Department of History, University of Nevada, Reno

Strategic Plan, 2003[*]

 

 

1.  Departmental Vision and Background

 

The Department of History of a publicly funded, land-grant university has several important missions.  At UNR, we impart an understanding of the past as a vital force shaping the present and the future.  We serve the public by extensive research, teaching, and scholarly publications in fields that are important to audiences from the local to the international.  We enrich our analysis through interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and theoretically informed examination of the past.  We unite our roles as scholars and public servants by organizing and participating in public forums and conferences in the wider community.

 

Our 15 tenure-track faculty members, as well as one visiting assistant professor and two postdoctoral fellows (hired due to reappointments of tenure-track faculty), teach curricula that lead to B.A., M.A., M.A.T. (Master of Arts in Teaching), and Ph.D. degrees in History.  We have approximately 120 undergraduate majors, 20 M.A. students, 10 M.A.T. students, and 10 Ph.D. students.  We provide high-quality undergraduate education for students far beyond our majors.  Every one of our faculty participates actively in the University Core Curriculum, making among the university’s most substantial contributions to Core Humanities, diversity courses, and capstone courses.  History courses are also required in many programs in the College of Education and in several other departments.  We promote critical, analytical, and writing skills, all urgently needed by students facing an uncertain and rapidly changing future. 

 

Over the past three years, we have built a vibrant partnership with K-12 education in northern Nevada.  Thanks to a $900,000 Teaching American History grant from the U.S. Department of Education, we have worked with the Washoe County School District to design a nationally recognized array of teacher institutes and other professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers.  We have also created a new graduate program, the Master of Arts in Teaching (2002), designed specifically for teachers in Washoe and surrounding counties.

 

We believe that our students and our community must grapple with the historical foundations and the implications of the global context in which we live – even more so in the wake of September 11, 2001.  Through the study of history, citizens develop deeper understanding of themselves and the outside world.

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Environmental Context and Departmental Accomplishment

 

Introduction.  The fundamental context for all our planning efforts is the strategic planning that the Department of History began fourteen years ago.  This process has occurred in four major stages:

 

  • First master plan, “The Future of History” (1991-92): established the curricular vision that has guided us ever since, focusing on cultural history and methods; recommended areas for faculty hires (completed 1992-95); initiated revision of the graduate program (1993-94).
  • Second master plan (1995): initiated revision of the undergraduate program, emphasizing skills of historical thinking and writing; began the process that led to a senior thesis/project requirement (1999) and to our undergraduate assessment plan (2002).
  • Program review (1997-98), including self-study and external peer review: recommended creation of the M.A.T. program (2002); noted deficiency in operating budget (remedied fall 2003); identified potential issues of workload equity (addressed 2001 and evaluated 2003).
  • Third master plan (spring 2001): addressed recommendations of program review. Proposed modifications in undergraduate curriculum including a required 300-level historical research/writing course for majors (inaugurated fall 2003); increased 200-level offerings (five new 200-level courses added since 2001); and increased cross-listing with interdisciplinary programs (now done regularly).  Described initiatives for development of national reputation and community visibility.  Established priorities for faculty hires, two of which (in American ethnic/African American history and U.S. thought and culture 1870-1945) were completed in 2002.  Other hiring priorities included one anticipated retirement (now tentatively 2007); a new position in global (colonial/postcolonial studies); and four potential joint hires with other departments. Several of these priorities are explained further in this document.

 

Throughout this process, we have made clear decisions about the areas in which we seek to build our strengths, and about the means of doing so: reallocation of faculty lines (not simply replicating fields taught by retiring colleagues), undergraduate and graduate curricular development, and outreach.  At every stage, we have implemented the recommendations of our planning processes.

 

Disciplinary Context.  Several recent developments within the academic discipline of History shape our vision.  Above all, History departments nationwide are recognizing the need to focus on global concerns.  Between 1989 and 1999, student enrollments nationwide in history courses that cover “areas outside of the United States and Europe” rose nearly 56%; the number of such courses rose 35% (Perspectives: American Historical Association Newsletter, November 2000).  Indeed, the New York Times reported on November 12, 2003, on the increasing student interest in African history and universities’ attempts to meet that demand. 

