Academic Program Review

The Academic Program Review process is one of the primary means by which the College maintains the quality of its academic programs. While the process can be burdensome and demanding for departments, as well as expensive and time-consuming for the administration, the knowledge gained is vital to the improvement of programs and the allocation of scarce College resources. A good program review should yield an assessment of all major features of an academic department, including its faculty, students, curriculum, research, and support services, and provide the department with a plan for its future development.

For background information, it may be useful to consult the recommendations of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, our regional accrediting body. The 2002 edition of their Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education, which give eligibility requirements and standards for accreditation, emphasizes assessment, including a requirement that student learning outcomes be assessed. The Characteristics are posted on the Commission website; posted here are a summary of the new standards and a complete copy in pdf.

The following documents are normally distributed to a department when it is charged with a review:

• Guidelines for academic program review
• Annotated outline of important elements in a self-study
• Sample student questionaire (thanks to the Department of European Languages and Literatures), in html and Word
• Sample cover letter for student questionaire, in html and Word
• Queens College mission statement