-2010, the Canadian field has experienced increasing tightness in teaching and advising resources. We are not able to move into areas of undeniable importance, such as aboriginal history, given the commitment of Faculty resources to the perennially popular and heavily populated Canadian stream. Appointment in Canadian, with Indigenous/interdisciplinary capacity, would be both strategic, practical, high return and easily explained as part of the University’s larger objectives.
7. the department conduct an annual review of teaching assignments in the three categories of on-campus, Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses and monitor the quality of the Distance Education and Guelph-Humber courses.
We have biennial assessment of teaching by faculty as part of Tenure and Promotion activity. We support active course evaluation and feedback for all instructors, and offer Peer Evalution for all new contract, post-doctoral or mentored PhD instructors. Change in the supervisory functions of the Guelph Humber Vice-Provost (who will take over most personnel decisions in the upcoming academic year, may affect our ability to do this. In terms of DE, we will work with TSS to find ways of supporting DE evaluation/diagnosis mechanism equivalent to the peer- review which we carry out in History classrooms (for sessional, post-doc, mentored phD and new faculty) as means of finding out what is going on with DE classes.
8. the department continue to monitor the student-faculty ratio, that the department and College determine an acceptable maximum student-faculty ratio and that resources be distributed in a manner that this maximum ratio not be exceeded.
In light of modest enrolment decline, the Department has moved to lower seminar caps in the History core (Hist*1010; Hist*2100, Hist*2450 and Hist*2600) as well as in the 4000-level senior seminars in the upcoming academic year. We continue to deliver a writing-intensive, discussion-oriented curriculum despite the evident pressures; we are participants in a College-of- Arts wide discussion on ways to further the liberal arts mission in tightened circumstances, and we think that fairness across units in terms of teaching ratios is elemental to this discussion, and History will remind the College of Arts of its obligation to quality and fairness (to students and faculty alike) of ratio harmonization.
MEMORANDUM FROM THE PROVOST AND VICE-PRESIDENT (ACADEMIC)
To: Anthony Clarke, Assistant VP, Graduate Studies and Program Quality Assurance
From: Maureen Mancuso, Provost and Vice-President (Academic)
Date: April 12, 2012
Subject: Provost’s Response to the Final Report of the IQAP Review of the Department of History ______
I have had an opportunity to review the Final Report of the IQAP Review of the Department of History and am pleased to accept the report.
As the external consultants note in their final report, the Department of History’s self-study document was produced prior to the introduction of the new IQAP process and, hence, did not examine the delivery of their graduate programs. The external consultants highlight the high quality of the undergraduate program offered in the department of History and provide several valuable recommendations. I was pleased to note the thoughtful responses of the Chair of the department of History and the Acting Dean of the College of Arts. In his response to the consultants’ report, Dr. Goddard indicated that the department of History has already made significant efforts to address many of the report’s recommendations including the integration of pedagogical innovation in their online course offerings and their face-to-face courses and their careful attention to course sequencing. Other recommendations will require some longer term planning but I am confident of the department’s motivation and capacity to address these issues.
I would like to thank the faculty, staff and students of the Department of History for their contributions to this internal review process, along with the Chair of the department and the Acting Dean of the College, the internal and external consultants.
I am supportive of the self-study, the consultants’ report, and the Dean’s response moving forward to the Senate Committee on Quality Assurance.
cc: Ann Wilson, Acting Dean, College of Arts Professor Peter Goddard, Chair, Department of History