 

Moreover, an emergent new model for global history differs from an older emphasis on “area studies” that dealt with discrete parts of the world and often served to balkanize the study of non-Western regions (see Stephen Kotkin, “A World War Among Professors,” New York Times, September 7, 2002).  Increasingly, History departments are developing courses that emphasize interconnectedness and diversity among and within regions, and they are hiring scholars who can help develop such courses.  The focus of such courses can take numerous forms: colonial/post-colonial history (the relations among former colonies and former colonizers); the history of international relations; international cultural exchange and power; world economic systems.

 

Over the past dozen years, guided by our initial Master Plan (1991-1992), we have become a nationally recognized department in several increasingly important areas within our discipline.  That Master Plan recommended that we concentrate our hiring in cultural history; as a result, we now have one of the strongest collections of cultural historians in the nation: a group that includes cultural historians of Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the United States.  We have also built strong specializations in important sub-fields, notably the history of science and medicine (three faculty members and a postdoctoral fellow) and environmental history (two tenured faculty and one visiting assistant professor). 

 

We have significantly raised our national profile in research.  Recent and forthcoming faculty books include publication by Harvard University Press, University of North Carolina Press, Indiana University Press, University of New Mexico Press, Ohio University Press, University of Minnesota Press, Longman; and in such major national and international journals as the Journal of Social History, Sixteenth-Century Studies, The Russian Review, and La Bibliofilia.  History faculty have won competitive fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), among many others.  We are also active as editors of colleagues’ work at many levels: our faculty includes editors of a recent international history of medicine across cultures, of the comprehensive history of the book in the United States, and of the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly.  Faculty members have won national and international awards for their publications and for service to the profession.  We are regularly asked to review the work of other historians: for publication in major journals, for fellowships and grants, and for promotion and tenure at other institutions. 

 

We have come far from the department of fifteen years ago, notably by making careful choices about fields of hiring.  Our department once included a host of generalists (a professor who taught Latin American and Asian history; another who taught Russian, German, and Middle Eastern history; another who taught African and African American history).  To build our research strength and our national profile, we have sought specialists – as do all major universities.  The result is a department stronger than it has ever been.  The department has made choices in the name of excellence: We could not with a fixed number of faculty positions replace all the areas once covered by a generalist faculty.  Nor is it the case that (for example) a first-rate scholar of Russian history will also be an accomplished historian of the Middle East.  In order to fulfill the imperative to focus on global studies and maintain the quality of our scholarship and teaching, we must hire specialists in the areas of the world about which we want our students to know.

 

Partnership with K-12 Education.  In 2001, Congress appropriated $50 million to create the Teaching American History (TAH) grant program in the U.S. Department of Education.  Through TAH grants, school districts work with universities to develop history-content-rich professional development for K-12 social studies teachers.  Since 2001, this appropriation has grown to $100 million annually.  In partnership with Washoe County School District, our Department of History seized the opportunity to apply for one of the inaugural grants in 2001 – and was awarded $900,000 for a three-year Teaching American History Program (TAHP). 

 

In the two years since, our faculty have developed and run an array of programs for social-studies teachers in Washoe and surrounding counties: credit-granting Institutes every spring and summer; a series of Saturday Seminars on specific historical topics, including nationally prominent guest speakers; three-day Primary Source Workshops; Saturday Dialogues in History directed by our faculty; Book Clubs in which teachers discuss recent scholarly works with a UNR faculty facilitator.  More than 100 teachers have participated in TAHP programs, creating a vibrant community that did not previously exist among local social-studies teachers.  Teachers in TAHP programs have developed curriculum units and lesson plans – all placed on the TAHP website (www.washoe.k12.nv.us/americanhistory/) for the use of other teachers.

 

Our TAHP has been recognized nationwide, especially for the role that the University has played and for our M.A.T. program.  Most school districts that were awarded grants, it seems, have encountered difficulty building partnerships with universities, and have therefore hewed to a narrow range of professional development programs.  Other districts are beginning to use our programs as models.  Northern Nevada teachers who have developed curriculum units in our TAHP have presented their work at national conferences.

 

This unexpected challenge – and success – has energized our faculty to work with K-12 teachers year-round.  It also presents new challenges.  For the first two years (2001-2003), one faculty member worked with WCSD personnel to write the grant and coordinate all of UNR’s participation, from faculty involvement to logistics.  Currently, the department chair has assumed that role and will work with WCSD this spring to write a grant proposal for 2004-2007.  Although a small stipend is attached, this responsibility is taxing: it is an overload, on top of one’s teaching, research, and service commitments.

