Data-Based Decisions: Master of Arts/Sciences in English

2024-2025

Creative Writing

Building from last year’s report methodology, the Specialization in Creative Writing (SCW) faculty have continued to assess the program based on how well our graduate students fare during their proposal and thesis defenses. Below is the 2024—2025 data.

Assesment Category	Proposal	Thesis
pass	3	3
pass w/ mmr rv	0	0
mass w/mjr rv	0	0
fail	0	0
Learning Objective O1 High	2	3
LO1M	1	0
LO1 L	0	0
LO2 H	2	2
LO2 M	1	1
LO2 L	0	0
LO3 H	2	3
LO3 M	1	1
LO3 L	0	0

As the data shows, all of our students have passed their proposal and thesis defenses without revision. On the assessment of those defenses and their associated learning objectives, our students are achieving a level of high most of the time, with a few medium, and zero low.

With the State Legislature’s abolishment of the required writing classes for all USU students, our program has faced uncertainty this year, since the funding for our graduate students has come from teaching those classes. We are still unsure what the future holds.

One of our goals is to prepare our SCW graduates for an MFA, PhD, or Creative PhD program. Since 2018, 7 of our graduates have gone on to MFA programs, including prestigious programs at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Ohio State University.

Additionally, 3 of those students have successfully published books based on work they began in our program.

Literature, Culture, and Composition:

As the data indicates, students in the LCC specialization are performing at or above the standards. They are defending their thesis proposals in a timely manner, and they are demonstrating great success at their thesis defenses.

To help with retention and recruitment, LCC is starting to track where our graduate students go after graduation. The class from 2024/25 has done especially well with students taking jobs in the Logan Public Schools as well as Utah State University.

With the reorganization of the departments announced in the Spring of 2025, LCC spent time thinking about how to bolster offerings in the Culture component of the degree. They plan to create new courses in 2025/26. In this time of transition, LCC is making sure that students’ needs are put first and that they have a robust curriculum as well as good support along the way.

The DGS and the GPC continue to meet with each graduate student every semester to help ensure progress toward degree. This has greatly helped maintain good timelines for students.

2023-2024

Creative Writing

As the data shows, all of our students have passed their proposal and thesis defenses, with the vast majority passing outright with no revisions. On the assessment of those defenses and their associated learning objectives, our students are achieving a level of high most of the time, with a few medium, and zero low.

The CW faculty have also monitored the situation raised in the 2017-18 outcomes data to begin the specialization itself. Establishing the CW specialization has indeed helped with recruiting, with the number of applicants rising from 4 the first year to 8, then 11, 12, 9, and 14 in 2024, including 3 regional applicants, and 2 international ones. We seek to have 4 new students in each cohort, based on the typical number of Graduate Teaching Assistantships we can award. This means we have had quite a few more applicants than we have space for.

One of our goals is to prepare our CW graduates for an MFA, PhD, or Creative PhD program. Since 2018, 6 of our graduates have gone on to MFA programs, including prestigious programs at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Ohio State University.

Additionally, 3 of those students have successfully published books based on work they began in our program.

Literature, Culture, and Composition:

The LCC specialization began in 2022, and so does not yet have robust data on which to base many decisions. What is certain is that the creation of the LCC program was, itself, a major data-based decision that has clearly benefitted students in the English MS/MA program.

The structure of the LCC degree now allows students to pursue research in a broader range of fields than simply Literature (to which the previous iteration of the degree was largely limited). USU’s English Department has always been strong in the fields of Composition Studies, Technical Communication, and American Studies, and with the LCC degree, all of those areas of scholarship are available to students, along with the continued robust offerings in Literature. Several recent faculty hires have been made with this growth in mind.

Based on the proposal and thesis defense data from 2023-2024, LCC students are achieving their learning outcomes at a high level, and are being supported by faculty to improve from their earlier work.

