Journal Assignment
Running head; Institutional Overview: Jamestown College
Institutional Overview: Jamestown College
Institutional Overview: Jamestown College
Deanna Buchanan
Southern New Hampshire University
Description of the institution
Jamestown College, a private learning institution based in Rhode Island, was incepted in 1975 and specialized in offering such courses like Business, Mathematics, Economics, Literature, and Science. The college is visionary and strives with the maintenance of its academic excellence through critical thinking, creativity as well as professionalism among its learners. The college is focused on the provision of conducive earning environment aimed to develop, declare and apply knowledge utilizing the programs that it offers.
The institution is best on certain goals or principles which forms the basis of its operations, and they include promoting the quality of academics, ensuring that the number of undergraduates enrolling for its programs goes up, ensure new instructional technology rises, putting forward and strengthening the curriculum of its programs, building and maintaining a sustainable fiscal policy, enhancing diversity in the institution, and ensuring globalization, among others (University of Jamestown, 2012).
It is good to note that the college is fully accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), through its Commission on Institutions of Higher Education (CIHE).
Description and history of the program
One of the programs offered in Jamestown College is Bachelor of Arts Mathematics. The program is under the School of Arts and Sciences whose Dean is Brian Keogh, Assistant Dean being Sandra Feeney and Steven Rand as an administrative assistant. This faculty of BA Mathematics is resourceful since it is endowed with professors some assistant while others are defunct. Among others are Fred J. Randall, Richard Blanchard, Thomas Jamison, John Vargas, Carol Vegas, Carl Anderson, Denise Matthews, and Samantha Green.
The distinguishing features of graduates enrolled in BA Mathematics include their problem-solving skills, ability to carry out computations and modeling, develop excellency in communication among the learners. Generally, the program aims at attaining several things such as; Relating mathematics with the daily problems affecting the society through the application of critical thinking skills developed during learning, acquire requisite knowledge that guarantees one admission to a graduate program or absorption to employment.
The program also helps students acquire knowledge of mathematical and technical aspects which are meant to adapt one to the dynamic environment and develop a strong understanding of analysis as well as experience that leads to the ability to solve problems and also reason logically.
Role/purpose of the program
The purpose or rather the role that this program offered by Jamestown College is wide and involve equipping students with knowledge and skills that are vital in society. The aim is for learners to be able to undertake computation through the application of mathematical concepts and models. Through the program, learners can also carry out problem-solving using parameters in mathematics and also carry out a representation of relations that exist in mathematics by using graphs as well as charts.
Learners will also gain the ability to offer advice to a large audience in terms of mathematical concepts as well as reasoning and creating understanding among them and apply the relevant software and technologies to develop mathematical models as well as in the analysis of quantitative data.
Opportunity for improvement
The demand for professionals in Mathematics across the globe is on the rise. It is increasing since the society is also experiencing an upward trajectory in problems which can adequately be analyzed, interpreted and answered through mathematical models, which calls for the institution to take advantage of this and trap the market by recruiting and producing more professionals in BA Mathematics. To attain this, the college has to focus on quality in terms of service delivery. The college has to maximize the feedback and make reliable and prompt responses to the feedback before the beginning of the following term. For example, as shown by data during term two students with ID number 141278 and undertaking BA MAT reported the need for each syllabus to be clear and more specific on what is expected; this calls for the college to be responsive and find a way of aligning its syllabus to meet the learners' demand. The same applies to student ID 141980, who reported on the need for clearer directions of assignments. The responsibility lies with the college to sit down with its teaching staff to deliberate o the issues raised and come up with lifetime solutions, which will create learner satisfaction and create a good image of the institution (Southern New Hampshire University, n.d.).
It is also advisable for the institution to carry out workshops that try to market its program as it absorbs more and more learners on the program. The high market demand is an indication that the advertisement and publicity of the program are very low and requires it to be publicized more. Jamestown College is a big institution which started long time with sufficient resources put in it, and this implies that an increase in the number of learners will still be accommodated without affecting the quality standards of learning. Therefore, with such a pool of resources Jamestown College can comfortably and conveniently grasp the opportunity.
External and additional data
The data on performance between 2010 and 2015 shows that the performance in the college has not been at its best. A close check on the average percentages and average GPA shows low performance. It can be seen that the year's percent ranges from 18 to 22 over the years while the average GPA ranges from 2.9 to 3.16. As can be shown, it is clear that the performance is also stagnating and there is no indication of a remarkable increase. The low performance could be aligned to the feedback that the students reported and discussed above and find out whether there is a relationship. There is also a need to relook on the qualifications to join the college for BA Mathematics program (Southern New Hampshire University, n.d.).
Jamestown College prides itself on developing well-rounded students, giving graduates a competitive edge in their careers. To achieve this concept, students obtain foundational knowledge in the liberal arts and develop a broad range of both skills and abilities beyond a major specialization. Each Jamestown College graduate must complete 30 credits of core coursework. Also, students are required to take two 3-credit courses in each of five School of Arts and Sciences study areas: humanities, social science, arts and design, natural science, and communications, plus a 6-credit senior capstone experience (University of Jamestown. 2018).
The requirements are very important since they can be used to check on the level of the institutional performance in the program and make corrective actions where necessary. There is, therefore, a need for the institution to relook t the requirements to establish whether there is any relationship between the entry requirements and the performance of the students.
Additional data will involve the stakeholders of Jamestown College carrying out benchmarking on the performance of its graduates of BA Mathematics compared to those from other institutions; this can involve engaging employers on their preferences when employing graduates of the program.
References
Southern New Hampshire University. (n.d.). HEA 540 Final Project Case Study Scenario; Jamestown College-BA in Mathematics.
The University of Jamestown. (February 16, 2012). “Our History.” Retrieved on August 29, 2019.