Report of the Senate-Administration Task Force to Examine Program Reviews (May 3, 2004)

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Report Index

1. Summary and Recommendations
2. Introduction and Background
3. Discussion of Recommendations
4. Conclusion

Appendices

To: Marsha Chandler, Acting Chancellor/Senior Vice Chancellor-Academic Affairs
      Jan Talbot, Chair, Academic Senate

I. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In general we find that faculty value programmatic reviews as a mechanism to ensure excellence, but that the ratio of value-added to effort-required can vary substantially. On the whole, the graduate review process is working well. The undergraduate reviews, and the burden they place on CEP, the Committee on Committees, Academic Senate staff and academic units, require streamlining and could benefit substantially by adopting structural aspects of the graduate review process. The review process should be different for departments, programs, and minors. It is clear that “one size does not fit all,” and the review process should reflect the needs and diversity of the various units, especially in program majors and minors, as much as possible. The Administration and Senate can work efficiently together to reduce the burden of these reviews at the department level. The committee was able to reach a consensus on the following principal recommendations, which are separated into three sections: graduate reviews, departmental undergraduate program reviews, and interdepartmental undergraduate major and minor program reviews.

Graduate Program Reviews

• A concerted effort should be made to move the majority of the review materials and data to a web-based information gathering system, and to centralize data collection.
• A more detailed survey of external reviewers should be made to assess and prioritize the usefulness of review materials, with the objective to decrease the volume of information currently required.
• Departments should have the option of using weekends for meetings with external reviewers.

Undergraduate Program Reviews

• The Associate Vice Chancellor-Undergraduate Education (AVC-UE) should assume responsibility for facilitating reviews in partnership with CEP, analogous to the relationship between the Dean of Graduate Studies and the Graduate Council for graduate reviews.
• Working with CEP, the AVC-UE should be responsible for maintaining and providing as much of the required data for reviews as possible, coordinating surveys, and selecting and scheduling reviewers.
• Undergraduate reviews should occur within one year before the corresponding graduate review, and the review report should be made available to the graduate program reviewers; this would place undergraduate reviews on an eight-year cycle, although CEP may initiate an earlier review if warranted.
• Reviews should be structured such that they occur in a specific quarter, and the reviews should take place within a limited number of days (two or three).
• Review committees should include one external faculty member, typically from another UC campus.
• Departments that wish to combine their undergraduate and graduate reviews should have the option of doing so.
• Review of Jacobs School of Engineering departments can take advantage of their comprehensive ABET accreditation reviews to limit the extent of additional review required.
• A more formal mechanism should be developed for follow-up by CEP, the Deans, the departments/programs, and the Administration
• The divisional deans should be more integrated into the review process and should motivate the departments/programs to engage in ongoing self-review as an important adjunct to periodic external review.

Reviews of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Programs, Majors and Minors

• The programs should be grouped into four broad categories, each with separate review procedures and frequencies: (1) The large department-like interdisciplinary majors should follow the process developed for departmental majors; (2) small majors can be grouped into three clusters (area studies, cultural studies, and interdisciplinary studies), each cluster reviewed at the same time by the same review committee; (3) the review of minor programs should be more limited, not requiring an ad hoc review committee.
• Writing programs, language instruction, and college core sequences require special consideration and flexibility. The procedures for review of these programs should be developed in consultation with CEP.
• Program directors should be reviewed at some regular intervals.

II. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Periodic independent reviews of all undergraduate and graduate programs are conducted jointly by the Administration and the Academic Senate (through CEP and the Graduate Council) to ensure the ongoing excellence of UCSD’s departments and programs. The formation of our task force to examine the review processes was motivated by several factors. Over the past few years there has been a growing sense that the reviews place a considerable burden on departments, programs, and the Academic Senate, and that it should be possible to streamline the review processes to alleviate this workload pressure and still achieve effective outcomes.