As identified by the GPC and DGS, some LCC students are finding it difficult to defend their thesis proposals by the end of their second semester (the recommended deadline for proposal defense). The GPC and DGS are working with the LCC curricular committee to develop an introductory graduate course for LCC students, which would make drafting a thesis proposal a required component of a course in their first semester. This method has worked well for the Folklore Studies MA/MS program, and promises to be helpful for LCC students as well. It may take a few years to implement these changes, and in the meantime, the LCC faculty, along with the GPC and DGS, are monitoring the LCC students closely, to ensure they receive the support needed to achieve their learning objectives.

2018-2023

During this time period, the English MA/MS was undergoing a restructuring and that effort, in combination with the Covid-19 pandemic, meant that assessment data wasn’t being consistently gathered and analyzed. However, the restructuring of the program was itself a major response to data from the years prior. Through communications with major advisors and the department’s GPC and DGS, students were consistently reporting that the program felt unbalanced. Many non-creative writing students were leaving the English program for the MA/MS in American Studies and Folklore, which was building toward its own restructuring (documented in the Folklore MA/MS assessment materials).

The result was a department-wide effort to create two equal programs under the umbrella of the English MA/MS: Creative Writing (CW), and Literature, Culture, and Composition (LCC). The LCC specialization was designed to highlight the department’s interdisciplinary strengths and blend the existing literature offerings with the American Studies and Folklore opportunities (the “Culture” component of LCC, which absorbed the American Studies courses when that program closed), and work to build up the department’s existing (but rarely highlighted) excellence in teaching composition pedagogy through Engl 6820, the course that teaches Graduate Instructors how to teach.

Where the old Literature and Writing program had no Program of Study requirements, LCC was designed to ensure a broad, interdisciplinary introduction to its constituent parts, requiring each student to take at least one class from each of the three arenas: Literature, Culture, and Composition. The GPC and DGS can confirm that students have embraced and appreciated this additional structure.

2017-18

The following are four important data-based decisions that the Master of Arts/Sciences in English Graduate Curriculum Committee (“the Committee”) has undertaken or initiated in order to improve student experience and mastery of learning objectives.

1. Data Indicating Problem/Issue

The Committee has for several years witnessed declining enrollments in graduate literature classes, while enrollments have increased or held steady in the areas of creative writing and rhetoric/composition studies.

Recent declines in graduate enrollment in the overall program has also affected class enrollments.

Discussion

The committee discussed offering just one literature class in the spring semester, instead of two. The committee also discussed discouraging internships and Directed Studies, which take students out of graduate classes. The committee discussed increasing overall efforts at recruitment. The committee emphasized offering graduate courses after 4:00 to accommodate local teacher/graduate students to take our courses.

Outcome data shows that we have increased enrollment in literature graduate courses in the current year.

Proposed Solution

Five solutions have been implemented to address the declining enrollments in graduate literature courses:

Offering one literature class in the spring, instead of two;
Allowing, on a semester by semester basis, graduate literature courses to be cross- listed with a 5000-level undergraduate class;
Having literature faculty assigned to teach a graduate literature course also assigned a “fall-back” undergraduate class in case the graduate class does not make;
Offering grad classes after 4:00, to make it easier for teachers to take our courses;
Increasing recruitment efforts (attending graduate school fairs, using our scholarship monies wisely (especially to attract teachers to the program), working to reduce student teaching loads).

Evaluation of Solution

Outcome data shows that in the current year, we have seen some increased enrollment in graduate literature courses. The above named remedies appear to be working, at least to some extent, as evidenced by “Course Assessment Outcome” tables:

ENGL 6330 Spring 2018 (Burkert): 7 students

ENGL 6350 Fall 2017 (Crumbley): no data received

ENGL 6330 Fall 2017 (McCuskey): 5 students

2. Data Indicating Problem/issue

New Specialization in Creative Writing. At the November meeting of the Master of Arts/Sciences in English Graduate Program Committee, Dr. Jennifer Sinor, chair of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Emphasis, presented to the Committee a proposal to create a new specialization in Creative Writing in the Masters in English Program.

