University of South Carolina Columbia
Act 629 - Summary Reports on Institutional Effectiveness
Fiscal Year 2001 - 2002

Philosophy, BA, MA, PhD

Assessment methods/instruments used in the undergraduate programs include: capstone course assessment and exit interviews. Professor Tollefsen's observations of his students in the capstone seminar suggest several things about the program. First, the program does an excellent job for students who are willing and able to put in the effort to acquire the skills inherent in training in philosophy. Slightly over a third of the class showed an excellent command of the fundamental skills that philosophy embodies, research, critical thinking, written and oral presentation. Another group of students-again slightly over a third-showed less mastery of these skills, but nonetheless were able to perform at a satisfactory-if not superior-level. Finally there was a third group of students whose work was barely passing (and two in fact failed). This spread of abilities is more or less what one would expect. While of course faculty hope that all our students will perform at the highest level, this is not realistic. The fact that two-thirds performed at a satisfactory or superior level shows that the program does provide the necessary training that faculty seek to provide. Professor Tollefsen expresses one general concern: students seem less willing than they should be to use the library as a research resource, Faculty members will be encouraged to assign research in the library in the future.

Exit interview also confirm the belief that faculty provide excellent training in reading, research, writing and analytical skills. There were two surprises. First, while faculty clearly do require research on the part of students, at least one student felt that, relative to other departments courses, courses in philosophy tended to emphasize critical analysis over research. Second - and again relative to other departments - philosophy faculty did an excellent job training students to do oral presentations.

Assessment methods/instruments used in the graduate programs include: placement and exit interviews. With respect to placement, the department faculty does an excellent job. Of the four MA students who graduated during 1999-2000, two have gone on to PhD programs, one is teaching at West Point and one is self-employed. Over the twelve years for which the department has records, 59 students have graduated with an MA degree. Of these, 28 (47%) went on to PhD programs, 9 (15%) went on to teach at the community college level and 21 (36%) went on to other activities. This is an excellent record of placement. Concerning MA exit interviews, two of four graduates were contacted and both had highly complementary things to say about the education they received at USC. The only complaint concerned the "miserly" GTA stipends.

Clearly, with only two PhD graduates, it is too early to reach definitive judgments about the Department's record with respect to placement. However, it still is good news that both graduates have jobs teaching philosophy. Faculty were only able to interview one of the two graduates. He had several useful things to say about his experience in the program. First, and most important, he felt our program is a strong program and he was very satisfied with his experience here. He expressed some concern over the decreased strength in the history of philosophy - a weakness faculty hope at least partially to ameliorate with the current faculty search in modern philosophy. He also thought faculty could do a better job advising students about career opportunities, another weakness that is being addressed.