Department of Political Science College of Liberal and Creative Arts Seventh Cycle Program Review – Self Study Report May 24, 2018 Revised July 26, 2018 Submitted by Dr. Nicole Watts (Chair) and Dr. Katherine Gordy on behalf of the Department of Political Science Faculty The enclosed self-study report was submitted for external review on and sent to reviewers on . July 26, 2018 October 9, 2019 Self-Study for Seventh Cycle Review Department of Political Science College of Liberal and Creative Arts, San Francisco State University July 24, 2018 Compiled by Katherine Gordy and Nicole Watts (Chair) TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION I: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................... 3 SECTION II: OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAM ............................................................................... 4 SECTION III: PROGRAM INDICATORS ....................................................................................... 15 3.1 Program Planning ................................................................................................................ 15 3.2 Student Learning and Achievement .............................................................................. 17 3.3 The Curriculum ..................................................................................................................... 29 3.3.1 Undergraduate ................................................................................................................................. 29 3.3.2 Graduate Program .......................................................................................................................... 47 3.4. Faculty .................................................................................................................................... 52 3.5 Resources ............................................................................................................................... 59 SECTION IV: CONCLUSIONS, PLANS AND GOALS ................................................................... 65 Appendix ........................................................................................................................................... 67 1 Table ....................................................................................................................................... p # Table 1: # of Undergraduate PLSI Majors* Fall semester 2011-2017 ...................................... 17 Table 2: Average Attempted Units ............................................................................................ 18 Table 3: # of Undergraduate PLSI Majors, Av. Time to Degree, Units Earned, Average GPA 2011-2016 .................................................................................................................................. 19 Table 4: PLSI Department Course Enrollment, 2016-2018 ....................................................... 20 Table 5 : Undergraduate Retention Rates (first time, full time freshman) ................................ 25 Table 6: Undergraduate Retention Rates (Transfers) ................................................................ 25 Table 7: Undergraduate Graduation Rates (first time, full time freshman) ............................... 26 Table 8: Undergraduate Graduation Rates (Transfers) .............................................................. 26 Table 9: SFSU GE Requirements – Political Science Courses .................................................. 29 Flowchart of the Requirements of the Major ............................................................................. 32 Table 10: Service Courses ......................................................................................................... 33 Table 11: Frequency of Required Course Offerings, including GWAR ................................... 34 Table 12: Bottleneck Courses and Strategy ............................................................................... 36 Table 13: High-Failure-Rate Classes (% of D, F, and WU >= 15%) ........................................ 36 Table 16: Department Course Articulation Agreements, 2017 ................................................. 43 Table(s) 17: Transfer Model Curricula (TMC) for Political Science ........................................ 44 Table 18: Faculty Service Activities 2011-2018 ....................................................................... 53 2 SECTION I: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Department of Political Science at San Francisco State University provides its graduate and undergraduate students with a broad range of courses in American politics, comparative politics, political theory and public law. These courses represent diverse themes and methodological approaches as well as new trends within the discipline, including innovative quantitative methods and courses in contentious politics and comparative political theory. Our faculty also have impressive scholarly publishing records, contributing to disciplinary debates and accumulated knowledge with monographs and journal articles. They also play important roles in the larger community, providing expert insights in television, radio and print media. The department faces three main challenges. First, at the undergraduate level, where our number of majors has risen sharply, we find it difficult to meet student demand for service courses and for required courses in the major, especially high-demand core and GWAR classes, and breadth courses in subfields such as comparative politics. This has been alleviated somewhat with a new hire in American politics and by hiring lecturers, but new TT hires are needed. Second, at the graduate level, we are having trouble recruiting students capable of graduate level work. Though measures have been taken to improve the quantity and quality of applicants, the program may need to adopt new delivery formats and options to attract enough qualified students to maintain the viability of the existing program in the current economic climate. Third, our faculty struggle to balance a 3-3 teaching load and advising responsibilities with their research and service activities, and--because of the extremely high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area-- many commute long distances to campus. This means our faculty is stretched very thin and that it is a challenge to foster a scholarly community, provide more regular student advising, and plan new directions for our curriculum. We are very concerned that the discrepancy between salaries and the cost of living will make it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain qualified faculty. 3 SECTION II: OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAM Overview and Defining Characteristics of the Program The Department of Political Science at SFSU is a mid-sized department within the College of Liberal and Creative Arts. As of fall 2017 we had 727 total students (undergraduate majors, minors and graduate students) in the program, the fifth highest number in a 22-department college. In 2017-2018 we had 16 tenure-track and tenured faculty and another 11 part- or full- time lecturers. We are primarily a brick-and-mortar program but now also offer a number of fully online courses. Our faculty typically teach a 3-3 course load. The department was formally established in the mid-1960s within the new School of Behavioral and Social Sciences (later the College of BSS). Prior to that time, it was a concentration in the Social Science Division. In 2012, following the restructuring of the University’s colleges and the disbanding of BSS, we became part of the College of Liberal and Creative Arts. The department offers an undergraduate BA in political science, an MA in political science, and a minor in political science. Along with methods courses, it offers undergraduate courses in four main subfields: American politics, comparative politics, political theory, and public law, and in three main subfields at the graduate level: American, comparative, and theory. The Political Science Department is narrower than many similar departments across the country for two main reasons. First, SFSU offers a separate BA program in Urban Studies and Planning and separate Masters in Public Administration. These are areas that are often included as part of political science departments at other universities. Since the college reorganization of 2012, these programs--with which political science formerly worked closely--are now housed in the College of Health and Social Sciences. While there is still some effort to share courses, coordinate class schedules, and at collaboration, this recent institutional divide has made it much more challenging to work together. Second, the subfield of international relations at SFSU is taught in a separate Department of International Relations rather than, as at most universities, as one of a half dozen subfields within a single political science program. Though this departmental divide is unusual, over time the two departments have developed their own distinctive characteristics. Whereas the Political Science Department closely reflects traditional disciplinary concerns and methods, the IR Department has an interdisciplinary faculty and curriculum. The two departments' relationship was originally combative but has steadily improved, and today it is collaborative and mutually supportive. Several attempts to merge the two programs have failed; calls to do so came from higher up in the administration and not from either of the two departments. The IR department is quite unique and