In accordance with the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Institutional Quality Assurance Process (IQAP), this report is a summary of the Final Assessment Report (FAR) which provides a synthesis of the external evaluation and internal response and assessments of the undergraduate programs offered by the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities in BA History. The Program Self-Study Reports, which contained the degree level expectations for these programs, an analytical assessment of the programs, course outlines, program-related data, survey data from the Office of Quality Assurance and appendices with sample examinations and curriculum vitae (CVs) of faculty members, were completed in 17 May 2022. Two arm’s-length external reviewers (Talbot Imlay, Professeur titulaire, Département des sciences historiques, Université Laval), and Gregory Kennedy (Professeur agrégé, Département d’histoire et géographie, Université de Moncton) were selected from a list of possible reviewers and approved by the Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities. An internal reviewer, Major Jason Zwicker (Assistant professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Royal Military College), was also selected for participation on the ERC. They reviewed the self-study documentation, and conducted an on-site visit to RMC from 8 to 9 December 2022. The reviewers submitted their report on 21 Jan 2023.
In their report, the ERC expresses the opinion that the History program is a good program with a unique mission and focus on military history that serves the discipline of history and the development of CAF leaders. The ERC identified a number of strengths of the programs under review including the program is a National leader in the area of operational and strategic Canadian military history, innovation in delivering content and assessing student work during the COVID pandemic, small class sizes give it a notable advantage, and high success rate in terms of graduation gives the impression that faculty are engaged teachers, and highly responsive to students. The ERC also identified several areas of concern such as: the program does not reflect the current state of the discipline of history more broadly in Canada, There is a need for the program to diversify and modernize its curriculum, and there is a lack of active research production and external funding.
The Program Chair, after consultation with faculty and staff in the programs, submitted a response to the ERC Report in May 2023. The interim Dean of Social Science and Humanities prepared the Final Assessment Report on 3 June 2023. The report contains specific recommendations, action items and a timeline. The report concludes that the RMC is delivering good programs with emphasis on military history. However, the ERC identified areas for improvement.These areas are related to course load, gaps and redundancies in courses, new and bilingual courses focused on current issues, and research and publishing. The department should continue to work toward program enhancement and improve student success in the History programs.