Academic Annual Report Public Summaries 2020-2021
Art
Our current senior majors are assessed through art writing, oral presentations, and the senior exhibit. Students earlier in the program and minors are evaluated through a sophomore-level assessment rubric, usually based on work in the foundations courses and an individual presentation to department faculty. Our recent students have been more successful presenting ideas orally than in writing, so to help our students improve their art writing skills, we now incorporate multiple writing assignments into all of the lower- and upper-level art history and design history courses. To help our students more adequately prepare for their senior exhibits and presentations, since Fall 2017, we have offered Art Seminars in the fall rather than in the spring and set multiple deadlines to break projects down into smaller steps. Pandemic conditions affected our courses and some of our assessments this year, but our seniors persisted in graduation.
Athletic Training
The Bethel College Athletic Training Program is discontinued following May 2021 graduation.
Bible and Religion
The past year saw major transitions, including the adjustment to a new department chair, a 33% reduction in staffing (down to 1 full-time), a curriculum change, and new curriculum delivery conditions and constraints with COVID-19. Most of the BRL department teaching continues to focus on students taking our courses to meet requirements in the common core of our General Education program. The Faith Formation Task Force is currently considering this program. Due to the constraints of courses serving dual purposes (both GE and major), a change to Intro to Biblical Studies is needed and will impact the lower-level assessment. This change is not yet determined.
Biology
Most (nearly 100%) Bethel graduates with biology majors enjoy success in graduate school admissions, entry into medical and other health science programs, and employment related to their academic discipline. In recent years, we made some changes in the department to help more students succeed (e.g., working closely with the Center for Academic Development to assist with specific courses, an advising program that addresses the varied needs of a diverse student body, the RICHE program to support summer internships and job shadowing). We have implemented steps to improve the senior research and the resultant thesis by intervening more frequently as projects develop and the capstone paper is written, including identifying distinct milestones for each semester.
Business
Bethel College’s bachelor of science degree in business administration is designed to expose students to skill sets in high demand for business, nonprofits, and civic organizations. Combined with a commitment to experiential learning, Bethel business students have opportunities to engage with outside speakers, work on real-world problems with local businesses, and gain valuable experience in teamwork. While the primary mission of Bethel’s business faculty is teaching, faculty recognize the importance of keeping abreast of current developments in their fields through research, consulting, speaking, and service activities.
Bethel continues to offer more Accounting courses than any other ACCK school, thus better preparing students interested in this career area for the CPA exam. Business faculty engage in ongoing continuing education; some are sought after for national speaking engagements. Currently, the Business department at Bethel College is led by three women. Recent AAUW reports suggest that females account for 20-30% of full-time faculty in business programs across the nation. It is our pleasure to be outliers in this group.
It is noted that the growing number of students entering Bethel College who identify business as their major continues to increase steadily. At the same time, a growing divide is evident between well-prepared, academically gifted students and those who enter the program less prepared and unable to complete college-level academic tasks successfully. The department is encouraged to see additional support services for underprepared students and the hiring of athletic coaches who value the whole person.
Most business majors enroll in an external internship during their senior year. During the 2020-21 academic year, 16 students successfully completed experiential learning opportunities at for-profit and not-for-profit businesses in Newton and the surrounding area. Internship foci included accounting, marketing, graphic design, and small business management. Bethel College business majors who participated in an internship experience continued to score in the “excellent” range on the following personal competencies: professional attitude, enthusiasm, teamwork, initiative, and dependability. Bethel College business majors who participated in an internship experience continued to score in the “excellent” range on the following professional competencies: academic preparation, communication, critical thinking and leadership.
Chemistry
Generally, students taking chemistry courses at Bethel College perform better than the 50th percentile on the American Chemical Society (ACS) exam, meaning their knowledge and conceptual understanding is better than that obtained by students in equivalent classes nationwide. Unfortunately, we do not have much data for the 2020-2021 academic year since the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the department from giving its annual ACS exams during the Fall 2020 semester. Performance on the exams was below the 50th percentile; the drop may be attributed to the shift in focus from pure chemical to biochemical applications. This shift reduced the focus on mathematics and derivations stressed in the ACS Exams. Chemistry students are actively engaged in research projects, and most of our chemistry students present their research findings at the annual URICA Symposium and local and national chemical conferences, such as the Midwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society and PittCon. Finally, we have placed most of our graduates over the past five years into the workforce, a professional school (medical, dental, veterinarian), or graduate school within the first year (often sooner) following graduation from Bethel College. This success has been achieved by ensuring that our students graduate knowing how to use most scientific instrumentation and the skills to be critical thinkers.
Communication Arts
Departmental assessment data suggests that we must remain vigilant about working to support students as we strive to help them meet departmental benchmarks. Students exceeded the benchmarks demonstrating competence in public presentation (Goal I) but fell short of those demonstrating prowess in academic writing (Goal II). Students’ ability to articulate meaningful connections among historical, theoretical, and practical implications of communication processes (Goal III) is on pace with our long-range plans. However, with only two graduates in this year’s assessment pool, the data may not be conclusive and should be re-evaluated next year when the graduate pool will be larger. While the department is pleased with our graduates’ progress toward achieving several established benchmarks, we recognize our need to give extra attention in advising and teaching to the areas where students’ scores were below the benchmarks.