 

Enrollment Trends and Student Objectives.  On the whole, our enrollments have outpaced the University’s growth (based on data from Institutional Analysis).  Over the past two years, FTE in History courses has grown by 16.2% (15.9% in undergraduate courses, 18.7% in graduate courses), in comparison to the university’s overall 10.3% increase.  Moreover, the same period has witnessed a 23.5% increase in enrollment in Western Traditions/Core Humanities, in which History faculty and teaching assistants play a major role.

 

Within History, undergraduate enrollments in all areas of the curriculum have grown.  Particularly noteworthy are enrollments in Latin American and Asian history, where survey courses draw between 40 and 100 students and upper-division courses often exceed 35.  Nearly all of these courses fulfill the Core diversity requirement; the demand also demonstrates our students’ interest in areas of the world beyond the US and Europe.

 

A degree in History equips students for a variety of careers.  Some of our majors envision graduate work in History (recent graduates have gone on to programs at the University of Arizona, Tulane University, the University of Oklahoma, and elsewhere); others intend to pursue teaching careers in middle-school or high-school social studies.  The skills acquired in the study of History – especially in a program such as ours, with an explicit focus on historical thinking skills – enable students to pursue a variety of other careers: for example, law, public service, writing and editing, international relations.

 

University and System Strategic Planning.  Several initiatives described in the UNR Strategic Plan (2001) and the UCCSN Strategic Plan (2002) have particular relevance to the Department of History.  The Board of Regents’ plan emphasizes “that all students have an opportunity to increase their understanding of other cultures through [institutions’] educational programs and activities”; similarly, the UNR plan echoes its mission statement on “ethnic and cultural diversity” and goes further, to call for “recruit[ing] faculty who are qualified to teach world traditions courses.”  The Regents also make “partnerships with the K-12 system” one of their six paramount goals.  Several other emphases of the UNR plan are central to our Department’s mission: the emphasis on environmental studies aligns well with our long-standing strength in environmental history (three faculty in this area); one of our postdoctoral fellows has helped organize the proposed center (currently consortium) in Gender and Identity Studies; and we look forward to working with the proposed consortium/center in Global Studies.

 

Excellence in teaching, emphasized throughout the UNR and UCCSN priorities, is a hallmark of the Department of History.  The University has recognized this strength, honoring six of our fifteen faculty as winners or runners-up for the College or University teaching awards, three within the past five years.  Equally important as a standard for student learning, recent discussion among chairs of History departments nationwide (on the American Historical Association chairs’ list-serve) has emphasized students’ skills in historical thinking and analysis – rather than mastery of particular bodies of factual information – as the basis for meaningful assessment.  We have been ahead of the profession in this focus, developing in the mid-1990s a template of historical thinking skills at the heart of our teaching and our learning expectations.

 

The emphasis on undergraduate research opportunities, in both the UCCSN and the UNR strategic plans, dovetails with our own endeavors of the past five years.  All History majors now write a senior thesis (History 499, instituted 2001).  As of fall 2003, majors also take a required course in Historical Research and Writing (History 300), designed to prepare them for the rigorous expectations of upper-division work and especially the thesis.  These requirements are central to our assessment plan (approved in 2002).  They build students’ mastery of our skills-based curriculum and ultimately afford students the opportunity to demonstrate that accomplishment in a significant work of scholarship (written thesis and oral presentation), which is evaluated by the faculty.  Mentoring undergraduate thesis students requires an intensive commitment of faculty time, particularly because the thesis topics are often far removed from the mentor’s own research areas.

 

Above all, the Core Curriculum – one of the four highest priorities of the UNR plan – relies heavily on the Department of History, and we look forward to the opportunity to continue shaping its development.  Most of our faculty and teaching assistants teach in Core Humanities: generally eight faculty serve as lecturers every year (approx. 600 students); eight faculty and eight graduate students teach a total of twenty-four discussion sections (approx. 480 students).  We offer more Diversity courses than any other department on campus, and teach on average 6.5 such courses per year.  All of our faculty offer Capstone courses; we teach on average nine Capstones a year.  All of these are General (not majors-only) Capstones, attracting students from across the University’s colleges and programs.  We do not merely staff Core courses; we also have promoted innovation within the Core.  Our Core Humanities faculty have helped shape the curriculum of CH 202 and 203 by editing and frequently revising its primary-text readers, published by Pearson.  We consistently develop new Core courses: since 2001 alone, four new diversity courses and eleven new capstone courses.

