GUIDELINES FOR THIRD CYCLE OF ACADEMIC

PROGRAM REVIEW

ACADEMIC SENATE POLICY F84-123

The basic purposes of academic program review are:

1. To provide information, analysis, and evaluation in a cost-efficient manner;
2. To aid in planning and decision-making about program quality and direction; and
3. 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

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:

1. Describe the programs and services it provides to the university and indicate changes since the last review.
2. State its objectives and relate them to school and university missions.
3. Assess its outcomes in terms of progress towards meeting objectives.
4. Describe its strengths and weaknesses in terms of academic quality.
5. Respond to recommendations made at the various review levels during the previous cycle.
6. Describe its current use of faculty and facilities.
7. 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.

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:

1. Assess the quality of the programs in each of the instructional units.
2. Indicate the importance of each academic program and each instructional unit to the overall effort of the school.
3. 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.

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.

Attached to this document is the timetable for the third cycle of academic program review (Attachment A). A number of comments are in order:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Although Liberal Studies and General Education are not included in the timetable, these programs will also undergo review during the third cycle.
4. 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

1. Name of instructional unit
2. List each degree, concentration, minor, certificate, and instructional service (including general education, liberal studies, or service to other programs) offered by the unit.
3. Describe for each program listed above:

1. Its purpose and how well it is being met
2. Any special features regarding its curriculum, faculty, students, or use of resources which highlight the program's quality and, if relevant, uniqueness
3. Emerging trends in the field and resulting changes in plans for the program
4. 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)
5. Any impediments to implementing plans

1. Note any corrections or changes in the quantitative data provided to the unit for this review.
2. 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**