Assessing Diversity in Public Affairs Curricula: A Multi-Methodological Model for Student-Led Programmatic Self-Study

Abstract

Since the late 1960s, leading scholars have called for a greater emphasis on diversity and social equity in public affairs programs. For years, they have documented that even nationally prominent programs fail to fully prepare their students to serve diverse constituent publics. They have urged public affairs programs to engage in reflective self-study to determine curricular gaps and opportunities for improvement. In response to this discussion, a prominent school in the northeast (hereinafter “Large Urban”) undertook a triangulated self-study to determine the level of diversity content in its curriculum. The mixed methods investigation yielded quantitative and qualitative analyses of course descriptions and undergraduate and graduate syllabi, survey responses from nearly 300 undergraduate and graduate students, and informal, semi-structured interview data from a small group of self-selecting faculty members. The study revealed that some diversity topics were prominently featured across the curriculum (e.g., socioeconomic class), while others (e.g., sexual orientation) were nearly absent. The findings reflected the strengths of the school’s faculty, but also suggested potential avenues for new faculty hiring, professional development, and course improvement. More important, the project revealed the benefits of a studentled programmatic self-study. This article recounts that process and its results, describing a cost-effective and heuristic model for curricular self-assessment.

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Notes on contributors

Sarah E. Ryan

Sarah E. Ryan is an Empirical Research Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University. She is an M.L.S. candidate at Texas Woman’s University, and holds an M.A. in Interpersonal Communication, Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies, and Ph.D. in Rhetorical Criticism from Ohio University. In addition to her pedagogy and educational assessment scholarship, Dr. Ryan has published extensively on the topics of good governance and community rebuilding in Rwanda, including a 2012 article in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal entitled “Fulfilling the U. S. obligation to prevent exterminationism: A comprehensive approach to regulating hate speech and dismantling systems of genocide.”