Program Review (AY 2011-2012)

Trial Counseling Certificate Program

Program Review 2011

A.Program goals.

§Students know the basic concepts of law.

§Students understand the rules and procedures of law.

§Students can write and do legal research.

§Students have basic knowledge and skills of pre-trial and trial in both civil and criminal cases.

B.Program history.

§Coordination of the program was assigned to the National Campus Social Science Division in spring 2008. Since then, more than fifteen students have completed the program at the National Campus. With continued support from the FSM Supreme Court, Pohnpei State and the local private law firms, the program has been successful in offering more than 3 classes per semester for students to now complete the program in the recommended one year. Currently, there are 26 enrolled students (both in-service and those that have completed their Associate Degree from the College, mostly in Micronesian Studies).

C.Program description.

§This certificate program provides training opportunities for current as well as aspiring and upcoming trial counselors to improve their skills and competency and to prepare them to be effective decision makers in their respective courts. It also provides for networking and sharing among trial counselors.

D.Program admission requirements.

§As per college policy for admission to special certificate program.

E.Program courses and enrollment.

§This is a certificate program consisting of 10 courses to be completed in one year. Below are the following required courses.

LAW200, Legal Research and Writing LAW210, Criminal Procedure LAW215, Criminal Law

LAW220, Torts LAW224, Contracts LAW228, Evidence

LAW232, Constitutional Law

LAW235, Appellate and Civil Procedures/Jurisdiction LAW238, Real Property

LAW240, Trail Practice Internship

§Course Enrollment.

•Enrollment listed in table 1 reflect only program courses taught at the National Campus, courses are also taught at State campus such as

Yap Campus. Courses are taught in alternative semesters with at least 4 offered per semester and two in the summer for student to complete program in a year. Course offered are also dependent on whether or not part-time instructors can be found. Data is limited by what is given by IRPO.

Table 1

		Fall	Spring	Summer
I.	Courses	2010	2011	2011	Total
LAW200 Legal Research and Writing		12		20	32
LAW210 Criminal Procedure			16		16
LAW215 Criminal Law					0
LAW220Torts		12			12
LAW224 Contracts			12		12
LAW228 Evidence		10			10
LAW232 Constitutional Law				18	18
LAW236 Appellate & Civil			12		12
Procedure/Jurisdiction
LAW238 Real Property		15			15
LAW240 Trial Practice Internship		9	5	3	17
	Total Enrollment	58	45	41	144

F.Program faculty/staff.

§Mariana Ben Dereas, Program Coordinator, BA Political Science (University of Hawaii at Hilo) and MA Pacific Islands Studies Program (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

§Program does not have a full time faculty. Part-time faculties follow the COM-FSM procedure of verification of qualification.

G.Program outcome analysis.

§Program Enrollment

Table 2

Fall 2008	Spring	Sum	Fall	Spring	Sum	Fall 2010	Spring	Sum
	2009	2009	2009	2010	2010		2011	2011
22	18	10	15	17	18	16	18	26

§Graduation Rate.

Table 3

		Fall/Spring Semester
Semester	Enrollment	Graduates	Graduates %
Summer 2010	18	3	17%
Fall 2010	16	7	44%
Spring 2011	18	1	5%
Summer 2011	26	2	8%

§ Average Class Size – Number indicated in data are for National Campus courses only. Average student per section fall 2010 to summer 2011 as indicated in table 1.

Table 4

I.	Courses	Average Class Size
LAW200 Legal Research and Writing		16
LAW210 Criminal Procedure		16
LAW215 Criminal Law		n/a
LAW220Torts		12
LAW224 Contracts		12
LAW228 Evidence		10
LAW232 Constitutional Law		18
LAW236 Appellate & Civil Procedure/Jurisdiction		12
LAW238 Real Property		15
LAW240 Trial Practice Internship		6
	Total Average	12

§ Student’s Seat Cost – The cost analysis reflects courses and sections in table 1 using calculation given by IRPO.