Another factor that motivated our study was CEP’s observation that the thoroughness and effectiveness of the undergraduate reviews have been inconsistent, with some reviews producing helpful output that highlights the areas that are working well and those that need attention, while other reviews are somewhat superficial and lacking in constructive suggestions. The Senate has found it increasingly difficult to identify faculty members who are willing to serve as review committee members, and as the number of programs has increased over the past few years, this problem has intensified. Reviews of a substantial fraction of the undergraduate programs have been thrown off-cycle for anywhere from one to four years while the Senate endeavors to constitute review committees.

We were also mindful that the review processes were largely defined before UCSD’s organizational structure included strong divisional deans. If the decanal positions had existed when the review processes were developed, the deans would likely have played a more integral role in the reviews. We included the deans in our divisional meeting with their department chairs and program directors, and they were quite engaged in the discussions. Our thoughts on enhanced participation by the deans in the process are described below.

The committee reviewed several documents and relevant data including: Recommendations of the Graduate Council for Improvement of the Graduate Program Review Process, which was approved by the Graduate Council in March, 2003 (Appendix II); an Evaluation of UCSD Graduate Program Review Process by External Review Committee Members (Appendix III); the current CEP Policy and Procedure for Review of Undergraduate Programs (Appendix IV); a listing of Undergraduate Programs, by program type (Appendix V); a listing of Graduate Programs Reviewed for the past decade (Appendix VI); Graduate Program Review Expense Estimates for 2002-03 (Appendix VII); the Undergraduate Program Review Schedule for the past sixteen years (Appendix VIII); the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry Student Survey Questions (Appendix IX); and the Jacobs School of Engineering ABET Accreditation Process (Appendix X). We also conducted a limited telephone survey with relevant Provosts and Deans at four public “comparison eight” institutions (SUNY, Buffalo; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and University of Virginia, Charlottesville), a summary of which is given in Appendix XI. The latter interviews indicated that many other institutions do combine the undergraduate and graduate reviews successfully; this has been corroborated by the experiences of several committee members.

As an integral part of our committee process we spent considerable time obtaining information and opinion from department chairs, program directors, and deans. A survey questionnaire was developed as a basis for obtaining input from these colleagues (Appendix XII). Each chair or program director was first asked to submit brief written responses to the questions; the response rate from departments was 71% (17 of 24 departments). From this initial feedback the committee identified central issues requiring further discussion. Meetings were then held by sub-groups of the committee with deans, chairs, and program directors in each division, to engage in discussions based on the survey question results. We found that reactions to some of the ideas and questions put forth by the task force varied dramatically by discipline or division, such as the value of combining the undergraduate with the graduate reviews, the value of external members, and the objectives and utility of such program reviews. These discussions ultimately led us to the conclusion that it is important to build a certain amount of flexibility into the review processes. In every case there was a plea to reduce the burden of producing the review documents, in an effort to optimize the value-to-effort ratio. After we had developed some tentative recommendations that we wished to consider further, we then also met with the CEP Chair, Steve Cox, who shared his prior experiences with the review processes and gave his insights on whether our ideas were practical. Our final recommendations are based on what we saw as the consensus coming out of the various discussions, with allowances for flexibility based on disciplinary differences, preferences, and experiences. We feel these recommendations will help to make the reviews more effective and less time-consuming. We realize that several of the recommendations will require further discussion regarding the details of their implementation, but we trust that the Senate and the Administration can conduct these effectively.

III. DISCUSSION OF RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Graduate Program Reviews

During the 2001-02 academic year, a subcommittee of the Graduate Council was charged to conduct a thorough review of the graduate program review process and propose improvements. This subcommittee was chaired by Jim Posakony, the co-chair of our task force. Shortly before our first meeting, the Graduate Council approved the report of its subcommittee and we were given a copy (see Appendix II). The subcommittee’s findings served as a basis for our deliberations about reviews at the graduate level, and we concurred with their consensus that the graduate review process “is not substantively broken, and thus does not need much fixing.” Graduate program reviews are seen as effective, and they are often very useful to departments and programs in making improvements to their programs.