Discussion

The Committee noted that

a cw specialization would serve our graduates students: enrollment data and analysis has shown that for the past ten years, approximately 2/3 to 3/4 of Master of Arts/Sciences in English Graduate students have chosen to do creative-writing theses;
a cw specialization would enhance recruiting, as it would create niche specialization not currently offered by many universities in the region, and one that would be appealing to undergraduates;
a cw specialization would promote diversity, by attracting more students from outside our local state and region.

Proposed Solution

The Committee voted to approve the creation of a Specialization in Creative Writing

Evaluation of Solution

This solution will be monitored in the coming years to assesses and evaluate its effectiveness.

3. Data Indicating Problem/Issue

An increased number of students applying to do “Directed Studies.” Data shows that in the 2017-2018 year, the committee saw 6 requests by students to do directed studies.

Discussion

The Committee discussed this issue. Since six students can make up a graduate class, the committee thought that having so many students doing Directed Studies has, or likely has, negative impacts on the enrollment in classes, especially graduate literature classes. Since Directed Studies can serve individual student needs, the Committee saw no wisdom in eliminating this option altogether. At the same time, the Committee felt that it must consider the health of the overall program and so find a balance between allowing Directed Studies in certain cases while protecting the enrollment in graduate courses and the overall health of the program. Our program is not intended to create research specialists, but high achieving generalists who can become successful teachers of literature and writing.

Proposed Solution

The Committee met and created a new application form and a more rigorous application process so that the Committee can better assess the actual needs of the applicant and better evaluate the wisdom of granting permission. Whether the currently offered graduate courses have “made,” will be taken into account in granting such a petition.

Evaluation of Solution

Recent data reveals that since the implementation of the new application procedures and form, two students have applied to do Directed Studies for the Spring 2019 semester. Both graduate courses offered in Spring 2019 have “made.” Both of these students are enrolled in two regular graduate courses each. The Committee voted to approve both application, with the proviso that the students remain enrolled in the graduate courses in which they are currently enrolled.

The new procedure seems to be working.

However, the Committee will take up this issue again in the Spring semester.

4. Data Indicating Problem/Issue

The Literature and Writing Graduate Committee continues to monitor the issue of all students not achieving as high a mastery as they might achieve, as reflected on Course Assessment outcomes. The academic year 2017-2018 showed a marked increase in student performance. During the last academic year, 90% of students scored as “high” or “medium” on their mastery of learning objectives, with the great majority of those scoring in the “high” category.

Discussion

Despite the increase in student performance, the topic has been an ongoing discussion at faculty meetings and within the committee. As noted previously, Graduate Instructors are poorly paid for the amount of work they do; they are the sole instructors of record for about 46 students each semester; and they must take their classes and write their theses on top of this work. The college of CHaSS has typically not offered our second-year students tuition awards, so students are forced to pay back at least half their salaries in tuition and fees while they are undertaking their thesis work. For this reason, many students also moonlight by teaching online for other universities, or by holding second jobs in the community. Faculty see this stress on the students and in their performance, and they would like to do something to help them.

Proposed Solution

The Committee continues to advocate for higher Graduate Instructor salaries and better working conditions for students (including a one-two teaching load instead of a two-two load as well as tuition waivers). In the last year, the department’s Faculty Scholarship Fund has raised over $3,000 dollars and the Graduate Advisory Council (GAC) was able to award to three students over $1000 to help with tuition for 2016-2017. The department’s business manager has reported that this money has made a difference in terms of student retention.

Evaluation of Solution

Faculty are please at the increased performance by our graduate students. Nevertheless, faculty are continuing to advocate for better working conditions for Graduate Instructors, including tuition waivers. Until this happens, however, faculty have agreed to continue their efforts to donate scholarship money for second-year students. The department’s business manager has also suggested that rather than a faculty member writing a check for one lump sum, she/he could sign up for automatic withdrawal (for example, $10/month) in order to keep the fund going.