Table 5

	Student			Seat Cost per
Division	seats	Credits	$ per Credits	course	Total
Social Science	144	432	$105	$315	$45,360

§ Course completion – The following course completion rates are the information shared through IRPO.

Table 6 Fall 2010 course completion rate:

Subject	CourseNum	CountOf	ABCP	ABCDP	ComR-	ComR-
		identity			ABCP	ABCDP
LAW	200	12	5	6	41.7%	50.0%
LAW	220	12	5	9	41.7%	75%
LAW	228	10	9	10	90%	100%
LAW	238	15	12	15	80%	100%
LAW	240	9	7	7	77.8%	77.8%

Table 7 spring 2011 course completion rate:

Subject	CourseNum	CountOf	ABCP	ABCDP	ComR-	ComR-
		identity			ABCP	ABCDP
LAW	210	116	10	13	62.5%	81.3%
LAW	224	12	8	10	66.7%	83.3%
LAW	236	12	4	8	33.3%	66.7%
LAW	240	5	3	5	60%	100%

Table 8 summer 2011 course completion rate:

Subject	CourseNum	CountOf	ABCP	ABCDP	ComR-	ComR-
		identity			ABCP	ABCDP
LAW	200	18	18	18	90%	90%
LAW	232	18	18	18	100%	100%
LAW	240	3	3	3	100%	100%

§Students’ Satisfaction Rate.

•The average satisfaction rate for the instruction is 4.1 on a 5.0 scale (refer to Appendix K, Student Evaluation in the curriculum handbook). This information was taken from the total of the fall 2010 to summer 2011 Student Evaluation scores as provided by the Director of Academic Program’s office. Assessing the overall evaluation scores and comments made by the students, one can see that their satisfaction is at the level of “usually” with one instructor scoring “always” across all categories. Students seem to appreciate the depth of knowledge the instructors have but would like them to have more teaching experience. This could be true because all of the part-time instructors are full-time practicing lawyers; many have never taught a class before. The one instructor that scored five across all categories is a local and used to teach at the high school level which could factor to his overall performance in the classroom.

§Employment Data.

•No data was given by IROP; however, the information below is based on Coordinator’s personal contact with the alumni and offices throughout FSM. Employment data does not capture the whole population of graduates. Thus far, there are two State Chief Justices, four municipal chief justices that graduated from the Trial Counseling Program. At the FSM AG office, two of the staffs are alumni along with one of the chief clerks of the FSM Supreme Court. At the State level, there are alumni serving as staffs for the Supreme Court, AG office and Public Defenders office. At the municipal offices, there are court staffs and practicing trail counselors that are alumni of the program.

§Transfer Data.

•Since the first graduation of summer 2009, there are two graduates in Vanuatu (South Pacific University Law School), two at UOG studying Criminal Justice, one at Chaminade University, and one at University of Hawaii Hilo also studying Criminal Justice. However, many of the program graduates find jobs in the court or justice system.

§Program’s Student Learning Outcomes.

1.Have a working knowledge of the major techniques of legal research and writing.

2.Describe how the FSM and state rules of criminal law & procedure are interpreted and applied.

3.Describe the law of torts and basic principles of admiralty law.

4.Understand the concept of dispute resolution techniques including, but not limited to, mediation, arbitration, and community resolution procedures.

5.Understand the law of contracts and general business law.

6.Describe the processes of comprehensive examination of problems of proof and the rules of evidence.

7.Understand the constitution of the FSM, its States and municipalities.

8.Describe the FSM and State rules of appellate & civil procedure.

9.Describe and explain the FSM and State real property laws.

10.Practice actual supervised pre-trial and trial skills in civil and criminal cases.

§Students’ Learning Outcomes for Program Courses.

