Our Program Review Process

Program Review is a process used by Cañada College to determine how effective its programs and services are at helping to achieve the college's mission, vision, and goals. The program review process also determines how resources will be allocated in order to affect positive change related to student learning outcomes and student success. Once complete, each program and their corresponding Planning Council work to achieve their program goals and meet the College’s objective of continuous improvement.

The Process

 The Cycle

The College’s instructional, student services and administrative programs go through the full program review process every other year. During their “off” year, each program submits an Annual Update to address any changes or updates since their previous program review.

Step 1:  Data Review and Program Evaluation

In August of every year, all programs have access to updated, longitudinal information related to student outcomes in their programs through the prior academic year.  Between August and October, programs conducting a full program review evaluate various disaggregated metrics of performance including student achievement data, learning outcomes assessments and other data provided by the Office of Planning, Research & Institutional Effectiveness, to identify areas of strength, areas in need of strategic improvement, as well as areas of inquiry to which research resources might be applied.

Step 2:  Planning

After reviewing their program’s past performance (strengths and weaknesses), programs will consider the opportunities (and possible threats) to their programs and create a new, two-year plan with goals and objectives that align with and support the College and District goals and objectives which, in turn, align with and support those of the State Chancellor’s Office.

Step 3:  Personnel and Resource Requests

Requests for physical, financial, personnel, professional development and research resources needed to meet a program’s objectives are also submitted through the program review process. The Planning & Budgeting Council also hosts personnel request presentations, where the campus community can ask questions of those who are requesting personnel. All requests are evaluated in the context of the most recent Program Review, or Annual Update, and for alignment with the appropriate college and district goals, support of student learning outcomes and support of the college’s mission. By integrating resource requests with program review, the College makes strategic investments of its resources in order to achieve its goals through the achievement of program objectives, and ultimately, to improve its ability to meet students’ academic needs. By using data, research, and program review information the College’s various Planning Councils are able to manage institutional quality, maintain effectiveness, and encourage continuous improvement of its academic programs, student and learning support services, and administrative services.  The processes for analyzing and prioritizing resource requests are described on the PBC Resource Allocation page.  Each resource request is identified as either a one-time request for the next fiscal year, or a recurring request beginning in the next fiscal year.

Step 4:  Dean, Vice President, or President Review and Feedback

Each program receives feedback from their Division Dean, Vice President, or the President on their program review which they can incorporate into their final program review submission. Each Division Dean, Vice President and the President evaluate all resources requested and prioritize them for their Division or Department.  Each Administrator works with the Vice President of Administration to try to meet any requests for resources with currently available budgets.  Only high priority items that cannot be addressed in with existing funding sources are submitted to the Planning & Budgeting Council for prioritization.

For an outline of which programs need feedback from which supervisors, please review the Program Review Feedback Supervisor Outline.

Step 5:  Peer Review and Feedback

The Instructional, Administrative and Student Services Planning Councils review their respective programs’ program review submissions and provide feedback on the content of their program review submissions.

The Academic Senate meets separately to review and prioritize all faculty personnel requests. Academic Senate prioritizations are forwarded to the President.

The Instructional Planning Council hosts Instructional Program Review presentations on a 6-year cycle. All faculty, staff and administrators are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Step 6:  Resource Prioritization

Following prioritization at the Division or Department level and at Academic Senate, the Planning & Budgeting Council considers high priority resource requests for the following fiscal year.  The processes for analyzing and prioritizing resource requests are described on the PBC Resource Allocation page.  PBC also prioritizes all new personnel proposals. PBC sends its recommendations to the President who ultimately decides how to allocate resources and which personnel requests will move forward contingent on funding.  The Vice President of Administration is responsible for consulting with PBC in allocation the budget received from the District and communicating in a timely manner to administrators, staff and faculty which resource requests have been approved.

Step 7: Continued Improvement of the Program Review Process

In the Fall of 2020, IPC approved the creation of the Joint College-Wide Program Review Improvement Task Force which is tasked with the ongoing work of improving and managing the program review process as a whole.

The membership of the Joint College-Wide Program Review Improvement Task Force includes:

  • Academic Senate representative
  • IPC representative
  • SSPC representative
  • Instructional Technologist (Office of Instruction) - by position
  • CSEA Representative (Classified Senate)
  • Vice President of Administrative Services
  • Dean of Planning, Research, Innovation and Effectiveness

 

resource request work flow

(Approved by PBC on February 6, 2019)