IIS-1
Departmental/Program Self-Study cover sheet
Date: January 25, 2009
Department or program: Integrated International Studies
Coordinator of self-study: Michael A. Schneider
Participants in the self-study (list all who were part of the self-study process):
M. Schneider, R. Seibert, IIS co-chairs
R. Andersen, E. Edi, K. Kampwirth, T. Foster, IIS Program Committee
S. Bailey, S. Cohn, N. Eberhardt, J. Helfer, L. Hulett, R. Ragan, S. Schroth, P. Schwartzman, S. Shipplett
List of supporting documents:
Answers to Specific Questions from the Self-Study Coordinator, 11/08
Guide for the Self-Study
WITHIN YOUR DEPARTMENT
1) Look over the last ten years in your department. What were:
a) key markers (critical moments or events, good or bad)
1996 - Major requirements completed and first majors declared. IIS 100 Core Course taught for the first time. Co-Chairs Heidi Tilghman and R. Seibert
1997 - First listing of major in the catalog
2002 - Co-Chairs M. Schneider and R. Seibert; founding of Center for Global Studies (though not directly associated with the IIS major, the Center advances the aims and needs of the IIS major on many fronts)
2006 - First “IIS 240 Japan Term,” the first IIS course other than IIS 100
2007 - First full-time faculty member in IIS (E. Edi); IIS 100 renamed “Introduction to Globalization”
b) significant changes
IIS was new in 1996 and thus spent much of the past ten years in a kind of adolescence. It has had to respond to a variety of external changes while suffering its own growing pains. With its focus on contemporary trends in global society, IIS faces perpetual change in ordinary times. The past decade has witnessed some extraordinary changes in the context for the major, however, compelling the IIS Program Committee to consider fundamental changes to our program. We view these changes in three categories:
(1) Changing global environment: 9-11, the rise of China, the US military undertakings in the Middle East, global climate change, global economic crisis -- it has been a busy decade.
(2) Transformation of popular understanding of IIS’s subject matter: The events above have collectively contributed to a fundamental shift in popular perceptions of the global environment. Ten years ago the term “globalization” was used only by specialists. The Program Committee consciously avoided the terms “globalization” and “Global Studies” in the initial naming and descriptions of the major, because these terms were seen as esoteric and intimidating. Today, students arrive at Knox with a deeper appreciation of the need to study international issues. In that sense, the IIS clientele is changing fundamentally.
(3) Changing context for international studies at Knox: We have noted the following trends as redrawing the landscape of international studies within the institution.
- The “New Knox” - more on that below
- Proliferation of new transnational / globalization courses across the curriculum, in effect, an internationalization of disciplines. Ten years ago, there were no courses with “global” in the title and only 3 or 4 with “international.”
- New interdisciplinary travel programs, which parallel or elaborate on the initial “QuickStart Language” model: e.g. Japan Term, ESL in China.
- New interdisciplinary study programs, which parallel IIS in aims and content: Peace Corp Preparatory Program, Asian Studies major
c) biggest challenges (and how were they met, or not)
We have faced a number of challenges, which we might collectively call “administrative issues.” That is, each of the following issues relates to core problems with allocation of faculty time and responsibilities.
- With no permanent faculty (until recently) and a presumption that program chair is a shared position, IIS lacks a clear locus in faculty hearts and minds. Program chairs and faculty all have departmental obligations elsewhere and all have ancillary program associations of which IIS is one among many.
- The Q-course component (discussed below) places burdens on all faculty that are usually handled in a stopgap way.
- Without a dedicated research methodology course, IIS has relied on History 285, which has generated dissatisfaction among students and faculty.
- QuickStart language opportunities have been irregular, even though QuickStart during the 1990s was central to the genesis of the IIS major.
- Given college resources in languages and area studies, IIS has tended to serve European and Latin American perspectives better than Asian or African ones, despite the fact that the IIS methodology appeals specifically to students with interests in the latter areas.
