Program Review Presentation April 30th, 2015 Sociology Program Review Presentation April 30th, 2015

Program Description Sociology is the study of human behavior and society in all its manifestations. Its aim is to discover the process and structure of human interaction, to identify the main forces that sustain or weaken social groups, and to determine the conditions that transform social life. Sociology, like any science, is a disciplined, intellectual quest for knowledge about the fundamental nature of things. In the Liberal Arts tradition, Sociology demands a breadth and depth of theoretical knowledge. Our Sociology Department challenges our students to use their critical thinking skills as engaged citizens. We support the development of academic skills and an appreciation of diversity. Our discipline demands that one is committed to those learning outcomes measurable by SLOs as well as the immeasurable outcomes that are integrated into lifelong, transformative learning. We have three full-time faculty We offer the Sociology AAT Degree Brief Description of your program. Who are you? One Slide, 2 minutes

Benchmarks How do we know the program is successful? AAT Degree established 2012 Sustaining student count and productivity Breadth of course offerings on campus and at outreach centers Diversity in faculty strengths Diversity in student population Collaboration with other departments and programs College citizenship

Program--Strengths Breadth of courses offered—micro and macro sociology, times offered, late start and short-term classes, different locations, and face-to-face, hybrid, and online formats. Consistency in departmental course enrollment numbers in the face of declining collegewide enrollments. Diversity of our students—60% of the unduplicated counts are students of color, 40% are African American and Latino. Students of color remain a higher percentage of sociology duplicated and unduplicated counts when compared to all disciplines and most of our BSS disciplines. Opportunity to make a difference in our underserved populations. Sociology faculty collaboration with other programs and departments.

Program -- Strengths

All Disciplines

Sociology

Program -- Challenges Fulfilling the requirements of the Sociology AAT course with a Sociological Research course, taught by a sociologist familiar with qualitative and quantitative methods. None of our full-time faculty have the expertise to teach research methods. It is a highly specialized course that requires an enormous amount of time to prepare and thus is not a course likely to be sustained by a part-time instructor. Without a sociological research methods course, we are not fulfilling the requirements for a sociology degree and our students are missing a critical piece of their degree program. Serving underserved students and increasing the success rates. Growing the program to increase enrollment and productivity. Scheduling the full complement of classes without more fte. Scheduling classes during prime time when sociology has priority scheduling in one classroom.

Planning Implications Hire full time expert in Sociological Research methods. We have been asking and will continue to ask for new full-time faculty position to teach the research methods course. We will continue developing, offering and taking workshops on student equity and student success. This includes collaboration with other college programs and departments. Because Sociology has a higher percentage of students of color than many of the other departments—60% of our unduplicated counts are students of color and 40% are African American and Latino, we are in a unique position to make a difference on the ARC Equity Scorecard. We will continue to collaborate with programs and support services as well as participate in professional development activities that increase our equity literacy and student success.

Planning Implications We will continue to develop courses and programs that target nontraditional students to grow our population base. We are investigating a certificate program and developing several courses. We will continue to request additional fte in order to offer a full complement of our sociology courses without having to slash our “bread and butter” Intro Courses. We will continue to request priority scheduling for more than one classroom in order to be able to offer a variety of courses in time slots that are in demand.