 

 

3.  Departmental Goals

 

Our department identifies for itself the following general goals:

 

A. Maintain and deepen our excellence in research, and become known as a department for particular areas of scholarly depth.

B. Continuously strengthen our undergraduate curriculum, for majors and non-majors.

C. Contribute to our students’ and our community’s engagement with a global context.

D. Become known as a leader in university relationships with K-12 education.

E. Enhance departmental development efforts internally, locally, and nationally.

 

 

4.  Objectives and Strategies Associated with Department Goals

 

Two overriding strategies deserve primary mention.  Each contributes to multiple goals; for this reason, we describe them first, followed by objectives and strategies keyed to our specific goals.

 

Overriding strategy #1: Hire a tenure-track faculty member (new position) to specialize in colonial/post-colonial studies (the historical era and aftermath of colonialism in culture, politics, society, and economy).  The emphasis should be on Africa, Asia, and/or the Middle East, and should be on the colonized culture rather than on the metropole.  Applicants’ area of emphasis may be defined either by geographical region (e.g., post-colonial Africa; India), or by a common experience of imperialism (e.g., Algeria and Indochina as former French colonies). 

            Clearly, this position is vital to departmental goals B and C above (undergraduate curriculum; students’ and community engagement with global context).  This position will expand the Department’s offerings into new areas where otherwise no courses will be offered, and will also bring in new enrollment among students increasingly interested in Asia and Africa.  Virtually all of this person’s undergraduate teaching will be in the Core Curriculum, as he/she will develop new diversity and capstone courses.  He/she would will also coordinate and actively participate in the global history course that the Department is designing (specifics below).  The coordinator will administer this team-taught course, above all overseeing its curricular cohesion.  We also expect that the person hired will take a leading role in creating community forums related to international affairs.

            We envision this position also as an important element of enhancing our scholarly reputation and our linkages with K-12 education (goals A and D).  Colonial/postcolonial studies is a significant and growing area within historical scholarship, as well as within other fields (literature, sociology).  Hiring a specialist in this area will necessarily bring us a scholar with an international reputation and global colleagues.  We also expect that the person hired will become part of our efforts in K-12 education, with a mission to strengthen K-12 educators’ knowledge of the non-Western world.

 

Overriding strategy #2: Hire a tenure-track faculty member who will become the coordinator of our K-12 efforts and will contribute substantially to our research focus and curriculum.  As stated above, our success in building a partnership with K-12 education in northern Nevada has produced a new set of challenges: it particularly taxes the faculty member responsible for coordinating this partnership.  Should the Washoe County School District and the Department win a new DOE grant to continue the Teaching American History Program, we will need to plan for its coordination (departmental goal D).

            We envision a faculty position initially funded at .75 FTE, the remainder of the salary to come through the grant.  We would want to hire in the field of medical history and humanities, with an emphasis on America/United States, a position described in our 2001 Master Plan.  In this way, we will be accomplishing several of our goals.  First, we would build in an area of significant existing research strength (goal A): the history of science and medicine.  Currently, our three specialists in this field, three of our fifteen tenure-track faculty specialize in this field, an unusually strong concentration and a large number in a faculty of any size, include two historians of Europe and one of Asia.  Adding an American specialist of scholarly promise would make us a national leader in the field and allow us to promote our graduate offerings nationally.  Second, adding a colleague in this area would enhance our undergraduate curriculum (goal B) significantly in several ways.  It would help us develop a medical-history concentration that would be attractive not just to History majors, but for undergraduates in other areas (notably Health Ecology/Public Health in HCS) who might as a result choose a History minor.  This colleague would also make important contributions to the Core Curriculum: he/she would teach in Core Humanities 203 and would develop new capstone courses.  With support from Core Humanities, the position could eventually become a fully funded one, should TAHP grant funding expire after 2007.