How these challenges will be met is discussed below under “The Future.”
d) biggest successes
- Graduating majors and demonstrating the viability of the new program has been a clear achievement.
- IIS 100 has been an evolving but consistently successful course with a strong team-teaching or collaborative approach. L. Factor’s teaching modules on maps have been integral to IIS 100. Many other faculty have contributed in other ways.
- New IIS courses are slowly coming into the curriculum.
2) Consider your mission.
a) What are the fundamental goals of your department? (Keep your list under ten items.)
“International studies” is not a traditional discipline and thus can not assume a shared understanding of basic skills among its program faculty, let alone agreement on this set of skills across academia. We define IIS goals in terms of our understanding of the contemporary international setting and the skills needed to thrive within it. The IIS major aims to foster the talents students will need to navigate in the increasingly complex and increasingly integrated global environment. We believe these talents ultimately include the flexibility and adaptability to work within different cultural and linguistic contexts, the ability to appreciate that social outcomes are the result of a interplay of complex and interdependent global forces, and a recognition that the evolving global environment demands self-educating individuals who can respond to new contemporary circumstances.
The IIS program specifically seeks to impart the following skills in its majors:
- an understanding of the contemporary forces of globalization, including
- the political economy of globalization
- the role of states and non-state actors in the international system
- the patterns of cross-cultural communication and representation
- the opportunities, obligations, and limits of global citizenship
- individual student engagement with global issues in one’s everyday setting, that is, recognition that “the personal is global.”
- an appreciation of the importance of foreign language learning and cultural study, including
- the uses of language in social contexts
- sensitivity and respect for cultural difference
- awareness of new identities formed under globalization
- competence in interdisciplinary social analysis and research, in order to
- appreciate the historical sources of contemporary issues
- navigate through shifting paradigms for understanding our world
- develop interest and understanding in new issues as they emerge.
The IIS major addresses these goals according to the following schema:
The Social Science core consists of the following courses, with specific learning outcomes listed for each core course:
IIS 100 - Intro to Globalization (until 2007, “Intro to Global Structures and Processes”) - This core courses is a broad survey of how to study the global setting. It introduces the metaphor of the map as one paradigm for codifying and disseminating knowledge about the world. The course then raises questions about that paradigm, compelling students to confront the powerful role of paradigms in enabling, but also shaping, the study of complex social phenomena. We then explore other prominent approaches to understanding globalization, especially cultural globalization and media, economic development and financial institutions, and international organizations.
Econ 110 - Microeconomics - This basic economics course is included to ensure students grasp the tools and thought-processes of economic analysis.
PS 210 - Intro to International Relations - To understand the role of non-state actors in the international system, students must understand the role of states and the approach of international relations theory to politics among states.
PS 220 - Comparative Politics - Students must also understand the political processes within states and the methods necessary to carry out cross-cultural comparisons.
Hist 245 - International History (or Hist 285 - Historian’s Workshop) - This courses is meant to ensure that students have a basic knowledge of recent history of international relations, but more importantly, that they have the basic research and analytical skills to understand the historical sources of contemporary problems.
The distinctive approach of the major is to unite the interdisciplinary social science with language learning and areas studies in a way that is not replicated anywhere else in the Knox curriculum. This approach is schematized below:
b) Looking at the Elements of the Mission Statement (attached): How do your department's goals mesh (or not) with this list?
c) Consider what you might learn from the comparison of departmental and college missions. Are there ways in which the mission of your department is illuminated by the college's? Are there elements present in your department mission but absent from the college mission that you think could be more widely applied?
The aims of the IIS major are certainly consistent with many elements of the mission statement. Specifically, the call to integrative and interdisciplinary learning is woven throughout the major, its courses, and even the program name. Also, the emphasis on the “lifelong love of learning” echoes the program’s fundamental concern with imparting a understanding that the global environment is an ever-changing one. This demands of our graduates a willingness to adopt new paradigms, ones that may supersede or overthrow what was learned at Knox, as necessary to maintain a sophisticated grasp of that environment and the challenges we face within it.
