Relation to the University and College Missions:

According to the university's mission statement,

Wichita State University is committed to providing comprehensive educational opportunities in an urban setting. Through teaching, scholarship, and public service, the University seeks to equip both students and the larger community with the educational and cultural tools they need to thrive in a complex world, and to achieve both individual responsibility in their own lives and effective citizenship in the local, national, and global community.

High quality teaching and learning are fundamental goals in all undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs. Building on a strong tradition in the arts and sciences, the University offers programs in business, education, engineering, fine arts, and health professions, as well as in the liberal arts and sciences. Degree programs range from the associate to the doctoral level and encompass 75 fields of study; non-degree programs are designed to meet the specialized educational and training needs of individuals and organizations in south central Kansas.

Scholarship, including research, creative activity, and artistic performance, is designed to advance the University's goals of providing high quality instruction, making original contributions to knowledge and human understanding, and serving as an agent of community service. This activity is a basic expectation of all faculty members at Wichita State University.

Public and community service activities seek to foster the cultural, economic, and social development of a diverse metropolitan community and of the state of Kansas. The University's service constituency includes artistic and cultural agencies, business and industry, and community educational, governmental, health, and labor organizations.

Wichita State University pursues its mission utilizing the human diversity of Wichita, the state's largest metropolitan community, and its many cultural, economic, and social resources. The University faculty and professional staff are committed to the highest ideals of teaching, scholarship, and public service, as the University strives to be a comprehensive, metropolitan university of national stature.

As stated in the 2004-05 Wichita State University Undergraduate Catalog,

The mission of Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is to cultivate intellectual curiosity and foster contemplation of the human experience and the natural world. Faculty members are dedicated to creating, expanding, applying, and preserving knowledge, and to introducing students to the scholarship, theories, methods, and perspectives of their widely diverse disciplines. A liberal arts education develops transferable analytical skills — the capacity to gather and interpret information, think critically, and communicate effectively — and stimulates a lifelong love of learning that enriches graduates and their communities.

Fairmount College offers undergraduate majors in natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and programs of professional training. An education in these disciplines helps students develop knowledge and appreciation of our physical and biological world, the arts, and different cultures; and an awareness of civic responsibilities, as well as professional preparation. Fairmount College provides courses in basic skills, as well as general education, and courses required for graduation from other colleges at WSU. These provide students with skills that are intrinsically valuable and often fundamental to professional training and the needs of the workplace. (p. 126)

The Philosophy Department plays a central role in achieving these missions. By its very nature, philosophy, a foundational discipline in the liberal arts and sciences, promotes intellectual curiosity, fosters contemplation of the human experience, encourages an understanding of the natural world, and develops tools for life-long learning. The Philosophy Department at WSU endorses these disciplinary ideals and has developed its courses to meet them. The department emphasizes high quality teaching and learning. All courses in the department emphasize the development of critical analytical reasoning skills which can be applied to all fields or endeavors, and the transferablity of these skills is a leitmotiv of departmental offerings. The department provides a rigorous major in Philosophy, one of the core areas in the humanities. Through its courses in moral issues, bio-ethics, ethical theory, political philosophy, computer ethics, engineering ethics, ethics and psychology, etc., it helps students develop personal, civic, and professional responsibility. Its logic courses provide students with an intrinsically valuable basic skill with wide applications across the disciplines and in the workplace. The department offers a wide array of general education courses taken by students outside the major. The department provides courses which are required components for graduation from other colleges at WSU (specifically, the college of health professions and the college of engineering) and provides required courses for other departments within the college (psychology and computer science). Finally, our program provides students with skills that are intrinsically valuable and often fundamental to professional training.

The department promotes the college's and university's mission of "making original contributions to knowledge". Philosophy faculty are active scholars dedicated to creating, expanding, applying and preserving knowledge through their original research, publication, and presentations at meetings and conferences, and their refereeing/reviewing activities. Members of the department enjoy national and international reputations as experts in their fields.

The department supports the university's and college's mission of service and is actively involved in service at the university, community and professional level. Service activities run the gamut from delivering community lectures, teaching year-long courses at local high schools, organizing public interest conferences such as the Wichita Health Ethics Conference, serving on the boards of local organizations, serving on the Wesley Hospital Ethics Review Board, to serving as officers in national organizations. The department's outstanding service role has been recognized by receipt of three Presidential Distinguished Service Awards.

Program Goals and Objectives:

Specific goals of the Philosophy major include:

Providing students with a thorough grounding in the main issues, traditions, and positions in philosophy;

Developing critical analytical reading, writing and thinking skills;

Preparing students for post-graduate study.

Learner Outcomes:

Philosophy majors

will be well informed about philosophical traditions, issues, and positions

will have developed strong critical, analytical reading, writing and thinking skills; in particular, they will be able to:

distinguish relevant from irrelevant matters

assess evidence

distinguish between factual and non-factual issues

distinguish between evaluative and non-evaluative issues

interpret complex, sophisticated material

think logically

will be well prepared to pursue post-graduate education

Assessment of Program: The Philosophy Department employs a number of measures in assessing its program.

(1) The department maintains a portfolio of syllabuses, handouts, paper assignments and exams for all courses. These are updated each semester. We also maintain a portfolio of representative student papers and exams from courses. Both portfolios are reviewed each year by the department assessment committee. These portfolios are also reviewed by our external reviewers.

(2) The department is reviewed by an external evaluator every five years. The reviewer is selected by Associate Vice President for academic Affairs, Martha Shawver, in consultation with the Philosophy Department Chair. The external evaluator reviews the portfolios of course materials and student work, conducts individual and small group interviews with students, attends classes, meets with the LAS Dean, interviews all members of the department, and reviews student evaluations of teaching effectiveness.

(3) The department maintains a record of graduate placements in law schools and graduate programs.

(4) The department conducts a detailed survey of its graduates.

Feedback Loop: Results of these assessment activities are disseminated in various ways.

(1) The department assessment committee reviews the portfolios each spring and reports its findings to the department as a whole in a spring assessment meeting, usually late April or early May. The portfolios are available at any time to be reviewed by any member of the department who wishes to do so.

(2) The external reviewer's written review is distributed to all department members and the dean upon receipt.

(3) The record of graduate placements is maintained by the chair who reports on annual placement success at the spring assessment meeting.

(4) The chair conducts the periodic survey of graduates. To maintain confidentiality and anonymity, we do not send out the survey unless we have a pool of ten graduates so we do not conduct the survey each year. When we have a pool of at least ten recent graduates, the chair mails out the survey, collects the responses and tabulates the results. This information is disseminated at the annual assessment meeting. The survey instruments are kept in the chair's office and are available to be reviewed by any faculty member.

(5) If the assessment materials indicate that changes are appropriate, possible revisions to the program are considered at the spring assessment meeting.