CLA Academic Program Review
Purpose and Process
Program review in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) at Rollins is a developmental process that evaluates the status, effectiveness, and progress of academic programs and helps identify the future direction, needs, and priorities of those programs. As such, it is closely connected to strategic planning, resource allocation, assessment of student learning, and other decision-making at the program, department, and College levels. The goal of a program review should be the articulation of agreed-upon action plans for further development of the academic program.
During the review process, teams of external reviewers assess departmental self-study reports and engage in a site visit. External review teams are invited to consider issues and challenges, and to consult with faculty and administrators on future directions. The program review process is focused on improvements that can be made using resources currently available to the program. Consideration may also be given, however, to proposed program improvements and expansions that would require additional resources; in such cases, the need and priority for additional resources should be clearly specified.
The Review Process
The Dean of the College of Liberal Arts is responsible for the periodic review of all CLA departments and programs. The Assistant Provost for Institutional Effectiveness provides support and guidance on various aspects of the process outlined below and maintains archival records for use in reporting to various external accreditation organizations. The Dean’s Office provides departments with a timeline and makes the initial invitation to external reviewers. The Director of Data Analytics provides departments with data for the self-study.
Departments are responsible for selecting a team of external disciplinary reviewers, preparing a self-study document, conducting a site visit with the external review team, preparing a response to the external review team recommendations, submitting the response and action plan to the Dean, and revisiting progress on action plans. Departments may choose to hold a separate retreat dedicated to the self-study review; these retreats will be supported by the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts.
More Information and Next Steps
Further information and detailed guidance are available to CLA academic programs through a Canvas course site. The following links provide campus-only access.