External Review Summary
Speech Communication Department
University of La Verne
January 9, 2017
Dr. Gordon Stables
University of Southern California
Introduction
Thank you for the opportunity to meet with and review your Speech
Communication Department. It was a pleasure to meet with your faculty and students. At
the conclusion of my visit I provided an interim report and this, more comprehensive
report, summarizes my complete findings. I utilize seven characteristics to organize the
information: educational effectiveness, curriculum, student experience, faculty, program
administration, self-study and overall program summary. The evidence for my findings is
based on the documents your faculty provided, including the Program Review, meetings
with faculty and students and finally my observations. Please let me know if you have
any additional questions.
1. Educational Effectiveness
The Program Review (p. 4-5) identifies four learning outcomes for graduates of
the Speech Communication Department:
1. Be able to critically examine communication theory and research
2. Demonstrate oral communication skills in a variety of contexts
3. Become knowledgeable about multicultural perspectives in communication
4. Experience individual growth and develop connections with other University of
La Verne students
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These represent a broad, but well-grounded approach to consider how students will grow
through their communication education. They also provide an index of the major
curricular points of emphasis in department’s academic plans. The faculty were quite
candid that the transition of translating these broader outcomes into specific directives
has been challenging. These challenges include gaining formal approval for the specific
evaluation instruments. I was able to review course evaluation data, but at the time of the
visit, no learning outcome data was available for review. My understanding is that this
data will begin to be produced within this academic year.
As the department moves ahead with its plans, this data should be utilized as a
baseline to assess how specific courses reinforce each of these goals. The goals
themselves can also be reviewed in order to maximize their utility. Specifically,
additional consideration should be given to the relationship between oral communication
competency and analytic processing competencies. Many public speaking classes,
including those including in your curriculum, contain aspects of both sets of skill
development. Exploring how students learn both to improve the effectiveness of their oral
communication and their ability to discern elements of reasoning can provide a way to
link oral communication courses to the department’s broader goals of seeking to enhance
critical thinking. The linkage between oral communication and reasoning skills is at the
core of a debate education and it seems logical that that ULV will continue to be
interested in ensuring that debate and forensics experiences are assessed as part of the
department’s learning outcomes.
The department should also consider utilizing common outcomes that promote
communicative competencies across academic experiences. The breadth of the
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department’s educational contexts has evolved faster than these unit criteria. As the
department’s data collection process becomes more routine it would benefit the school to
ensure that each co-curricular and extra-curricular setting are properly represented in
these learning outcomes.
Course evaluation data was available in raw form. It would benefit the department
to organize this data into specific benchmarks to help inform curriculum and personnel
decisions, such as compiling averages per course and over academic terms. My review of
the data reinforces the positive anecdotal reviews I heard from students. Typically
elective courses will be highly rated and required or general education courses will have
less favorable ratings. In the Speech Communication data, even these core required
classes were very well-rated with means commonly in the 3.8 – 3.9 range. No course or
individual instructor stood out as a significant departure from these high standards. This
data reinforces that the faculty’s vision and commitment to excellent instruction is being
recognized and appreciated by their students.
2. Curriculum
The Speech Communication department’s curriculum is organized around a clear
service mission to the university. The Public Speaking course in particular is a defining
experience and it currently comprises between 40% - 60% of department’s the Fall and
Spring semester enrollment and 80-95% of the January term enrollment. Beyond this core
experience, there is an opportunity to revisit the department’s curricular goals. The dual
leadership transitions of Dr. Flora’s departure from ULV and Professor Lising to an
Associate Dean have left a gap in the department’s ability to review and adjust its
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strategic plans. Evidence of the curricular implications can assessed when reviewing past
curricular reforms. The last comprehensive curriculum embraced a model where, beyond
oral communication, the department emphasized three curricular competencies: rhetorical
analysis, interpersonal/ intercultural communication, and group/leadership
communication. At the time, this represented both external curricular trends and ULV
personnel. None of those judgments are facially invalid today, but there is a need for the
current faculty to deliberate about these elements and revisit this identity both as it relates
to curriculum and future faculty hiring. Faculty continue to innovate and build valuable
and engaging courses, such as the SPCM 490 Special Topics – Food Communication,
which contains very valuable instruction about SNAP/ food security programs. Similarly,
SPCM 360 - Leadership Communication is nicely structured and provides an opportunity
to teach students skills needed to manage difference in a range of settings. Faculty are
already considering if this class should have an inter-cultural course requirement. Such a
requirement might further enhance the course’s significant role in meeting universitywide service requirements.
