Guidelines for Third Cycle of Academic Program Review
GUIDELINES FOR THIRD CYCLE OF ACADEMIC
PROGRAM REVIEW
ACADEMIC SENATE POLICY F84-123
The basic purposes of academic program review are:
- To provide information, analysis, and evaluation in a cost-efficient manner;
- To aid in planning and decision-making about program quality and direction;
and
- To aid in decision-making about program enhancement, maintenance, reduction
or consolidation, or discontinuance.
In order to accomplish the above, academic program review includes the following
three components:
Instructional Unit Self-Study
School Assessment and Recommendation
University Review and Decision
Instructional Unit Self-Study
In order that University planning may occur in a rational and comprehensive
fashion, every instructional unit which has its own faculty and/or offers an
academic degree should prepare a "forward-looking" self-study which utilizes
considerations of program quality as a basis for making recommendations regarding
future directions. Such a planning cycle assumes that higher quality decisions
occur when each instructional unit is involved in making recommendations regarding
its future. In order to make these recommendations, each instructional unit
must:
- Describe the programs and services it provides to the university and indicate
changes since the last review.
- State its objectives and relate them to school and university missions.
- Assess its outcomes in terms of progress towards meeting objectives.
- Describe its strengths and weaknesses in terms of academic quality.
- Respond to recommendations made at the various review levels during the
previous cycle.
- Describe its current use of faculty and facilities.
- Define what changes would be necessary to maintain viability or to build
the unit to or maintain it at a level of quality commensurate with the changing
needs of our society.
In other words, an instructional unit self-study must assess the unit's quality
over the past review period, project the unit's intentions over the next review
period, discuss the merits of any anticipated new curricular directions, posit
future enrollment targets, and make recommendations for change.
Where and when possible, instructional unit self-studies should be tied to
and utilize any self-studies being undertaken for the purposes of program (e.g.,
NLN) or school (e.g., NCATE) accreditation. For those units not subject to accreditation
and visitation by external review teams, the possibility of locally initiated
external reviews should be considered.
Instructional unit self-studies will follow a design structured so as to be
"economical" in nature. Units will not be expected to repeat any of the "base-line"
information provided in their "second cycle" reviews conducted between 1977
and 1983. However, they will be expected to assess all of the academic programs
offered under their aegis. Program review should thus relate the instructional
unit to its school's mission and objectives and to those of the university,
and which provide information, analysis, and assessment for decisions regarding
the unit's future. All instructional units will be supplied with basic programmatic
data, including faculty utilization, tenure ratios within reporting unit, assigned
time utilization, projection of retirement eligibility by age, FTEF positions
generated by mode and level, student-faculty ratios, student enrollment by mode
and level, enrollment by degree objective and major, and degrees granted.
School Assessment and Recommendation
Academic program review is premised on the notion of all instructional units
in a given school engaging in self-study in the same academic year. It is also
premised on the notion of attempting, where possible, to tie program review
to accreditation self-studies and visitations. Thus, in those instances in which
an entire school is subject to accreditation (i.e., the School of Education
and the School of Business), instructional unit self-studies will occur in the
same year as school accreditation.
Program review assumes that, in each school, each instructional unit self-study
will be reviewed at the school level in conjunction with all of the other reviews
of all of the other units of the school. This second level of review will:
- Assess the quality of the programs in each of the instructional units.
- Indicate the importance of each academic program and each instructional
unit to the overall effort of the school.
- Include a statement relating the academic programs and instructional units
of the school to the university's mission and objectives.
The school, after assessing each unit's self-study in relation to all of the
other self-studies of the school, would prepare a set of recommendations regarding
future directions for the school as a whole and for all of its component programs.
Such comprehensive, school-based review will permit synoptic, school-based planning,
which will lead to coherent, school-based recommendations as a basis for university-wide
planning. Such an approach will assure the school's central position in the
university planning and decision-making process.
University Review and Decision
Once a school has submitted its aggregate reviews, assessments, and recommendations
to the Provost, these documents will be analyzed by the Provost's staff and
referred to the University Planning Group and to appropriate Senate and other
university-level decision-making bodies for the approval of new curricular and
programmatic directions. Program review will provide the necessary data, analyses,
and assessments essential to the proper functioning of these bodies.
Operation
Attached to this document is the timetable for the third cycle of academic
program review (Attachment A). A number of comments are in order:
- The timetable delineates a six-year rather than a five-year program review
cycle, with all of the units in a given school being reviewed in the same
year and one-to-two schools under review in any given year during the first
five years. The six-year program review cycle permits each school to undergo
a two-year review, with the instructional unit self-studies occurring in the
first year and the school assessments and recommendations and the university-level
review and decision occurring in the second year.
- An assumption is made that, insofar as possible, program reviews will be
tied to school accreditation processes and that, if necessary and feasible,
attempts will be made to persuade accreditation agencies to change their review
and visitation schedules to coincide with the program review calendar delineated
in Attachment A.
- Although Liberal Studies and General Education are not included in the timetable,
these programs will also undergo review during the third cycle.
- Guidelines for the review of individual instructional units are appended
as Attachment B. Additional guidelines regarding Academic Senate participation
in the program review process will be added when developed.
REPORTING GUIDELINES FOR INSTRUCTIONAL UNIT
- Name of instructional unit
- List each degree, concentration, minor, certificate, and instructional service
(including general education, liberal studies, or service to other programs)
offered by the unit.
- Describe for each program listed above:
- Its purpose and how well it is being met
- Any special features regarding its curriculum, faculty, students, or use
of resources which highlight the program's quality and, if relevant, uniqueness
- Emerging trends in the field and resulting changes in plans for the program
- Any other plans of action based on internal or external evaluation of the
program's functioning (including responses to recommendations made as part
of the last program review and/or previous accreditation visits)
- Any impediments to implementing plans
- Note any corrections or changes in the quantitative data provided to the
unit for this review.
- Summarize briefly the overall implications of your responses to question
3 for the instructional unit as a whole, identifying those plans for the unit
which will be of highest priority over the next five years. Include a projection
of anticipated enrollments for the next five years.
**APPROVED BY PRESIDENT WOO ON OCTOBER 15, 1984**