1. Develop a web-based information gathering system for review materials and data
   The Graduate Council subcommittee strongly encouraged the development by OGSR staff of standardized, web-based data forms (including student questionnaires), and their required use in acquiring information pertinent to a program review. Our task force strongly agreed that a concerted effort should be made to move the majority of the review materials and data to a web-based information gathering system, and to centralize this data collection.
   
   
2. Survey external reviewers to obtain a detailed assessment of review materials
   We obtained from OGSR a collection of 94 exit surveys returned by graduate program review committee members over the period 1988 through 2002. A summary of the reviewers’ responses (see Appendix III) revealed that roughly one-third of the reviewers described the department narrative, or Chair’s report, as the most useful component of the review materials, while the comments from graduate students were ranked most useful by another third of the reviewers.
   
   Our discussions led to the conclusion that it would be useful to conduct a more detailed survey of external reviewers to get a better understanding of their assessment of the usefulness of the various review materials. Reviewers’ prioritization of the materials currently required might guide the Graduate Council and OGSR in identifying materials that could be eliminated or scaled back to decrease the volume of information (and work) currently required.
   
   We concluded that it would be a step in the right direction to specify that some review materials be made available on the department website only, with paper copies provided to review committee members upon request. While we concluded that the faculty biographies should be available to reviewers, we agreed that web access would be sufficient for most reviewers, and their elimination would reduce the bulk of the review materials considerably. Again with the goal of reducing the volume of hard-copy materials, we agreed also that certain information might best be provided to reviewers on CD/DVD.
   
   
3. Departments should have the option of using weekends for meetings with external reviewers
   The task force heard from a minority of chairs that the time allotted for the campus visits of the external reviewers is too short. This leads to rushed meetings, with sessions that start late and end on time; it was thought that errors crept into the review reports as a result of insufficient time. It was suggested that reviewers could be brought in on a weekend, arriving on Saturday, with the majority of their meetings scheduled on a Sunday when there would be no competing distractions of classes and other day-to-day department activities. This option was not attractive to most chairs, but we concluded that weekend review schedules could be a choice for some departments.

B. Undergraduate Program Reviews

The task force devoted considerable time during our initial meetings to considering whether the purpose of the undergraduate reviews is clear. A narrow view would consider that the undergraduate reviews are performed primarily to assess a department’s success in serving students in the major. A broader approach to the reviews would include an evaluation of the department’s service teaching, participation in general education instruction in the colleges, faculty participation in interdisciplinary programs, outreach, and other activities. The consensus and recommendation of the task force was that the reviews should address the intellectual content of the programs and the effectiveness in delivering that content to both majors and general education students.

We began our consideration by reviewing the current CEP “Policy and Procedure for Review of Undergraduate Programs” (see Appendix IV). Academic Senate Bylaw 200 (Educational Policy and Courses) gives CEP authority to conduct regular periodic reviews of all undergraduate programs, and CEP should continue to be the body responsible for the reviews. Our task was to consider improvements in how the reviews are conducted. After we concurred with the Graduate Council subcommittee that the graduate review process is working quite well for the most part, we concluded that it would be reasonable to model the undergraduate reviews after the graduate reviews insofar as possible.

As the task force began to agree on these general principles, two subcommittees of three members each were appointed to work out proposed details for consideration by the task force as a whole. Barney Rickett (Chair), Stanley Opella, and Janet Smarr served as a subcommittee charged to recommend details for reviews of undergraduate departmental majors. The subcommittee to recommend processes for review of undergraduate programs and minors included Mark Appelbaum (Chair), Maria Polinsky, and Michael Schudson. Our primary recommendations, based on proposals from these two subcommittees, are given below.