It may be valuable to explore how each of these core competencies provides
specific learning outcomes and how they comprise the requirements of the major (and
minor) as well as the development of elective courses. Even if the faculty affirm the same
foundation of these three elements, the process of revisiting these foundations will
provide an opportunity to revisit current classes and how they function in this framework.
The opportunity to observe a number of classes and to speak with students and
faculty about these classes also raised a number of interesting questions.
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Could the forensics programs (debate, mock trial, poetry slam) be engaged
through a co-curricular course sequence? These programs already have a range of
curricular relationships and a clearer model might better allow faculty to support specific
educational goals.
What role can/ should online educational play? In my review of course offerings I
noticed that, at times, both SPCM 100 (Public Speaking) and SPCM 210 (Interpersonal
Communication) have been taught as online courses. These courses continue to be
offered as single online sections, even as traditional on-campus sections are also offered
each semester, through the 2015-2016 academic year. There were no clear standards or
documentation about what role online education could or should play in the degree
program. The faculty and school leadership should examine the role of online education,
especially as it relates to teaching loads, academic credit and other fiscal dimensions.
These examples represent just a few cases of how a broader curriculum review
would benefit the Speech Communication department. The fundamental design remains
quite strong, but the department would benefit from a clear consensus about curricular
goals.
3. Student Experiences And Learning Environment
Beyond the traditional classroom environment, students at La Verne have the
distinct opportunity to take part in a range of co-curricular and extra-curricular
experiences, including Debate, Slam Poetry and Mock Trial. Students were very positive
about each of the faculty we discussed, but the faculty leaders of these programs,
Professors Ruiz and Allison both earned strong praise. Professor Allison’s program does
an excellent job of introducing legal education to students who might not otherwise be
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considering such a career. Even as national trends discourage legal education, the Mock
Trial students are getting a valuable experience and are receiving excellent instruction.
ULV’s debate program should be a source of pride across ULV. The program has built a
national reputation and it is one of the most visible British Parliamentary debate
programs in the region, if not the United States. Professor Ruiz is extending ULV’s
reputation for excellence in debate education.
Each of these programs has some unique aspects, but there is also utility in
considering some of the common programmatic elements. The unifying term, Forensics,
comes from Aristotle’s genre of speech settings and is used as an umbrella term at many
universities. My title as the faculty director of debate and speech related programs at
USC, for example, includes, “Director of Forensics.” There are rationales for the specific
programs to operate independently, but the department should consider the programs’
commonalities. The department’s self-study highlights some of the administrative
challenges related to each program and these challenges would be easier to address with a
common set of criteria. Each Forensics event could be layered to provide student
environments at each range of experience and time investment.

Purely curricular – Courses offered to teach students the basic skills facilitated by
each Forensics event.

Co-Curricular (campus/ community) – Settings provides for students to practice
their skill acquisition in either intermural or local settings.

Co-Curricular (traveling) – A more selective level of student engagement that
prioritizes student commitment and preparation. This level will require
challenging decisions about allocation of travel funds from the faculty director, so
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there should be clear guidelines on how the specific setting provides a unique
experience, such as international recognition or national championships. There
may be utility in identifying distinct curricular opportunities for students who
have demonstrated advanced skills. This is especially true for Debate, which has
enrolled from 7% - 21% of all students per semester in its single SPCM 350
course over the last few years.
Identifying these dimensions will help inform the personnel and financial decisions to
needed to manage each program. Meetings with students and faculty confirmed that each
forensics program had specific goals, plans and levels of participation. Each specific
program has its own history and these decisions are largely understood as unique and
distinct. Greater transparency and clarity of decision-making criteria will assist the
department in administering these programs. A few specific dimensions that should be
considered, include:
Should the Department embrace a unified Forensics program model?
If the Department designated a unified Forensics umbrella, under which Debate,
Mock Trial and Poetry Slam would be governed, it could articulate standards for
distribution of funding, explain which competitions deserve specific funding and, perhaps
most importantly, allow each student and faculty member involved with the individual
programs to be share their common experiences. Conversations with students and faculty
reinforced the importance of La Verne’s tiered model of funding student programs. A
more unified model would allow the department to best promote its perspective to
potential funding partners, including private fund-raising sources and the Student Board.
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This unified program could retain the unique brands of each program, but then represent
a unified voice with partners, such as the proposed Alumni Board.
Should each of these programs possess a clear curricular foundation?
Both Debate (SPCM 350) and Mock Trial (SPCM 490) have a curricular offering
that allows any student to join these programs and gain formalized instruction. This
model both provides a clear instructional design and a rationale for faculty engagement.
