2014 Portland State University Academic Program Review

2014 Portland State University Academic Program Review

Conflict Resolution Self-Study

Purpose of Program Review at PSU

The program review process at Portland State University (PSU) is designed to provide continuous improvement of academic quality within academic units through self-study and external review. For the purposes of this document, “program review” refers to a department or division’s holistic appraisal over five years of its curricular offerings (certificates, majors, minors, and graduate programs), and where applicable, its centers/institutes. Center and institute review should follow Guidelines for Center/Institute Review at Portland State University. Program review provides academic units the opportunity for reflection and discussion of their programs on a regular cycle, and is explicitly designed to be collaborative in nature, and inclusive of student, faculty, community, and administrative input, as well as external evaluation, as determined by the dean. The overall goal of program review is to assist academic units in:

• articulating their goals and objectives in relation to the University's themes, priorities, and initiatives,
• instituting a regular process of internal and external review of qualitative and quantitative information about program activities,
• demonstrating progress toward achievement of department goals,
• using outcomes for program improvement and goal-setting,
• providing departments with support during transition, and
• providing deans with more thorough and reflective evidence of program progress.

The program review process is accomplished through a recurring schedule of goal setting, data gathering and analysis, and reporting. Through the college’s planning process, the academic department:

• establishes its goals and objectives related to teaching, scholarship and service for its respective programs;
• provides analysis of data received and/or collected to demonstrate progress toward the stated goals and objectives;
• reports on its progress toward meeting its goals and objectives within the unit’s and the University’s mission.

Brief History of Conflict Resolution at PSU

In 1991, a survey of PSU faculty members showed that there was substantial interest in developing an academic program in peace studies. During the 1980s, PSUhadresisted faculty and community efforts to create such an academic program, while other members of the Oregon University System did create such programs, most notably peace studies minors at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. In the summer of 1992, a committee, called Catalyst, was formed that brought together interested faculty and community members. A proposal for a Masters Degree in Conflict Resolution was created in the spring of 1993 within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In the fall of 1996, the first masters degree cohort was welcomed by the cofounding faculty members, Robert Gould PhD and Mary Zinkin PhD, though the masters degree proposal was not finally approved until 1997. An arrangement was made so that the first cohort could use their CR courses towards a Masters Degree in Speech, if the Masters Degree in Conflict Resolution was not approved. When the degree was approved, the Graduate Program in Conflict Resolution moved to the Philosophy Department because its director, Robert Gould, was teaching in that department. In 2002, the Graduate Program in Conflict Resolution moved out of the Philosophy Department to become an independent academic unit. In 2014, an Undergraduate Majorin Conflict Resolution was approved, creating an Undergraduate Program in Conflict Resolution. External reviews were conducted at the start of the graduate program, and most recently in 2009-2010. A summary of the 2009-2010 external review is attached at the end of this document.

Director/Co-Founder Statement:

When I welcomed the first cohort of the Masters Degree Program in Conflict Resolution, fall term, 1996, I also mentioned two key items of interest. First, the degree program had not been approved yet, and if it was not approved, admitted students could use their CR credits towards a Masters Degree in Speech Communication. Second, as the teacher of most of the courses in the CR program, I was also a full-time replacement faculty member in the Philosophy Department at Lewis and Clark College. My cofounder, Mary Zinkin, and I were adjunct faculty members at PSU, with an extensive background as practitioners: Mary as a mediator and trainer, and me as a peace activist, organizer, and high school teacher. The other unusual reality was that, initially, our program had to survive on self-support with no financial support outside of tuition and grants, and there would be no tenure lines.

Over the years, we went off of self-support and added four tenure lines, but only after we had used the self-support model to build our program up to 6.75 FTE (We now have 7.75 FTE). Our graduate program(and now our undergraduate program)are consistent revenue generators. However, our financial success of our program is only part of the story. On one hand, we have been successful by a variety of measures, as the reader will see in this document; on the other hand, we remain a somewhat irregular program, in terms of image, our entrepreneurial history,our lack of being a fully approved department, and our style, which has been perceived as, at times, iconoclastic by those who remainunconvinced that our scholarly work and student competencies are, or should be, central to the Universities mission.