2016-17

All student assessment data is shared with the Department Head, Graduate Advisory Committee (comprised of directors of all five graduate programs in English and the Director of Graduate Studies, and the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee. The following are four important data-based decisions that the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee has undertaken or initiated in order to improve student experience and mastery of learning objectives. Please note that individual dates of meetings in which discussion occurred are not included in this assessment because the head of the program, the keeper of the minutes, has left for sabbatical. In future the program will make certain that all data is up-to-date before retirements and sabbaticals.

1. Data Indicating Problem/issue

The department was permitting student to bypass particular seminars and workshops by offering directed studies/readings (ENGL 6920), as indicated by Program of Study evaluations from students graduating in 2014-2015. For example, see Students K & R in the Course Assessment section; both these students took ENGL 6920.

Discussion

In Spring 2015, the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee met to discuss this issue. The committee decided that by students taking directed studies, they were missing out on the robust class experience of workshops and seminars. In addition, since all students must do a thesis, they essentially already have a 3 or 6 credit independent study as a required part of their program.

Proposed Solution

The Literature and Writing Graduate Committee agreed to limit the number of directed studies/readings (ENGL 6920) an English graduate student may take. Students are now told that they need to enroll in seminars and not take directed readings unless otherwise necessary. For example, in the case that an offered class that is needed for a particular thesis topic is cancelled at the last minute because of low enrollment, the student may petition the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee to be allowed to take this class as an independent study. In Spring 2015 the committee also agreed to limit the amount of credits that can be earned through internship (see, for example, student S, who took 9 credits in internship).

Evaluation of Solution

As the Program of Study assessment outcomes from 2015-2016 graduates indicate, none of these students took ENGL 6920 (directed readings/studies). The Literature and Writing Graduate Committee is pleased that the students are taking more seminars/workshops, and they will discuss this issue with graduate students when they institute exit interviews in April 2017.

2. Data Indicating Problem/Issue

As evident in the Course Assessment section, as well as the Program of Study assessment outcomes, we recently stopped offering summer seminars in English. No English seminars or workshops were offered in Summer 2015, and only one class was offered in Summer 2016 (McLaughlin’s ENGL 6890). This lack of summer offerings is in response to new policies developed by the university regarding face-to-face summer workshop enrollments as well as online education payment structures. In the past, students have used summertime as a way to catch up on credits, allowing them to take only six credits a semester during fall and spring and still graduate within two years. By not offering summer workshops/classes, students may be forced to take longer to graduate.

Discussion

As the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee discussed on several occasions during the 2015-2016 academic year, there are many facets to this problem. Many students often prefer to take 6 credits (rather than 9) a semester because of their heavy graduate teaching load (they are the instructor of record for two composition classes every semester). Students in the American Studies Program are encouraged to take the summer interdisciplinary Bennion Teacher’s Workshop at USU, but there has been some concern that the topics of the Bennion in the previous years don’t necessary serve the students in English well. (In the past few years, the Bennion has been offered by Political Science and History.) Moreover, one of the requirements of the English program states that students must take all their courses within the English Department unless specifically required for their research. The Literature and Writing Graduate Committee has been allowing students to enroll the on a case by case basis. As noted in the Program of Study assessment outcomes, three English students took the Bennion and were allowed to count the workshop toward their English degrees. It is not known how many students petitioned to have the Bennion count toward their Programs of Study.

Proposed Solution

The English Department will seek to host the Bennion Workshop in Summer 2017, which will mean a) our English students can take the workshop and count it toward their Programs of Study without seeking prior approval from the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee, and b) the topic will no doubt be more applicable for the English students’ degrees. Offering three summer credits next year will allow students to take two classes instead of three in the fall or spring.

Evaluation of Solution

If the English Department is indeed chosen to host the Bennion Workshop next summer, after the workshop is completed we will interview English students who completed the course for their assessment of how the workshop applies to their degree and career interests. We will also continue to evaluate time to graduating to see if any other courses can be offered during the summer. One long-term solution would be to allow one Bennion workshop, no matter which department it is offered in, to count for the English degree without students needing prior approval.