 

 

Beyond these overriding strategies, we intend to approach each of the Department’s goals with a combination of specific objectives and strategies.  Many of these are ongoing objectives and strategies; where appropriate we have identified target dates for completion.

 

A. Maintain and deepen our excellence in research, and become known as a department for particular areas of scholarly depth.

 

Objective – Enhance the conditions for faculty research productivity.

 

  • Develop additional departmental funding sources for faculty research (contributions to John and Marie Noble Fund for Historical Research; research and/or equipment funding in operating budget).
  • Work at college and university levels to enhance opportunities for research funding (e.g., Scholarly Activities Pool).

 

Objective – Build the department’s reputation in particular areas of scholarly depth.

 

  • Cultural History – the broad area that we have since 1991 emphasized in making all faculty hires and in developing our undergraduate and graduate curricula.
  • Continue to emphasize this area in all recruitment of new faculty, regardless of geographic or chronological field.
  • Develop a proposal and seek funding to host a cultural history conference at UNR, which would showcase our faculty’s talents and expertise, serve as a forum for other national and international scholars, and offer our students additional learning opportunities (see History Master Plan 3, 2001).  (Target: conference in 2005-2006 academic year.)

 

  • History of Science and Medicine – see above.

 

  • Environmental History.
  • Collaborate with the emerging Institute for the Environment to enhance visibility of History’s strength in this field.
  • Host conferences, as appropriate, in environmental history topics (e.g., Water for the West Conference held here in 2002).

 

 

B. Continuously strengthen our undergraduate curriculum, for majors and non-majors.

 

Objective – Enhance UNR’s offerings in global history (see also goal C below).

 

  • Develop a team-taught, 200-level course in global history, which should emphasize interconnectedness among different regions of the world (i.e., not a traditional “world history” survey).  (Target: Offer course initially in spring 2005.)
  • Develop new upper-division courses in areas of the world not currently covered in our curriculum, e.g. Africa, South Asia, Middle East.  This depends upon hiring a specialist in one or more of these areas.

 

Objective – Develop particular curricular emphases designed to reflect departmental strengths and students’ career objectives.

 

  • Create a pre-law track within the Department of History.  (Target: 2004-2005 academic year.)
  • Review the undergraduate curriculum areas of concentration, to consider the desirability of adding several thematic concentrations (e.g., history of medicine and science).  (Target: fall 2004.)

 

Objective – Continue to refine the major requirements.

 

  • History 300 (Historical Research and Writing, inaugurated fall 2003): assess its effectiveness both internally and – over time – in contributing to student success in subsequent courses and the senior thesis (History 499).
  • History 499 (Senior Thesis): continue to develop effective assessment instruments, based on our undergraduate skills template.

 

Objective – Continue to participate actively in the Core Curriculum and its evolution.

 

  • Core Humanities: encourage its development in the direction of more global approaches.
  • Capstone and diversity courses: continue to develop new offerings, with the objective that all History faculty offer at least one capstone course.

 

Objective – Recruit the most outstanding candidates for all teaching, including LOAs.

 

  • Raise the LOA stipend from current $800/credit.  Clearly, it should be a university priority to raise these stipends, ideally to at least $1,200/credit for LOAs with terminal degrees.  The History Department has long had a policy that no course at the 200-level or above be taught by anyone without the Ph.D.  In the interim, we envision devoting operating funds to raise the stipends of state-funded LOAs, and requiring that LOAs financed through grants match the departmentally established rate of $1000/credit.

 

Objective – Publish our expectations for History students.

 

  • Create a web-based History student handbook, describing both requirements for majors and skills/standards for students in all History courses.  (Target: spring 2004.)

 

Objective – Recognize outstanding undergraduate achievement in History.

 

  • Create and raise endowment for an undergraduate thesis prize, to be awarded each semester.  (Target: fall 2004.)
  • Use the department newsletter (see E, below) to recognize students’ accomplishments: scholarships, awards, admission to graduate programs.

 

 

C. Contribute to our students’ and our community’s engagement with a global context.

 

Objective – Enhance UNR’s curricular offerings in global studies.

 

  • Create new faculty position in colonial/postcolonial studies (see above).  (Target: search in academic year 2004-2005, hire to begin fall 2005.)
  • Reallocate existing position in 20th-century US history (social/political/sports history), upon anticipated retirement (2007), to focus on the recent US in a global context (e.g., global impact of American culture; international relations), as described in our 2001-2002 Master Plan.  (Target: search in 2006-2007, hire to begin fall 2007.)