Elementary Education
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to create new situations for campus courses and student teaching. We will collect data and reflect on the impact and how we need to adjust to this new normal. The cohort of elementary education students is slowly growing. Despite the national teaching shortage, some students are still choosing to teach. More students give us more data, which will be helpful as we continue the ongoing process of improvement in teaching and learning.
English
Assessment of the performance of Bethel College English majors confirms that students in this program are achieving key learning goals: 1) to engage critically with a variety of literary texts, both traditional and contemporary, remaining attentive to issues of social justice and inclusivity; and, 2) to produce a substantial body of creative and scholarly writing that demonstrates analytical skill, theoretical fluency, and critical insight.
Health and Physical Education
History and Conflict Studies
History major: Given the low number of graduates in the department in 2021, the department is not releasing a public statement to protect student privacy.
History and Political Science major: Zero Graduates this year.
KIPCOR
The Conflict Resolution Certificate serves and is completed by a wide range of students: “traditional” Bethel College students who complete this as part of their undergraduate degree; “special” Bethel College students who are taking certificate classes for graduate credit to obtain professional development units or to supplement degrees from other institutions; and students completing the certificate for professional training and who are not enrolled at Bethel College.
In addition, while this program is not a sanctioned certification for professional practice, SSC 460 and SSC 464 have been approved by the Kansas Supreme Court as required primary training under Supreme Court Rule 914 for individuals desiring to become approved Core or Domestic mediators in Kansas.
Finally, it should be noted that two certificate courses, SSC 460 and SSC 464, are now taught via Zoom to make them more accessible to people across Kansas. Both courses were the first virtual mediation courses offered in Kansas (and the first approved by the Kansas Supreme Court’s Office of Judicial Administration).
All courses are provided to improve students’ skills in handling conflict in diverse settings, including the workplace.
Mathematics
Overall, the Mathematical Sciences department met some goals and measurable objectives for 2020-2021. There were two objectives marked “not applicable” because there was no evidence collected during 2020-2021 due to faculty turnover and the COVID-19 pandemic. The department is excited about the new Software Development major and hopes to maintain a consistent, full-time faculty dedicated to growing majors within the department. There is a strong interest in recruiting incoming and current students, to pursue a potential Data Science minor within the department.
Music
The Music Department continues to meet our established goals for our graduates. Our graduates continue to score relatively high on comprehensive exams compared to music graduates from across the country. In addition, our graduates are accepted into graduate programs without having to take remedial coursework to qualify for those positions. However, we believe we can do better at integrating theory, history, and aural skills into the entire fabric of our curriculum. To that end, the music department will evaluate our delivery of theory and aural skills to explore the possibilities of changing how that information is delivered and how it can be more tightly integrated into all aspects of the program.
Nursing
The Department of Nursing continues to monitor student performance on holistic admission criteria compared to NCLEX performance. In addition, departmental data evaluating student performance on program-utilized standardized testing comparing NCLEX Client Needs Categories and Cognitive Levels to the overall first-time pass rates will allow for some new information moving forward for the program. The Department participated in a semester-long NCLEX item writing professional development process. In addition, the Department of Nursing works to monitor student performance on the NCLEX-RN exam as well as program-identified student outcomes for the RN-BSN program to ensure continuation of approval requirements by the Kansas State Board of Nursing and accreditation requirements by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE).
Psychology
We plan to continue using the marked goals 1−3 and corresponding objectives to assess departmental outcomes. However, we will likely change some curricular aspects that could affect the outcomes in the following assessment report, which will be adjusted if needed. Due to departmental faculty changes for both faculty lines, and the impending hire of a new faculty member for 2022-23, several curricular and assessment changes are likely in the next 1 − 3 years. We may also adjust assessment goals based on changes to the standardized ETS Psychology Area Exam in the future. Lastly, we are convinced that student growth and progress is holistic rather than discrete, and changing student demographics at the college may warrant consideration of other types of assessment instruments or learning outcomes in the coming years (e.g., more specific work-related outcome assessment).
Social Work
The Bethel College Social Work Program has been fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education since 1974. In February of 2019, the Program received reaffirmation of accreditation for the entire eight years with no concerns. Annual internal assessments indicate that all nine competencies/outcomes required by CSWE are routinely met (exceeding the benchmark of having 85% or more of students score in the adequate to outstanding range). In addition to meeting competencies, the Program’s strengths include strong advising relationships between students and faculty, the advice of the Bethel College Advisory Council, and strong attention to issues of diversity and social change.
Teacher Education
The Teacher Education Department regularly assesses its students and programs regarding institutional objectives and state and national standards. Institutional data demonstrate that Bethel students and graduates compare favorably with local, state, and national indicators. Affirmation of this assessment has been provided by the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) and the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) (onsite visit, March 2019). For further consumer information about the education programs, see consumer information at the following website: https://www.bethelks.edu/academics/areas-study/teacher-education