Review Team: Review of the Process

39 Review Team: Review of the Process

The Psychology faculty available to is and were engaged and curious. Importantly, they were open to questions and suggestions. The review document was comprehensive. Some areas needed better definitions, or were missing pieces, but these were few.
It is very nice to have a student voice included in the process. Student input was sought, and a very nice and gifted student informant was able to join us. However, we recommend a different implementation of the student component, below.
Having intercollegiate participation allows for a compare and contrast portion of program review along with learning about other institutions of higher education in our region. It is beneficial to have different perspectives from different schools and related fields.

The student participation component could stand revision. A single student is not enough. The student who joined us was remarkable, and this does reflect well on the Program, but she was not representative. The problem of getting broader student input is a difficult one. Community Colleges do not typically have alumni offices and resources for tracking and contacting students post matriculation. We have a suggestion, below.
The committee might have benefitted with more time alone to discuss the review document and to discover common understandings of the document and faculty responses.

We think a student focus group would address our concerns in # 2, above. Allow reviewers to meet with a more diverse group of previous students, or students who are just about to finish up, to allow for a broader perspective about the student experience at NIC. An ability to chat with students who have been successful as well as some who have struggled would be informative. Should a student that was unsuccessful be reviewing the program? We would think it less meaningful than input from successful students, but it might be helpful in identifying the reasons some fall short.
Time should be allotted at the beginning of our visit for the committee, with no others present, to work out coordination for the day’s activities. A similar block should be available at the end of the first day meeting to coordinate the week’s information exchange.
There are limited course outcome data to base recommendations on related to CLO/PLO assessment. The data cycle appears to make it difficult to capture multiple styles of data. Since the program review cycle was recently introduced, there was a lack of data. Perhaps the cycle could commence in the fall to capture more of this varied data.