Academic program review provides a valuable and periodic opportunity to assess an academic program’s quality and effectiveness, stimulate planning and continuous improvement, and encourage strategic development. It also provides the opportunity to examine program strengths, deficiencies, relevance, and goals in a strategic way. And finally, program review fulfills accreditation and state requirements and assures institutional quality to students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and other stakeholders.
All academic programs must be reviewed at least once every three years. The first review for new academic programs is required approximately four years after implementation. After the initial four-year review, continuing academic programs must complete a program review at least once every three years.
Program review consists of the self-study report to include:
- Overview
- Continuous improvement of the previous Academic Program Review
- Student Learning and Assessment
- Student Profile and Trends
- Program statistics
- Overall Analysis.
Program review encompasses the annual Program Advisory Committee (PAC) meetings, composed of administrators, faculty members, external advisors, employers/business representatives, an alumna, and a student, which are summarized in the academic program review report compiled every three years. Program review is led by the department chair and faculty members and supported by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness for data. The completed report is then sent to an external reviewer who is an expert in the field. The reviewer is asked to complete a rubric identifying the state of the program based on maturity model scale. Both reports are forwarded to the Institutional Effectiveness Committee where it is evaluated using a quality performance expectation rubric based on a maturity model. If there is any area that scores below a three (below expectations), the report goes back to the department chair for revisions. The final report is submitted to the president who shares it with the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board. At the end of each program review cycle, the program chair acts on any recommendations to improve the program and will report out on progress through the next program review.