 

Objective – Enhance UNR’s co-curricular opportunities related to global studies.

 

  • Sponsor campus forums related to international and global issues.
  • Encourage study abroad.

 

Objective – Deepen understanding in northern Nevada of international and global issues.

 

  • Sponsor forums open to the community that showcase particular historical and contemporary issues and topics (e.g., the forum on “The Korean War 50 Years Later” sponsored by our Department in 2003).  (Target: at least one such forum every year, beginning with African issues in spring 2004.)
  • Make History faculty available for media contact on international issues (see E, below).

 

 

D. Become known as a leader in university relationships with K-12 education.

 

Objective – Continue our partnership in the Teaching American History Project with Washoe County School District.

 

  • Work with WCSD to write grant proposals for 2004-2007 DOE grant, subsequent DOE grants, and other potential funding opportunities.  (Target: write new grant proposal in spring 2004.)
  • Continue to lead TAHP Institutes, seminars, and other activities.

 

Objective – Seek out other avenues for work with K-12 education.

 

  • Work with faculty in the College of Education on collaborative projects (chapter of National Council for Social Studies, etc.).
  • Continue to develop the Master of Arts in Teaching degree program: assessment as the first cohort makes its way toward graduation; assessment of how M.A.T. education influences graduates’ classroom practice.
  • Participate in teacher institutes, professional development, etc., beyond the TAHP.

 

Objective – Gain national reputation for our efforts in K-12 education.

 

  • Publicize our endeavors in the TAHP and in other activities, including the Master of Arts in Teaching degree.
  • Participate in teacher institutes, teaching-related conferences, etc., on the regional and national level.

 

 

E. Enhance departmental development efforts internally, locally, and nationally.

 

Objective – Promote our courses and our Department more effectively within the University.

 

  • Create an improved Department website.  (Target: fall 2003.)
  • Hire a student worker (target: spring 2004) with primary responsibility for web development: update Department website regularly; assist faculty with web sites (e.g., WebCT for courses).
  • Collaborate with other departments, programs, and centers as appropriate: cross-listing courses, sponsoring guest speakers, participating in colloquia.

 

Objective – Raise our community profile, with an eye toward funding opportunities.

 

  • Create and advertise a regular series of public lectures by Department faculty who receive funding from the John and Marie Noble research endowment.  (Target: fall 2004.)
  • Ensure that faculty members and their areas of expertise be included in the UNR Media Guide, and work closely with the Office of Communications to provide historical context for contemporary issues.
  • Revive the Department’s annual newsletter, which is sent to undergraduate and graduate alumni and friends in the community.  (The newsletter was published during the mid-1990s, but suspended due to lack of funds and lack of administrative assistant’s time.)  (Target: fall 2004.)

 

Objective – Raise our Department’s profile within the discipline of History.

 

  • Develop a proposal and seek funding to offer a cultural history conference (see A, above).
  • Host selected regional conferences at UNR for organizations in which our faculty are active.
  • Seek funding for an endowment to host regular history symposia with prominent scholars, on the model of the Leonard series in Philosophy.  (Target: begin 2004-2005 academic year.)

 

 

 

5.  Resources

 

a. Personnel

 

  • 15 tenure-track faculty (one currently on .6 FTE; two currently Distinguished Professors in Core Humanities with reduced History teaching);
  • 1 visiting assistant professor; 2 postdoctoral fellows (because of reassignments of tenure-track faculty);
  • 10 state-funded graduate assistants assigned to History; 2 state-funded graduate assistants assigned through Core Humanities;
  • 1 classified staff.