As resources, both personnel and financial, are dedicated to forensics programs, there is a
consistency to utilizing curricular support as a foundation for extra-curricular investment.
Should the debate experience be organized into a multi-course sequence?
In discussions with Professor Ruiz, there are several possible models of how
faculty can support the large number of debate students. Because students can repeat
SPCM 350 for academic credit, the department already has created pathways for distinct
student experiences. Due to its large number of students enrolled, debate may be well
positioned to formally differentiate curricular and co-curricular offerings. In this way the
courses could formally represent the layered tiers of student engagement.
How should Slam Poetry be incorporated within the department?
The Slam Poetry team represents a unique program within the department. At first
glance Slam Poetry appears similar to the other forensics programs. It offers students an
opportunity to work collaboratively in an environment that encourages them to hone their
oral and performative skills. The Slam Poetry students I met were very engaged with the
team and enjoyed the opportunity to represent the university in these competitions.
Unlike the debate and mock trial teams there are no clear curricular slam poetry
foundations. Those teams utilize courses as a way to build a foundation for how students
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are trained and how students matriculate from beginner participant to advanced student
leader.
As the department identifies it core goals and maximizes programs that advance
those interests, it would be appropriate to consider if a curricular linkage could and
should be built to poetry-based skills. The oral dimensions certainly offer a parallel
design. A course-based model would also allow the department to organize faculty
responsibilities. At present, the Slam Poetry program does not have the same level of
direct faculty engagement as the other programs. Offering dedicated courses would help
organize faculty responsibilities for this team. This matter will become more pressing as
the justifications for dividing travel funding across the programs are reviewed each year.
If the department cannot or choses not to make these investments of courses and
dedicated faculty leadership, the department should consider if the Slam Poetry team
justifies the current utilization of personnel and material resources. There are several
dozen forensics events across college and most universities choose to participate in just a
few. Each university selects those formats and events that it deems as most appropriate
and effective for its students. The decision to not participate in a specific format is not a
rejection of the value of that format, just a decision that other formats better reflect the
vision of a specific academic institution.
The absence of a strong curricular foundation also has a relationship to the
challenges facing national Slam Poetry competitions. Aside from the national event
(CUPSI or the College Unions Slam Poetry Invitational), there is not a clear regional
association of schools or a pattern of local competition. Other forensics events utilize this
regional format as a way to allow member schools to build a local peer network. As this
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CUPSI national circuit matures it will require faculty leadership to ensure that the core
educational visions matches the goals of member institutions. The current ULV student
competitors were quite clear that there is an ongoing tension between the pedagogy of
promoting student voices and promoting competition. This is very common in forensics
events and it is an important aspect of how faculty lead these programs. ULV’s faculty
should be engaged about how Slam Poetry can help balance personal development,
ethical and competitive goals. These issues remain at the heart of the thorny issues that
face universities.
Should the Public Speaking be adjusted to include dedicated sections for non-native
English speaking students?
In my meetings faculty also discussed the number of international students who
enroll in communication courses, particularly public speaking. As they discussed the
student experience it became obvious that those students who are now learning English as
an additional language may have distinct challenges in the course. These observations
were anecdotal, but faculty did recognize that there might be enough such students to
devote distinct sections of the course. This approach would allow customized educational
experiences and best support the integration of international students into the ULV
campus community.
Can the Department Better Promote its Graduation and Retention Rates?
My meetings with faculty and students also provided interesting observations
about the department’s role in graduation and retention. Nationally there is tremendous
interest in ensuring that each university retains the students they admit and then graduate
them in a timely manner. My conversations suggested that students taking part in Speech
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Communication programs were very committed to the institution and that these
experiences were supporting their effort of graduating on time. There is national evidence
suggesting that forensics and debate education has these kinds of effects across a range of
educational settings. No data was available on graduation rates within the Speech
Communication department or for the forensics related groups. It may be valuable to
identify this data for majors as well as for students enrolled in forensics programs, across
four, five and six year cohorts. Faculty were also enthusiastic about La Verne’s
recognition as a Hispanic Serving Institution. No data were available about the
demographic breakdown within Speech Communication, but this information might be
another valuable point of comparison when reviewing future learning assessment data.
4. Faculty: Adjunct and Fulltime
I had the opportunity to speak with a number of Speech Communication faculty
and their commentary was generally supportive of the department’s overall operations.
These discussions helped to generate a number of potential action items related to the
faculty experience.
Consider utilizing activity reports to help identify essential tasks and goals.