•Program courses outlines need to be updated to the new course outline format, linking PLOs to SLOs. Thus far, none of the ten law courses are in the new course outline format.

i.Recommendations.

a.From Worksheet #2 of the program assessment, there is a recommendation that there should be either a pre-requisite English class just for the students entering the program or an additional course such as a legal terminology course, focusing on the language of law. The discussion is that many of the students do not do a good job of making arguments using the facts and legal authorities available. Also there are some students who barely pass not because they don’t try however, their tests show that they don't have the English ability to fully grasp the concepts that are being taught and to apply the principles taught in analyzing the fact patterns on exams and other course activities.

b.From assessing the trends of students enrolled in the program, one can analyze that the program is now catering towards full-time students rather than in- service or those that are working in the court system. In the past, the larger enrollment was from the in-service population while less than 25% were full- time students. Currently, 80% of the students in the program are full-time (many recently completed an Associate Degree from the College). With this shift in trends, it is recommended that if the program is to continue, the following should take place:

i.Hire a full-time faculty to coordinate and teach courses. This is very important because one of the reasons why courses are not updated, assessments are incomplete and cohorts take longer to graduate is because currently the program depends fully on part-time instructors from the court systems and private firms. There have been some semesters that only three courses were offered because of the lack of faculty; courts were short of law staffs and private firms had too many cases on their logs to teach.

ii.Change the admission criteria (for example, a GPA standard of 2.75).

iii.Review of the curriculum; courses need to be rewritten in the new outline format and courses need to be evaluated (for example, there is a discussion to replace two courses with Ethics and FSM Bar Exam tutorials). The review of curriculum along with mission and goals of the program should be with an advisory council. As of date, the Coordinator has been working with members of the FSM Bar along with Associate Chief Justice Yamase to work on a schedule to meet in fall 2011 to do this.

Assessment Plan Worksheet # 2

Academic Programs

Academic Program		Assessment Period Covered
( ) Formative Assessment		Fall 2009 to Summer 2010
( X ) Summative Assessment		Date Submitted
		March 2, 2010

Institutional Mission/Strategic Goal:

Mission: Historically diverse, uniquely Micronesian and globally connected, the College of Micronesia-FSM is a continuously improving and student centered institute of higher education. The college is committed to assisting in the development of the Federated States of Micronesia by providing academic, career and technical educational opportunities for student learning.

Strategic Goal (which strategic goal(s) most support the services being provided):

Academic Program Mission Statement :

This certificate program provides training opportunities for current as well as aspiring and upcoming trail counselors to improve their skills and competency and to prepare them to be effective decision makers in their respective courts. It also provides for networking and sharing among trial counselors.

Academic Program Goals (General Statements about knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values expected in graduates).

The above will be worked on during spring and summer 2010. Program Coordinator and Law course instructors will have to rewrite Program mission and Program Goals (currently 10) to align with one another.

Academic Program Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this certificate, students will be able to:

1.Have a working knowledge of the major techniques of legal research and writing.

2.Describe how the FSM and state rules of criminal law & procedure are interpreted and applied.

3.Describe the law of torts and basic principles of admiralty law.

4.Understand the concept of dispute resolution techniques including, but not limited to, mediation, arbitration, and community resolution procedures.

5.Understand the law of contracts and general business law.

6.Describe the processes of comprehensive examination of problems of proof and the rules of evidence.

7.Understand the constitution of the FSM, its States and municipalities.

8.Describe the FSM and State rules of appellate & civil procedure.

9.Describe and explain the FSM and State real property laws.

10.Practice actual supervised pre-trial and trial skills in civil and criminal cases.

Evaluation questions	Data	Sampling	Analysis
	sources
Do the 10 required courses support the Program	Course	Review all	Comparison of
Learning Outcomes?	Outlines	of the	the course
		course	student
		outlines in	learning
		the	objectives to
		program.	the Program
			learning
			objectives.
Is the program reaching out to all prospective	Survey;	Existing and	Analyze data if
students; both in-service and those aspiring to	court staff	potential	the program is
be trail counselors?	and	students in	well advertised
	potential	program	or
	students on		communicated
	their		to the
	awareness		community for
	of the		potential
	program		students.
Should there be an English pre-requisite for the	Writing	Looking at	Compare the
courses?	samples	writing	samples and
	from the	samples	see whether
	Law	from those	there is a need
	courses.	with an	to create an
	Fall 2009 to	Associate	English level
	Spring 2009	Degree	pre-requisite
	midterm and	versus those	for those that
	final exams.	that enter as	enter into the
		in-service;	program
		using	without an
		COMET	Associate
		Essay	Degree. There
		Rubric.	is a concern
			from the
			instructors of
			the level of
			writing some