Admitting that there may be wide agreement and compatibility in the two mission statements, however, the IIS program faculty note the general silence of the Knox Mission Statement on international and global issues. There is a passing reference to “improv[ing] ourselves, our society and our world.” We note, nevertheless, that there is no explicit mention of cross-cultural or foreign language learning. The Knox Mission Statement speaks to the importance of a diverse and tolerant learning community, but it makes no explicit mention of our sizeable international student cohort or the prominence of internationally-educated or foreign-born faculty. While affirming the central role of our residential character, the Statement does not recognize the importance of off-campus learning environments in our curriculum, which influence the education of fifty percent of our students by the time of graduation. We believe any future revision of the Statement should address these lapses, which relate not only to the IIS major but also to many other departments and programs on campus.
3) Assessment
a) How do you know whether the goals of your department are being achieved? What evidence/indicators do you look to? Is any regular method of review carried out? If so, how often?
We do not have an assessment agenda in place, but the program faculty have spent many years discussing the role of language learning and the degree of integration with the social science core. The success of the major -- whether it is indeed integrated international studies is -- depends on this integration happening to some degree. We have been concerned with this problem for various reasons:
- We have many bilingual, international student majors. Are we reaching the “middle America” students who could benefit most from the major?
- QuickStart language courses were important in bringing majors into the program in the early years. Has that changed as QuickStart has stagnated a bit?
- Do the Q-courses have an impact? A Q-course asks students to bring language into an existing course. They are notoriously difficult to manage, students do not seem to understand them, and most are completed in perfunctory ways (in most cases, substituting a course from off-campus study).
One quick assessment device we used was to look at the selection of second majors / minors among IIS majors. Before 2002, only some students had a second major / minor. After the new Knox, every student needs one. The table below shows the graduates with second major / minor (if applicable). We see two trends:
(1) In the early years of the major, the heyday of QuickStart, many students had a second major in foreign language, usually a QuickStart language. These pairings have dropped off with the decline in QuickStart offerings.
(2) After the new Knox in 2002, non-foreign language second majors / minors tend to predominate. When there is a second language major, it is invariably Spanish, the language for which there is an occasional QuickStart offering and for which it is easiest to complete the Q-courses during off-campus study.
IIS Graduates and Second Majors / Minors - 1997-2008Year / 1997 / 1998 / 1999 / 2000 / 2001 / 2002
Graduates / 3 / 7 / 11 / 6 / 7 / 12
Majors / Minors / Germ / Rus / Germ / Span / Span / Econ / Psyc
Psyc / Fren / Germ / Span / CS / Fren / Fren
Span / Span / Germ / EngW
Germ / EdSS
Germ / Span
Fren / Span
Span
ArtS
Fren
Year / 2003 / 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008
Graduates / 2 / 6 / 3 / 5 / 5 / 10
Majors / Minors / BkSt / Envs / Germ / Econ / Span / Anso
Econ / Thea / Danc / Econ / Span / Span
PS / Span / Art H/ Fren / Span / Hist
Fren / Fren / EdSt / PS
Hist / Econ / Bus
Asia
Anso / Fren
Econ
Econ
Econ / Japn
We drew two conclusions from this study:
(1) There does appear to be some correlation between the availability of QuickStart language offerings and the number and focus of IIS majors. To the extent that IIS faculty can help “kick start” QuickStart, they would also be serving the interest of the program and its majors.
(2) From this study and other anecdotal assessment of students and language learning, we conclude that Q-courses, on their own, are not ensuring an integration of language and social sciences proposed by the major. We should consider alternative approaches to ensuring this integration.
b) If you do not currently have regular methods of assessment, this is an opportunity to begin--and you'll have lots of company! Pick one of your goals and implement a plan to examine it:
i) Design a means of gathering information that will enable you to see if the goal is being achieved, and include in your self-study a description of what you have devised. (The next two parts will be done later in the year; we'll ask for a report in summer 2009.)