Faculty discussed a wide range of activities from course development, extracurricular coaching, and student mentorship. As much as faculty seemed very invested in
these tasks there was less agreement on the process by which these tasks were organized
or evaluated. A number of faculty identified individual projects that were assigned based
on the need to compensate for work done by faculty who were not currently available or
at the university. A streamlined series of annual activity reports would allow the
department and faculty to each identity and prioritize those most important tasks and
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identify the means of assessment. These reports would also provide a basis for
development plans for full-time faculty, especially outside of the tenure process.
Clarify nomenclature and longer-term planning with faculty aside from tenure.
Faculty reported a high level of engagement, regardless of their contract status as fulltime, part-time, tenure-track or contract faculty. All faculty, including adjunct faculty,
seemed well-engaged in the routines, governance, and academic culture. These
discussions highlighted that nomenclature challenges remain, especially to offer clear
demarcation of rank, nature of appointment, and full or part-time status. This matter can
be best understood as the faculty community lacked easily accessible terms to
differentiate these concepts. As more institutions possess substantial numbers of nontenure track faculty clarifying these terms is an important way of further developing a
productive organizational culture. A valuable goal is to decide on a positive term (rather
than ‘non-tenure’) such as clinical faculty or ladder faculty. These terms would also
facilitate the department’s longer-term planning such as the department’s goals for fulltime faculty versus the role of part-time adjuncts to teach individual courses. The current,
limited terminology hampers these discussions when adjunct faculty are described as
those even with multi-year relationships with ULV and those whose faculty work
represents more of a functional full-time experience. Certainly there are formal
restrictions based on the university’s contract requirements, but there is also room to
clarify these divisions so that they department can better utilize the entire faculty to their
optimal roles.
Develop a distinct vision for the Director of Forensics position.
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Due to the multiple transitions, Professor Ruiz is now serving both as the faculty
supervisor for the debate program and the Interim Department Chair. As the department
eventually moves toward a permanent chair, it would also be a valuable time to consider
the optimal role for the Director of Forensics (DOF). As discussed earlier in this report,
the Forensics program label would be a means of unifying the operational planning for all
forensics related programs. Professor Ruiz is providing tremendous service for the
Department, but both of these roles occupy sizable investments of time even beyond
classroom teaching. This time allocation question is amplified with the requirements of
domestic and international debate travel. The degree of student support, both during
traveling and on-campus, highlight the need for distinct roles. A formal activity report
from faculty, especially the DOF, would help to produce clearer expectations, especially
about allocation of time.
The DOF should be understood as possessing the responsibility for the assessment of
each event according to the mission and goals of ULV. The DOF should also be
responsible to dictate the allocation of travel funding based on specific criteria. Each
Forensics program (debate, mock trial, and slam poetry) should engage faculty members
as advisors. The DOF can provide some of this direct support, but other faculty can and
should support these programs. These individuals can be recognized as advisors or
coaches within each program. Strong faculty interest is essential in helping each event
respect the balance between pedagogical and competitive goals. Faculty interest and
engagement should also be considered as one index of the activity’s appropriateness
within the department.
Identify the appropriate balance between faculty lines and classroom teaching
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Each department must seek a balance between the appropriate number of faculty
positions and the number of students served. The Speech Communication department has
dramatically increased the number of students it teaches over the past six years. From
2008-2010, the department averaged 355 student enrollments per year. That average is
now over 815 over the last five years and the most recent data provided (2014-15) peaked
with 922 student enrollments. The department has supported this level with a mixture of
adjunct and full-time instructors. The growth in the major and minor, along with the
strong enrollment for the General Education courses, suggest that future robust
enrollment is likely. ULV may want to consider additional full-time teaching support to
help ensure that the quality of instruction is consistent and strong.
5. Program Administration and Support
The department is operating a high level in providing teaching and service with its
students. Dr. Lising and Professor Ruiz both offer support to the department in a number
of roles and also are active in promoting a collegial and professional working climate. As
ULV determines the course of action for selecting a permanent Department Chair, the
school should also consider a process by which the interim chair and faculty can review
and adopt a vision for the Department’s priorities. The strong comity and collegial spirit
is helping to ensure that individual decisions are made in the best interest of the
department. To ensure the continuation of this strong working dynamic it would be
helpful for the Department to help identify its priorities and goals. This visioning process
would also allow for the department to identify programmatic goals across courses and
programs, such as promoting advocacy and empowerment across diverse communities. If
ULV considers alternate pathways for the speech communication department, this
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visioning process would also be a valuable means of ensuring that the new unit operated
with a clear sense of purpose.
The other structural issue worth exploring is the division of student advisement.
