Program Review for

Sociology

2003-2004 Recommendations

1) Strengths:

a) Well-qualified, dedicated faculty members who remains current with knowledge and skills. The program will soon conduct a search to add a new sociologist as it builds on the existing strengths of the faculty. The program more than meets the SACS requirement for number of faculty necessary in a graduate program.

b) The Sociology Program’s well-thought-out core and two tracks for specialization within the program provide both the focused approach necessary for a program with limited resources and the general foundations upon which to build in the future. The department faculty’s strengths in Gerontology/Health and Criminology are being well exploited.

c) The program has had the benefit of enthusiastic leadership from the program’s graduate coordinators.

d) Recent enrollment increases suggest the beginning of a trend towards growth within the program. The program has met the THECB’s standard for a viable graduate program at the master’s level with 9 Master’s degrees awarded during the past 3 years.

2) Weaknesses:

a) The graduate program is taxed somewhat by the demands of the undergraduate criminology program. This growing program (a good thing) has placed pressure on the department’s faculty in terms of teaching, advisement, and recruitment which distract efforts which would otherwise lead to the expansion of the graduate program. The Department of Psychology and Sociology, Dr. Puckett has informed me is in the process of hiring an additional sociologist to help spread the load within the department.

b) Though meeting the standard for a viable graduate program, relatively low student enrollments hamper the department’s potential, according to the Department Chair, making it difficult for classes to consistently make. Graduate student numbers have been historically low, in part because the undergraduate degree in criminology, social work, and sociology have directed greater numbers of students into the workforce and fewer of these students than liked have determined to return to take graduate training.

c) Faculty list as the primary impediment to continued growth as the “extremely limited resources” directed to the program, making difficult the acquisition of release time for research, purchasing necessary computer hardware and software, travel for professional presentations and development, attracting quality graduate students through assistantships and scholarships, etc. In short, the same chronic shortage of funding which plagues graduate programs across campus adversely affects the sociology program’s growth.

3) Recommendations:

a) The hiring of an additional faculty member will improve the quality and quantity of the program’s offerings. The hiring process is already underway.

b) Develop an integrated plan for recruiting which reaches more effectively beyond the existing undergraduate student population, but which also attracts recent graduates from the undergraduate program for continued professional development.

c) A successful recruitment effort will require greater funding, funding graduate assistantships and fellowships, but also an increased budget for recruitment materials, visits, etc. These budgeting demands will be made through the usual IEP reporting process.

d) Funding for research release time, research travel and materials, and travel for presentations must be increased. These budgeting demands will be made through the usual IEP reporting process.

Program Recommendation: Program recommended for continuation.

Dean’s Comments:

Develop and implement a recruitment program that would set annual recruitment quotas sufficient to insure an annual graduate graduation rate of at least three students per year.

Outcome/ Assessment Report

March 3, 2005

Dean’s Comments:

1. A new full-time tenure-track sociology faculty member, Dr. Chiung-Fang Chang, was hired in the Fall of 2004. She helps to offset the reduction of Dr. Trudy Anderson’s teaching load to one-quarter time (due to assignment as Assistant Dean) and Dr. Jieming Chen’s teaching load to half-time (due to RIMI grant research appointment). Additionally, a resource request has been made to hire an additional criminology faculty member to help reduce the undergraduate load on Dr. Vowell and Dr. Domino, in order to enable them to devote more time to the sociology graduate program.

2. The enrollment in the sociology graduate program actually dropped from seventeen students enrolled in sociology graduate courses in the Spring of 2004 to twelve students enrolled in sociology graduate courses in Spring 2005. However, in response to a call for an integrated graduate student recruiting plan, and in order to capitalize on increasing student interest in criminology, a criminology track and a health sociology track were added to the sociology graduate program, and a criminologist, Dr. Vowell, was made graduate coordinator of sociology. According to Dr. Vowell, these changes and faculty recruiting efforts have started to generate an increasing number of student inquiries and commitments to attend the graduate sociology program at TAMUK.

3. There are only two assistantships in the department, paid through the RIMI grant. There have been no resource requests for graduate assistantships and fellowships as was envisioned in program review recommendation 3(c) above. A change in graduate coordinator from Dr. Anderson to Dr. Vowell hampered communication and hampered continuity of assessment planning. Resource requests for additional graduate assistantships should be made in the next assessment cycle. Recruiting costs can be handled through current Dean Hy’s recruiting budget with assistance from departmental operating budgets. Thanks in part to recent HEAF allocations, adequate computer resources now exist in the department.

4. There has been an increase in the amount of funding for faculty travel. The department started pledging $250 to each full-time faculty member to help with travel expenses. Also, the Dean’s office and President’s office have begun providing larger amounts for all faculty travel. It is hoped that release time for research will be rotated among departmental faculty who have earned it in terms of scholarship.