Program Planning Re-envisioned

Background

Our program review/annual planning process is robust, thorough, and integrated into our planning and resource allocation processes.  However, there is widespread sentiment that the annual planning document is in need of improvement.  The issues are varied but at the core, the common thread is that the outcomes of the annual plan do not warrant the extensive amount of work required for completion.  Furthermore, the resulting plans frequently do not provide the substantive evidence needed for accreditation - one of the driving reasons for the program review process.

The purpose of the 6-year comprehensive program review has also come to question.  The original intent was for the annual plan to be significantly simpler and serve as the basis for the comprehensive review.  However, over time, the annual plan has evolved to become virtually indistinguishable from the comprehensive review (see a comparison of the two documents).  In fact, the only remaining significant differences between the two are: the comprehensive review is presented to a college-wide forum, and, the comprehensive review is submitted to the Board of Trustees as an informational report.  It is time to either eliminate the comprehensive review, or to return to original intentions and to greatly simplify the annual plan.

Guiding Principles

  1. The required analyses must be useful and meaningful to faculty and planning bodies.
  2. The required components must meet a program, institutional, or accreditation needs.
  3. Programs should not be required to submit information that could simply be obtained by running a report from another data source (e.g. TracDat or CurricUnet).
  4. Any components required in an annual plan should be likely to meaningfully change on an annual basis.
  5. The resource requests must be reviewed, acted upon and feedback returned in a transparent and timely manner. 

Process

Date Milestone
August 22, 2013 ASGC sets goal to revise program review
October 10, 2013 ASGC discussion of problems with current PR process
November 14, 2013 ASGC examines proposal to change data packets
December-January 2013 

Survey faculty at large regarding current forms/process; Survey results
February 4, 2014  ASGC-IPC Task Force creates beta version of PR form and proposes options for new cycles
March 2014

Survey faculty at large regarding beta version of PR form; Survey results
March 7, 2014  IPC discussion and modification of beta version of PR form
March 13, 2014 ASGC creates final draft of PR form and process
March - April 2014

Invitation for campus-wide review - Draft Proposal

IPC task force begins work on evaluation rubric
April 24, 2014 Senate votes to adopt new PR form and process
May 2, 2014 IPC develops and adopts PR timeline
Sept. 10, 2014 SSPC adopts revised PR timeline
Sept. 10, 2014 APC adopts biennial Program Review process and revised timeline
Sept. 17, 2014 PBC adopts revised timeline as standard for the entire college
Spring 2015

New Program Review process implemented

Begin developing Program Review module within Strategic Planning Online system (SPOL) 
Summer 2015

Assessment Advisory Group evaluates program review process
Sept. 2, 2015

Assessment Advisory Group's recommendations

Approval of recommendations by PBC
Jan/Feb 2016

First use of SPOL for inputting program review

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