Program Review and Assessment of Student Learning

Academic Leaders such as Program Chairs are responsible for managing the health and growth of the program. They have curricular oversight of the program and work with the program's faculty, as well as industry leaders, to ensure that the program's curriculum is relevant and preparing students to make meaningful impacts on their communities upon graduation. The processes and resources below are designed to help Chairs and Deans in their efforts to maintain and advance the program and its curriculum while managing programmatic data and assessment efforts.

Program Review and Assessment of Student Learning

Annually, all programs report on program health, assessment of student learning, staffing, reflection on strengths and areas for improvement, and goals for the coming year. This is referred to as Program Review. In general there are two kinds of Program Reviews, Annual Review and Comprehensive Review

Annual Program Review – These reviews are designed to help Deans with their strategic planning. This process informs Deans of any programmatic staffing and budgetary needs and allows Deans to provide feedback regarding a Chair’s interpretation of persistence, enrollment, student support, staffing needs, resource requests, strengths, and areas for growth. This is also an opportunity for a Dean to formally document a response to a program’s needs.

Comprehensive Program Review – Each year, a number of programs are selected for a comprehensive program review. The primary difference between the annual and comprehensive review is the depth of feedback provided for the comprehensive program review. In addition to the Dean's review and feedback, the program will receive feedback from Faculty Curriculum Committee (FCC), enrollment, advising, and Provost Office.

Assessment of Student Learning - As a part of program review, programs engage in the assessment of student learning. At NLU, assessment of student learning is done to exhibit accountability for continuous improvement as an institution; assess whether students are developing the knowledge, skills, and competencies expected of NLU graduates; and to create a culture of data-informed inquiry.

Annual Program Review Handbook

2022 Annual Program Review Training

Additional Context: Program Review

A regular academic program review process allows program faculty to evaluation and reflect on an academic program's quality holistically, including health metrics provided on an annual basis for consideration and analysis (e.g., multi-year enrollment trends, graduation rates, employment outcomes, student satisfaction, persistence), assessment of student learning (university common outcomes and program-specific outcomes), curricular connections and sequencing, and faculty.

NLU employs a multi-year, comprehensive program review cycle with established triggers to determine frequency by program. The program review process is managed through faculty governance processes operating in collaboration with institutional administration and academic leadership. The comprehensive process is punctuated by annual data snapshots and program update reports designed to ensure continuity and create a transparent and manageable process for continuous improvement, while also providing guideposts for review in a program's multi-year report. Results from this process contribute to and inform curriculum development, program admission standards, course prerequisites, and faculty qualifications.

Additional Context: Assessment of Student Learning

At NLU, assessment of student learning efforts revolve around academic program plans to assess Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) with key assessments, either course-embedded artifacts (e.g., papers, capstones, portfolios) as direct measures and rubrics aligned to outcomes, or externally-administered exams and tests. By means of curriculum maps and alignment to an institutional outcome framework, PLOs have articulated connections to courses, Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs), and University Level Outcomes (ULOs). Because PLOs are meaningful to program leadership and their faculty, programmatic assessment is an excellent lever offering the ability to achieve course, program, and university level outcomes-based assessment through one systematic approach. Mapping and alignment to external standards exists and program-specific assessment efforts can be utilized for any required reporting there.

Additionally, self-reported student learning data is provided by students via specific student learning outcome questions contained in course evaluation instruments administered in every course. NLU utilizes IDEA Student Ratings of Instruction course evaluations due to their research-informed instrument, as well as the ability to benchmark institutional results against national data.