Evaluation questions		Data	Sampling			Analysis
		sources
						current student
						may have.
Timeline
Activity		Who is				Date
		Responsible?
All questions should be analyzed and reported	All Social Science			May	2010
by end of Fall 2010.	faculties will work
	together in
	gathering data.
	Chair and
	Coordinator of the
	program will
	compile final
	report.

Comments:
Assessment Report Worksheet #3
	Trial Counseling Program		fall 2009 to sum 2010
Unit/Office/Program (3-1)			Assessment Period Covered
(	) Formative Assessment (3-3)		SS Division Fall 2009 to sum 10
(	) Summative Assessment (3-4)		Submitted by & Date Submitted (3-
			5)

Endorsed by: (3-5a)

Evaluation Question (Use a different form for each evaluation question)(3-6):

Do the 10 required courses support the Program Learning Outcomes?

First Means of Assessment for Evaluation Question Identified Above (from your approved assessment plan 3-7):

1a. Means of Unit Assessment & Criteria for Success (3-8):

Do align the PLO to the SLO of the individual law courses, using a PLO matrix.

1b. Summary of Assessment Data Collected (3-9):

All course outlines need to be put into the SLO format; four courses do not have course outlines on file.

1c: Use of Results to Improve Program/Unit Impact/Services [Closing the loop]:

Since this assessment period, the four missing course outlines have been written and put into the SLO format. Along with this textbooks for six of the courses have been identified and approved by the curriculum committee.

Evaluation Question (Use a different form for each evaluation question)(3-6):

Enrollment trends. Is the program reaching out to all prospective students; both in-service and those aspiring to be trail counselors?

2a. Means of Unit Assessment & Criteria for Success: Enrollment Data

2b. Summary of Assessment Data Collected (3-9):

By analyzing the enrollment trends and increase of program enrollment since spring 2008, one can see that recruitment of both student and part-time instructor has been successful.

2c: Use of Results to Improve Program/Unit Impact/Services [Closing the loop]:

Offer at least 4 courses per semester so students can complete program within one year. Coordinator has been successful in recruiting instructors for the courses with each course meeting the minimum 10 students. Thus far, the average class size has been 14.

Third Means of Assessment for Evaluation Question Identified Above (from your approved assessment plan) (3-12):

Evaluation Question (Use a different form for each evaluation question)(3-6):

Should there be an English pre-requisite for the courses?

3a. Means of Unit Assessment & Criteria for Success:

Writing samples from the Law courses. Fall 2009 to Spring 2009 midterm and final exams.

3b. Summary of Assessment Data Collected (3-9):

Incomplete data. The faculty for this semester did not turn in their midterm and final exam to the coordinator.

3c: Use of Results to Improve Program/Unit Impact/Services[Closing the loop]:

This assessment question will be again trailed in the next assessment year.

Assessment Plan Worksheet #2

Trial Counseling Certificate

Unit/Office/Program (2-1)

( ) Formative Assessment (2-3)

( X) Summative Assessment (2-4)

Fall 2010 to Spring 2011

Assessment Period Covered (2-2)

SS Div/August 5, 2010

Submitted by & Date Submitted (2-5)

Endorsed by (2-5a)

Institutional Mission/Strategic Goal:

Mission: Historically diverse, uniquely Micronesian and globally connected, the College of Micronesia-FSM is a continuously improving and student centered institute of higher education. The college is committed to assisting in the development of the Federated States of Micronesia by providing academic, career and technical educational opportunities for student learning.

Strategic Goal (which strategic goal(s) most support the services being provided): Strategic Goals 1: Promote learning and teaching for knowledge, skills, creativity, intellect, and the abilities to seek and analyze information and to communicate effectively