Tuning History to Increase Introductory-Level Course Enrollment

Our four introductory courses double as General Education courses.  We are not alone in teaching The US to Civil War, The US Since the Civil War, and World Civ. I and II.  The History curriculum at our university changed little over the past few decades.  Our courses were always over-subscribed.  We hired adjuncts to teach the overflow.  In the past few years however, we have been hit hard by three related developments.  First, the university built large classrooms and tripled our course sizes.  Second, a new General Education program ceased to require History courses.  Third, College of Education enrollments declined.  Our enrollments crashed.

This presentation explains how we diagnosed this problem and responded to it. Guided by the insights of the Tuning process, we returned our focus to the skills as well as the knowledge of History.  We reduced course sizes back to their levels before the large classrooms.  We partnered with other departments such as English, Art, and Science to develop classes that met their specific needs, and we partnered with the Center for Academic Success and Achievement that was tasked with improving retention.  We applied the lessons of the Tuning Project to the creation of multi-semester courses that have allowed us to stretch out the learning curve for higher-level skills, and to build familiarity between students and faculty.  All of this has required our department to significantly increase our levels of activity and our administrative capacity.  In this presentation I will explain how we carefully planned, muddled, fudged, and creatively ad libbed our way through.