 

b. Budgetary

 

Professional salaries and fringe:                                                             $  1,422,781

Classified salaries and fringe:                                                                             $       42,614

Graduate assistantships and fringe:                                                                     $     142,450

Departmental operating budget:                                                             $       27,587

Fund raising:                                                                                                            variable

John & Marie Noble Fund for Historical Research (endowment income):           $       13,000

Endowed scholarships:                                                                                      $       15,000

 

c. Space

Office space for faculty:                                                2607 assignable square feet (ASF)

Department office space:                                                 541 ASF

Graduate assistant offices:                                               463 ASF

Computer lab:                                                                   88 ASF

TOTAL:                                                                       3699 ASF

 

 

Resource Strategies: Operating Budget and Endowment Opportunities

 

Until fall 2003, our operating budget had been woefully inadequate to meet routine operating expenses.  We relied on the Core Curriculum to defray some photocopying expenses; on the College or the Faculty Senate to assist in computer funding; on a single administrative assistant to manage a department of 15 regular faculty, various other instructional staff, 40 graduate students, and 120 majors; and on the sacrifice and generosity of faculty to purchase teaching supplies themselves and defray research expenses from their own salaries.  Much did not happen: as administrative paperwork increased, we ceased to publish our department newsletter; we infrequently updated the department website.  The Department had regular operating funds neither for travel support of research nor for external speakers – the lifeblood of engagement with the discipline, for faculty and especially for undergraduate and graduate students.

 

A substantial increase in our operating budget this fall opens several new possibilities.  We will be able to cover our routine operating expenses.  We will offer limited operating support for research and create a fund for external speakers.  We will hire a student worker, who will have primary responsibility for updating the department website and assisting faculty with web materials for courses, thus decreasing our photocopying expenses.  This student worker will also perform light office work (photocopying, phone and walk-in reception) so that our administrative assistant can work on development efforts, including reviving the newsletter.

                                                           

In addition, the University’s new computer replacement fund will enable us to reduce the budget for computer equipment, much of which has been spent to purchase new computers for faculty with aged machines and to purchase upgraded operating systems to squeeze life out of barely functional machines.

 

We hope that our newsletter and related development activity will produce added discretionary funds.  Some of these funds would enhance existing endowments: our scholarship endowments, the John and Marie Noble Fund for Historical Research, the Richard and Sharon Davies endowment for graduate student research, and the Elsie Edwards Library Fund.  We currently have a small discretionary fund, generally used for celebrations of student accomplishment (lunch following senior thesis presentations, lunch to honor scholarship recipients).  New discretionary funds will be earmarked and endowed to support a senior thesis prize ($200-300/semester) and to support an annual symposium series (c. $1500/year).

 

 

Resource Strategies: Faculty Positions

 

We consistently reallocate positions to meet our strategic objectives.  Each Master Plan since 1991-1992 has re-envisioned anticipated retirement positions in accordance with developments in the discipline and curricular imperatives.  We have always followed those plans.  Since 2002, when History faculty have been named Distinguished Professors in the Humanities, we have hired postdoctoral fellows (funded by the Core Humanities grant) not merely to fill the curricular shoes of the professors who are teaching fewer History courses, but to begin addressing the hiring priorities in Master Plan 3 (2001-2002).  Thus our two current postdoctoral fellows are specialists in U.S. medical history/humanities and in colonial/postcolonial studies (African history).

 

Earlier in this strategic plan, the Department described three faculty positions it seeks to create over the next five years.  Two are new positions: colonial/postcolonial studies (our first priority) and medical history/humanities/K-12 coordinator (our second priority).  One is an essential retirement replacement in twentieth-century U.S. history, the area of our largest undergraduate and graduate student demand; in keeping with our goals, we will redefine that position in terms of “the United States in a global context.”  We anticipate that retirement in 2007, but none before then.  We are therefore requesting a head start toward our objectives, because we believe it is essential that the University give priority to global studies now and because our commitment to K-12 education, should we win another Teaching American History grant, justifies institutional support. 

 

On balance, the professional salaries of the requested new lines and reallocated position ultimately require less than $2,000 in additional funds after the retirement.  Depending on when the hires occur, they will require additional funds in earlier years.  Because devoting a constant operating budget to an increasing number of faculty would compromise our new financial health, we request a commensurate operating increase.  In 2003, that would be $1,500 per faculty member.

 

 

 

Reallocated position (Rank IV), as of fall 2007:        

            Position 10266 (U.S. 20th century):      $126,595 as of 2003

                                                                        $137,465 in 2006-2007, assuming annual 1-step merit (a modest estimate) & 2% COLA.