Other surprises over the years include:

• Many more international students that I expected;
• Many long-term relationships with alumni in prominent CR positions and in PhD programs (thank you,Facebook);
• Vastly increasing practicum and internship opportunities locally and around the globe;
• The steep increase in “conflict resolution skills” being added to a wide variety of job announcements;
• There have been fewer students than expected in teaching, counseling, and business degree programs who are taking our courses because of strict credentialing requirements in those fields;
• A lack of support for interdisciplinary studies because of financial pressures on departments;
• A huge increase in the scholarly and professional sophistication in the discipline of peace and conflict studies.

Graduate Program Statistics:

Declared Majors: 2009-2010: 112 2010-2011: 115 2011-2012: 110

2012-2013: 89 2013-2014: 76

SCH Generation: 2009-2010: 5891 2010-2011: 6850 2011-2012: 8979

2012-2013: 8216 2013-2014: 9289

Degrees Granted: 2009-2010: 45 2010-2011: 30 2011-2012: 35

2012-2013: 28 2013-2014: 30 (approximate)

Faculty Load:

Tenure-line faculty: 6 courses per academic year.

Fixed-term faculty: 9 courses per academic year.

Student Mix:

Fall 2009: Average Age: 35.7 Women: 70% Men: 30% Black: 10.2% Asian: 1%

Native: 1%

Fall 2010: Average Age: 33.7 Women: 71% Men:29% Black:5.5% Asian:2.8%

Native: 1% Hispanic/Latino: 5.5% Multiple Ethnic/Race: 1.9%

Fall 2011: Average Age: 34.9 Women: 71% Men:29% Black:5.7% Asian:3.8%

Native: 1.9% Hispanic/Latino: 5.7% Multiple Ethnic/Race: 1.9%

Fall 2012: Average Age: 34.2 Women: 79% Men:21% Black:6.7% Asian:3.3%

Native: 2.2% Hispanic/Latino:4.5% Multiple Ethnic/Race:3.4%

Fall 2013: Average Age: 34.3 Women: 77% Men:23% Black:6.9% Asian:5.5%

Native: 0% Hispanic/Latino: 5.5% Multiple Ethnic/Race:2.8%

Classes with high DFW rates: None

Full-Time FTE Faculty Characteristics:

Fall 2009: Women: 3 Men: 4 White/Non-Hispanic: 7 Other: 0

Professor: 1Associate Professor: 0 Assistant Professor: 4 Senior Instructor: 0 Instructor: 2

Fall 2010: Women: 3 Men: 4 White/Non-Hispanic: 7 Other: 0

Professor: 1Associate Professor: 1 Assistant Professor: 3 Senior Instructor: 0 Instructor: 2

Fall 2011: Women: 4 Men: 4 White/Non-Hispanic:8 Other: 0

Professor: 1 Associate Professor: 1 Assistant Professor: 3 Senior Instructor: 0 Instructor: 3

Fall 2012: Women: 4 Men:3 White/Non-Hispanic: 7 Other: 0

Professor: 1 Associate Professor: 1 Assistant Professor: 3 Senior Instructor: 1 Instructor: 1

Fall 2013: Women: 4 Men: 4 White/Non-Hispanic: 7 Other:1

Professor: 1 Associate Professor: 1 Assistant Professor: 4 Senior Instructor: 2 Instructor: 0

Graduate Assistants: Fall 2009: 3 Fall 2010: 2 Fall 2011: 3

Fall 2012: 3 Fall 2013: 2

Yearly Research Expenditures: Sponsored Projects Administration:

See PSU Foundation account information, further below, for more scholarly research grants received.

FY13 (7/1/12-6/30/13) $529.00
FY14 (7/1/13-6/30/14) $1,430.25

Current Departmental Space Usage: total: 1111 square feet

Administration: 399 square feet

Faculty Offices: 712square feet

PSU Revenue and Cost Attribution Tool (RCAT):A departmental breakdown of the revenue generation that is attributed to the department, the department’s direct costs (yearly Education and General Fund budget) and the department’s attributed indirect costs.

The guidelines are currently under consideration and so may be revised before they are final.

1. RCAT breakdown—this data is problematic, as it is very old and therefore doesn't reflect many of the policy and data changes that have happened in the last year. But, it is all there is.

