College of Liberal Arts

French Graduate Programs

Assessment Criteria and Procedures

1. The quality of the graduate-teaching faculty is under the purview of the Department chair who sees that minimum qualifications for all faculty are met.
2. All teaching assistants receive formal training in undergraduate instruction and complete 18 hours of graduate course work in French before being allowed to teach. All graduate assistants are required by the University to complete a mandatory training session in undergraduate instruction. Graduate assistants in French must further undergo a year long training program within the Department. Graduate assistants never teach courses beyond the 100 level.
3. Student teaching evaluations are administered in all graduate courses except independent studies. Results are available to individual faculty and are included by the Chair as part of the annual faculty review procedures. The faculty revised the current evaluation form in 1997.
4. All students are advised by the Graduate Director who meets with the student at least once each semester to review the student's progress and future plans. Transcripts are examined by the advisor to evaluate students' level of study at the entrance to the program, to monitor progress in the course of the program, and to note their final performance level.
5. Academic office hours are required by both College and departmental regulations and are monitored by the Chair of the Department.
6. All candidates for the MA degree in French are required to:
   • pass a specified number of graduate courses
   • demonstrate reading knowledge of a language other than English and French
   • pass an eight-hour written comprehensive examination and a one-hour oral examination
   • complete and submit for approval a final thesis
7. All candidates for the RVIA degree in French are required to:
   • pass a specified number of graduate courses
   • pass a three-hour written comprehensive examination and a one-hour oral examination

Assessment Results

1. Course-embedded performance measures are designed primarily to assess the individual student's achievement and to diagnose areas needing improvement.
2. Student course evaluations show that our courses and our faculty are well received by graduate students. Faculty are always rated "good" to "excellent." These results are consistent with the high quality of our teaching faculty and with our commitment to providing the best graduate education available in South Carolina.
3. At present we have no information about the degree completion ratio, average time to completion, percent of graduates employed in the field, and we have no mechanism for measuring alumni satisfaction with the program. Feedback from alumni about their level of satisfaction and their employment has always been positive, but it is sporadic and anecdotal in nature. Nonetheless, the French faculty have always made an effort to keep abreast of scholarly and pedagogical advances in their respective fields, and they have initiated improvements in the program whenever one was deemed necessary.