 

Positions requested (all Rank II):[†]

 

2005-2006                                                                                           salary               operating

Colonial/postcolonial studies (new)                                                        $    49,000       $1,500

K-12 Coordinator/

            Medical History & Humanities (initially .75FTE) (new)  $    36,750       $1,125

 

2007-2008

United States in a Global Context (replacement)                                    $    53,500                  

 

Positions requested, 2005-2008:                                                           $  139,250       $2,625

 

Less reallocation:                                                                                  $  137,465

 

Total funds requested                                                                            $      1,785       $2,625

 

 

Space:  In order to accommodate new faculty, we anticipate several shifts in our current space use.  Two small faculty offices are currently occupied by postdoctoral fellows and emeritus professors.  As of fall 2004, one will be occupied by a former UNR administrator returning to the department.  The other will become the office of the first new faculty member hired (colonial/post-colonial studies).  Should we hire the second new faculty member (K-12 coordinator/US medicine & science) prior to the anticipated retirement or the anticipated new space upon Getchell remodeling, one of our two graduate assistant offices will become a faculty office.  We have also inaugurated a policy in which faculty who are physically away from Reno (sabbatical, etc.) share offices with postdoctoral fellows or other temporary appointments.

 

At most, therefore, we envision very modest renovation costs (c. $3,000): slight upgrading of the offices to be converted, which we will absorb from our own funds.  When the Department gains additional space due to the Getchell remodel, we may require renovation funds; however, this is not anticipated in the scope of the current document (2003-2007).

 

 

6.  Performance Indicators

 

Overall

  • The planning process itself: Each Master Plan has assessed our achievement of the objectives delineated in previous plans, in the process of defining subsequent departmental priorities.  We anticipate writing our next Master Plan in 2005-2006, when we are also scheduled for Program Review.
  • External peer review and consultation with comparable programs elsewhere; American Historical Association data: e.g., enrollment trends in the discipline nationwide.

 

Excellence in Research

  • Faculty: Books and journal articles published in nationally and internationally significant journals and by major presses; recognition for innovative scholarship; service to the profession (leadership in organizations; book, article, grant review); grant applications and awards and/or recognition.
  • Department: Recognition received for particular areas of research strength within the Department.
  • Graduate program: Numbers of students; students’ professional development (fellowships and teaching awards, scholarly publications and conference papers, employment in History-related professions, use of graduate work to strengthen K-12 teaching [M.A.T.]); use of assessment to strengthen programs.

 

Undergraduate Curriculum

  • Numbers of majors and minors; access to required courses (History 300 and 499); use of assessment to strengthen programs.
  • New courses created to address disciplinary context and department and university goals; courses taught in the Core Curriculum (Capstone, Diversity, Core Humanities).
  • Student admission to graduate work in History or related disciplines; post-graduation employment in History-related fields; alumni surveys about post-UNR achievements related to students’ History education.

 

Engagement with a Global Context

  • Creation of new courses in global history.
  • Sponsorship of lectures, symposia, etc., for UNR and public audiences.
  • Number of History students participating in study abroad.

 

Relationships with K-12 Education

  • Grant awards to Washoe County School District for partnership with UNR Department of History.
  • Master of Arts in Teaching degree program: enrollments; graduation rate; use of M.A.T. education in graduates’ classrooms.
  • Faculty participation in K-12 institutes and other professional development activities; regional and national recognition of partnership with K-12 education.

 

Departmental Development Efforts

  • Regular updates of website; annual publication of newsletter.
  • Fund-raising for student awards (scholarships, thesis prize, etc.) and for speaker series.
  • Faculty consultation with media and community groups in areas of expertise.
  • Faculty collaboration with other UNR departments, programs, centers.

 

 


[*] Process: The core of this plan emerges from the Department’s most recent Master Plan (2001-2002; see below).  Our 2002 Strategic Plan described a process for subsequent Strategic Plans: a faculty committee appointed by the chair would review the most recent Master Plan and Strategic Plans to analyze progress toward stated objectives.  Thereafter Department faculty would write the current Strategic Plan, which must be reviewed and formally adopted by the full faculty.  This year’s committee included Barbara Walker chair), Andrew Nolan, and Hugh Shapiro; the Strategic Plan was drafted by department chair Scott Casper in consultation with that committee; the Department of History voted to adopt it on November 20, 2003.

[†] Salaries calculated based upon American Historical Association data for assistant professor salaries in History in public institutions 2002, with estimate of 4.5% yearly increase.  Fringe not included.