Revenue attributable to Conflict Resolution:

UG tuition = $818,023

Grad tuition = $717,683

state funds = $475,184

grant indirect cost returns = $10,371

total net revenue = $2,021,259

Direct Expenditures = $937,323

Indirect Expenditures = $401,380

Net = $682,556

2. Proportion of budget from E&G = 100%

3. Ratio of revenues to expenditures (e.g. total expenditures per $1 of revenue) = .66

Centrality to the PSU mission:

Portland State University’s mission is to enhance the intellectual, social, cultural and economic qualities of urban life by providing access throughout the life span to a quality liberal education for undergraduates and an appropriate array of professional and graduate programs especially relevant to metropolitan areas. The University conducts research and community service that support a high quality educational environment and reflect issues important to the region. It actively promotes the development of a network of educational institutions to serve the community. Conflict Resolution was originally developed, and continues, to be central to PSU’s mission, by being especially relevant to our metropolitan area(including employers based in Portland who work throughout the world). Our program arose from community meetings, where it was clear that community groups and organizations needed more refined conflict resolution skills, research, as well as program dispute system design and evaluation. Students from the metropolitan area, in addition to international students with connections to our metropolitan area, have needed the conflict resolution capacity-building and professional competencies that are the core of our education. Student practica, professional projects, and theses are geared to provide community, as well as scholarly, assets.

Engagement is PSU's academic leadership position, the integrating principle for the institution's teaching, scholarship and service activities. Supporting the leadership position are three academic priorities, below. Conflict Resolution is committed to enhancing PSU’s academic leadership position in the following ways.

1. Improve student success through engaged learning experiences. Both our current graduate program and our proposed undergraduate program provide a high degree of engaged learning experiences. CR requires 300 hour practica, as well as professional projects that engage community partners, and provide assets to community organizations. Even student theses often address community needs and engage members of the Portland metropolitan community.
2. Expand innovative scholarship/creative activities that address regional issues and have global significance. Conflict Resolution provides peace system capabilities, as well as conflict resolution interventions. CR is committed to the transformation of conflict into collaboration on an interpersonal level, as well as facilitating institutional adaptation towards evidence-based structures, internal and external conflict management system design, and cultures of peace.
3. Enhance educational opportunity in the Portland Metropolitan Region. Conflict Resolution partners with Metropolitan community colleges, as well as other colleges and universities throughout the state and region. We host the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium that is dedicated to increasing CR curriculum throughout the region, as well as promoting scholarship and research collaboration.

The three priorities provide the framework for integrating the traditional activities of instruction and scholarship. An original fourth priority, to advance selected programs that establish our leadership, has subsequently been identified as a goal to advance the institution and the three priorities through investments in selected programs. The goals are to:

1. Improve student success by increasing the rate of completion for undergraduate students (in support of the first priority listed above—student success). As we plan to begin a Conflict Resolution Major, we are committing ourselves to the highest rate of degree completion by maximizing advising and regular contact with majors through office visits, activities, and online engagement.
2. Identify specific and measurable undergraduate learning objectives integrated across majors and general education that demonstrate the value of students' learning experiences, especially including the impact of engagement (in support of the first priority listed above—student success).
3. Implement a process for advancing/nurturing high quality academic and scholarship programs that demonstrate Portland State's leadership in engagement (in support of all the priorities listed).
4. Develop and support pathway programs to increase participation in higher education for Portland's diverse population (in support of the third priority listed above—educational opportunity).

How does your program/department advance the University’s mission, themes, and priorities? Conflict Resolution’s contribution to the advancement of University mission, themes, and priorities is listed above. CR’s mission is listed below:

The primary mission of Portland State University’s Program in Conflict Resolution is to provide the highest quality education for undergraduate and graduate students seeking the latest and most comprehensive methods, practices, theories, and insights concerning peace processes and conflict resolution techniques. Our secondary mission is to help our students achieve and maintain professional careers in peace advocacy and conflict resolution practice. In pursuing these two missions, we see ourselves promoting peace and conflict resolution in a wide variety of settings, both locally and throughout the world. All of our faculty are themselves professional peace advocates and/or conflict resolution practitioners. In this way, we stay intimately linked to the working world of peace activism and conflict resolution.