3. Data Indicating Problem/Issue

The English program has long practiced (and advertised) that every semester we offer two literature classes (usually British/World and American) and one creative writing class. However, as evident in the “Course Assessment Outcomes” tables, numbers in literature classes have been very low (for example, see Graham, Fall 2014, with two students, and Cooper-Rompato, Spring 2016, with six students, link here). Whereas enrollments in literature classes have declined, enrollments in creative writing classes remain consistently high. Declining graduate enrollment in the program overall has also affected class enrollments. Since classes now need a minimum of six students to not be cancelled, how can the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee still offer two graduate classes a semester in literature?

Discussion

In January, 2015, the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee met and discussed the possibility of allowing (on a trial basis) a 5000-level senior literature seminar to be cross-listed as a 6000-level graduate literature seminar. The committee discussed at length the pros and cons of this proposal, including details such as limiting grad enrollment to second-year students, assignment differentiation between grads and undergrads, extra meetings for grads, etc. It was a lively discussion with many opinions voiced.

Proposed Solution

The Literature and Writing Graduate Committee agreed to cross- list ENGL 5300 with ENGL 6330 for Fall 2016 as a trial class. The committee agreed it would give graduate students more options for literature classes. This will only be done on a semester-by semester basis, with faculty making presentations to the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee if they wish to offer a class.

Evaluation of Solution

During Fall 2016, the instructor of this particular class will report to the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee on the state of the class and how the cross-listing is working. After the class is finished, the instructor will write up a formal assessment. Second-year graduate students in the class will also be asked their opinions about the cross-listing in exit interviews conducted in spring.

4. Data Indicating Problem/Issue

In general, the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee has noted that students are not achieving as high a mastery as they could be on Course Assessment outcomes. For example, see Fall 2015, in which Sinor’s ENGL 6884 class had 11 students who scored “medium” or “low” on their mastery of the learning objectives. In addition, at least two students graduating in 2014-2015 turned in their thesis revisions after the deadline, thereby delaying their graduating and incurring extra fees. Faculty are concerned that students may be working too much (either with their teaching assignments or with jobs outside the university) and may not be putting the necessary time in to their classes and thesis writing.

Discussion

This topic been an ongoing discussion at faculty meetings and with the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee. Faculty have acknowledged the difficulties our graduate students face. Graduate Instructors are poorly paid for the amount of work they do; they are the sole instructors of record for about 46 students each semester, and they must take their classes/write their theses on top of this work. The college of CHaSS has typically not offered our second-year students any tuition awards, so students are forced to pay back at least half their salaries in tuition and fees while they are undertaking their thesis work. For this reason, many students also moonlight by teaching online for other universities, or by holding second jobs in the community. Faculty see this stress on the students and in their performance, and they would like to do something to help them.

Proposed Solution

In addition to advocating for higher Graduate Instructor salaries and better working conditions for students (including a one-two teaching load instead of a two-two load as well as tuition waivers), in June, 2015 Michael Sowder (chair of the Literature and Writing Graduate Committee) suggested that the department’s faculty donate to a scholarship and award the money to second-year students as a way to help them with their tuition costs and hopefully cut down on loans/taking out second jobs. The faculty raised over $3,000 dollars during the 2015-2016 school year, and students applied for scholarships in March, 2016. The Graduate Advisory Council (GAC) gathered in March to decide scholarships; three students received award over $1000 to help with tuition for 2016-2017.

Evaluation of Solution

Faculty are continuing to advocate for better working conditions for Graduate Instructors, including tuition waivers. Until this happens, however, faculty have agreed to continue their efforts to donate scholarship money for second-year students. The department’s business manager has also suggested that rather than a faculty member writing a check for one lump sum, she/he could sign up for automatic withdrawal (for example, $10/month) in order to keep the fund going.