Justice Studies - Department of Chemistry - San Jose State University

November to illustrate the ways that their resources can be used to best serve JS students andinternship partners in terms of streamlining the initial part of the internship process. Along theselines, over the past two years, we have brought many more internship partners to campus for ourCareer and Internship Fair so that students and internship representatives have an increasedopportunity to meet each other in person.Finally, the JS undergraduate curriculum committee is currently in the process of reorganizingthe undergraduate curriculum into competency areas. Students will be required to take one ormore courses in each competency area, currently envisioned as theory; methodologies; global,historical and comparative perspectives; critical inquiry; analytical research and writing; andfield experience/practicum. In the course of this reorganization, both minor and majorcurriculum changes will also be proposed. This process is underway; several changes will besubmitted for department, college and university approval during 2007-2008, and others in thefollowing year.Graduate program: SLOs 1-1 through 1-3 are measured in JS 202, the required research methodsclass. Data indicate that a notable percentage of students have struggled to meet these learningobjectives, especially in Fall 2006. There have been several changes instituted and someproposals made to ensure that all of our graduate students achieve the research and data analysisobjectives that we have instituted. Beginning this semester, the instructor, Professor MarkCorreia, has incorporated a tremendous amount of hands-on experience with SPSS—from dataentry to data organization and analyses. The goal of the assignments is for students to learn howto apply various statistical techniques using SPSS and how to interpret the outcomes to increaseachievement of SLO 1-2.Professor Correia has also included a number of research based assignments in JS 202—providingstudents the experience of developing a research proposal as the final outcome. This change isintended to help students develop those skills necessary to be critical of the research they read(SLO 1-3). During the first half of each class, attention is given to research methodology, and inthe second half of the class, the focus is on statistical tools, logic, and the practical aspects ofSPSS. This breakdown is intended to allow students to distinguish the broader issues related todesigning good research (SLO 1-1), and translating that knowledge into concrete projects throughthe application of research tools (SLOs 1-2 and 1-3).Finally, the graduate curriculum committee is considering other changes to the curriculum toensure that qualitative and quantitative methodologies are both adequately covered, and thatsufficient attention is devoted to statistical methods to enable students to be critical users ofquantitative analysis.SLOs 2-1 to 2-4 are assessed in the graduate capstone seminar, JS 216. Data indicate that theseSLOs are being achieved by the vast majority of our students. While the assessment process hasnot prompted any curricular or pedagogical change, there is a plan to modify the course contentto more fully capture aspects of justice beyond the criminal justice system. This change is inkeeping with the department’s evolving curricular expansion, and with some of the changesalready instated in the graduate curriculum (especially the required theory course, JS 201). Thus,SLO 2-1 will be modified in accordance with the broader substantive curriculum in the graduate13