At present, these roles also find themselves spread across many of the same faculty
operating with heaver administrative or service loads. Reviewing both the goals academic
advisement, such as the earlier discussion of graduation and retention rates, and the
specific workload, such as number of students served per semester, will help ensure that
this role is shared and implemented each year.
6. Self Study and Proposed Changes
The department’s self-study was generally insightful and helpful about identifying
useful potential steps. Many of these items are, at least partially discussed in earlier
sections.
Faculty Recruitment and Development
The department has grown across several metrics of student enrollment, even
alongside regular faculty turnover. This review suggests that the visioning process for the
department should be in place prior to the specific determinations of new faculty
members. The self-study recommends the continued embrace of the three primary tenets:
Rhetorical Analysis Interpersonal/Intercultural Communication, and Group/Leadership
Communication. Those tenets should be validated by curricular emphasis alongside longterm faculty investment. The review of these dimensions will also facilitate the
production of the faculty orientation and training procedures. The demarcation of the
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Department Chair and Director of the Debate (or Forensics) program will also free up
greater faculty time toward these faculty development goals.
Multiyear Scheduling
The department’s current plans appear on pace to implement a multi-year
schedule. This planning would benefit from clarity on ULV goals about the number of
students earning a major, minor or enrolled in the department’s General Education
courses. Identifying targets for these populations will help influence the possible number
of elective courses that should be offered.
Funding for Debate, Slam Poetry, and Mock Trial Teams & Alumni Relations
The recommendation for a Forensics umbrella is an important mechanism toward
identifying a stable funding strategy. The Forensics umbrella, explained earlier, offers
several pathways for a more predictable and potentially expanded funding base. First, the
department can best appreciate the scope of all forensics programs in a unified
environment and best appreciate how funds should be allocated. The priorities should be
set by the department and faculty leadership based on factors including, fit within
departmental goals, curricular ties, number of students served, and efficiency of funding
utilization. The Director of Forensics can help to balance available funds and university
and department goals when soliciting and utilizing funding streams. The unified umbrella
can also help identify the mechanisms of working with non-departmental ULV revenue
sources such the campus activities board. Finally, the unified umbrella will help promote
long-term ties with ULV alumni. If the forensics programs continue to develop with
distinct and independent identities, it risks that future alumni will only identify with that
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narrow program. The umbrella model allows the forensics program to sustain long-term
identity with alumni, past, present and future, even if the program adjusts its
programming.
Department Name Change
The self-study’s recommendation to change the Department’s name from Speech
Communication to Communication Studies is consistent with larger trends in the field.
Our national organization, for example, shifted from the Speech Communication
Association to the National Communication Association in 1997. This shift would also
allow a more formal recognition for the role of communication theory, as found in many
current courses. The department may also be in a position to highlight its graduation and
retention accomplishments. My review of the material was preliminary and largely
anecdotal, but it does appear that Speech Communication retains and graduates ULV
students at very high levels. These features are important considerations for prospective
students and their families.
7. Overall Program Summary
The ULV Speech Communication is a high functioning department that offers a
large number of highly reviewed courses to students across the university. Students and
faculty both report generally positive experiences both with courses and the expanding
co-curricular debate, slam poetry and mock trial teams. The deeper review of
departmental practices suggests that the department is high functioning despite a nearconstant state of transition. Over the past few years, the dramatic leadership transitions
have required a series of interim and temporary arrangements. Many of these
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arrangements appear to be holding at present, such as several faculty members playing
multiple distinct roles, but these appear less than optimal as a long-term organizational
strategy.
From the available enrollment data, the department appears to be serving an
expanding number of students. I was not able review how these enrollments translate into
funding levels, but it does appear necessary for some form of new and stable
organizational plan to take hold. That organizational plan may include many of the items
in this report and also the creation of forward-looking goals, such as a new five-year plan
for the department. The strategic review and planning process would help to identify the
most essential new faculty lines and the greatest curricular priorities and align these
alongside broader ULV goals.
8.
Post-Script – Departmental Mergers
At the conclusion of discussions at ULV, the prospect of departmental mergers
was raised. I was not asked to review other departments at ULV, so this report cannot
speak to the efficacy of specific mergers. If the rationale for mergers was based on the
priority of attaching multiple tenure faculty lines, there is a foundation for how the
Speech Communication department is already well organized to continue to serve a large
service role. The current format of that service is largely, but not exclusively, focused on
differing approaches to oral communication. Any possible merger or restructuring would
do well to consider how this theme of service be applied to any other academic
professionals or curriculum brought into a new structure.
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If a restructuring were to occur, the visioning and strategic planning process
would be an essential early step. Allowing the new unit to develop a unified identity
would facilitate the faculty’s ability to thrive in this new design.
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