Clearly articulate the goals and objectives of your program/department.[CT1][RG2]

Goal 1: Strengthen Masters Degree Program:Expected Outcomes

• Premier internship/practicum programs, locally, regionally, and internationally;
• Fully functional on-campus Conflict Resolution Resource Center, as a clinical opportunity for graduate students;

• Updated graduate advising plan, including the creation of a self-advising web page;

• Graduate Assistant support for one quarter of our international students;
• 90% alumni job placement;
• Double tenure-lines so that all of the core faculty are on tenure tracks;[CT3][RG4]
• Double support staff from one to two;
• Move the Director to a faculty office, and turn the Director’s office into a dedicated conference room for faculty, students, and community partners;
• Support these objectives by increased Student Credit Hours and outside grants.[CT5][RG6]

Goal2:Increase Funded Research

• We plan to increase Faculty external-grant funding/expenditures to $30,000 in FY 2015 and $40,000 by FY 2016.[CT7][RG8]

Goal3: Expand Community and Global Engagement

• Increase community partnerships;[CT9][RG10]

• Increase student/faculty diversity;
• Increase global collaborations;
• Increase the number of online courses;[CT11]
• [RG12][CC13]Increase support for affiliated nonprofit organizations: Oregon Peace Institute, Northwest Institute for Conflict Resolution, Newhall Nonviolence Institute, Peace and Conflict Resolution Consortium;
• Increase support for student nonprofit organizations: Students United for Nonviolence, Conflict Resolution Resource Center

Goal 4: Minor degree program

• We have a proposal completed and submitted for a minor in Conflict Resolution[CC14].[RG15]

Goal 5: Online war prevention courses for Rotarians

• We are currently beta-testing a course for Rotarians.

Goal 6: Strengthen our student community

• This academic year, we have been strengthening our student community by holding three 2-hour open dialogue sessions between students and faculty.[CT16][RG17]

Goal7:Possible Future Initiatives[CT18][RG19]

• Hybrid online distance learning master’s degree program;
• Mostly online undergraduate minor and major;
• Submit proposal for a graduate certificate in leadership;
• Create a diversity emphasis area with a CR diversity trainer’s certificate;
• Speed up completion of program by reducing the credit hours from 63 to 54, [CT20][RG21]and continuing to be professional project-intensive;

• Web-newsletter/blog created and circulated to students and alumni;

• Summer institutes and collaborative conferencing;
• Increase completion rate;

• Consider other associated certificate programs;

• Consider a small doctorate program, perhaps a Conflict Resolution Doctorate (CRD);
• Consider other online distance learning programming for community members;
• More tenure-track and fixed-term faculty members;
• Improved department offices and conference space;
• More international CR and humanitarian connections:
• This website, created by one of our alumni, is a template for a micro-humanitarian network:
• Contribute to a process toward accreditation in CR;
• Assistantships for more/all graduate students.

Efficiently identify strengths and weaknesses of your program/department.

Strengths:

• One of the largest CR programs in the U.S.;

• Diverse expertise in faculty members and courses;
• Strong international student base;
• Empowering and educating predominately (approx. 75 percent) women into professional and academic advancement;
• Faculty members have an internationalreputation, with publishing achievements, as well as international academic association leadership positions;
• Balance of international and domestic CR emphases;
• Transformative and paradigm-shifting approach to CR;
• Educating for transformation toward effective civil culture, and away from polarizing and dysfunctional social, political, and economic incivility;
• Urban setting in a progressive community
• Strong interdisciplinary faculty connections
• Faculty is widely published in the field
• We are affiliated with four peace and conflict resolution institutes
• Oregon Peace Institute
• Northwest Institute for Conflict Resolution
• Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium
• Newhall Nonviolence Institute
• Students produce important professional projects and award-winning theses.
• We have numerous community partnerships that benefit students and faculty members.
• Faculty/student collaborative research projects.

Weaknesses:

• Due to increasingly limited state funding (now at 13% of PSU’s budget), we have limited internal revenue streams to draw upon.

• Budget reductions have undermined PSU commitment to interdisciplinary workbecause the current budget model focuses on individual department profitability. CR is a discipline that benefits from interdisciplinary collaboration;however such cooperative educational approaches have been obstructed by the current budget model.

Quality of Instruction and Curriculum