1. AVC-UE should facilitate the conduct of reviews in partnership with CEP
   Throughout our discussions we heard that the Dean of Graduate Studies and OGSR staff members play a significant role in making the graduate program review process successful. OGSR staff members take care of many details of the graduate reviews that are overseen by Academic Senate staff members in the undergraduate reviews. Until the creation of the position of Associate Vice Chancellor-Undergraduate Education (AVC-UE) in 2001, there was no parallel position or office in UCSD’s central administration that would logically have played a comparable role in the review of undergraduate programs. The AVC-UE is fully engaged in all aspects of undergraduate education and now attends both CEP and Council of Provost meetings, and represents UCSD on the systemwide Council of Undergraduate Deans. We recommend that the AVC-UE should facilitate the conduct of undergraduate program reviews, in partnership with CEP, in a manner analogous to the relationship between the Dean of Graduate Studies and the Graduate Council for graduate program reviews.
   
   
2. AVC-UE should be responsible for gathering as much of the required data as possible, coordinating surveys, and selecting and scheduling reviewers
   Currently a CEP staff member is responsible for preparing much of the tabular data, and departmental staff compile the balance of the required information. There is a strong sense from the department chairs that the gathering and processing of data is a substantial burden under the present CEP guidelines. It is proposed that this responsibility be transferred to the Office of the AVC-UE. We strongly recommend that automated uniform campus-wide reporting should be developed for academic teaching loads, courses offered, enrollments, student/faculty ratios, numbers of TAs and Undergraduate Tutors/Readers assigned, etc. There should be a consistent format that is easy to keep updated, readily usable, and informative for the review panels. The aim is to make readily available as much as possible of the information that Senate and department staff now spend time gathering.
   
   After reviewing data requirements described in Sections 2A and 2B of the current CEP Policy and Procedure for Review of Undergraduate Programs, we recommend the following revisions:
   
   2A)The current CEP request would remain: A “brief statement of self-review and goals from the department/program under review. The self-review statement should cover perceived strengths, weaknesses, the direction of the department, and other elements not included in the documentation provided.” We would add to this a request for a list of “client departments” who rely on course offerings from the department under review.
   
   2B)We would modify the list of required data in Section 2B to include the following (changes are underscored):
   
   Data provided by central administration (AVC-UE/campus databases):
   1. Undergraduate courses: the number of times offered since last review; number of hours lecture, lab, discussion; faculty/student ratio, TA/student ratio, etc. There were differing opinions on the question of including grade distribution reports, and we suggest that this detail be revisited. Data requested in this category would be restricted to what can be provided by the AVC-UE.
   2. Catalog listing of requirements for the majors in the department, and catalog course descriptions. The request for reading lists, exams, and papers would be eliminated.
   3. Surveys: We see the continuing need for surveys from both students and faculty. The surveys must be easy to complete and should elicit comments about perceived strengths and weaknesses along with suggestions for improvements. We suggest that CEP should identify the standard issues on which they need input from students and faculty, and develop a core set of basic, open-ended questions that would be used for all department/program reviews. These core questions could be supplemented with a few additional questions targeted by the review committee and possibly by the department, if feedback on specific topics is desired. Again, the AVC-UE should oversee the implementation of the surveys.
   4. Teaching evaluations, including summaries of relevant CAPE reviews over the three-year period preceding the review.
   5. Responses from client departments about how the department under review meets their curricular needs.
   6. Previous review of the department’s undergraduate program, and correspondence with CEP/Dean about actions taken.
      
      Data to be provided by departments/programs:
   7. Outline of how student advising is handled and who approves exceptions. This item would have to be produced by departments. We envision a brief description, several sentences to a paragraph in length.
   8. Principles or policies guiding teaching assignments, including those for teaching assistants. (A copy of the current departmental faculty workload policy would fulfill this request.)
      
      
3. Reviews should be conducted in a specified quarter and should be completed in a limited time period (2-3 days).
   Currently reviews are conducted over a lengthy period of time, and the cumulative time required of review committee members is a deterrent to faculty who are asked to serve on these committees. This is another area in which the task force saw the graduate program reviews as a model, with the review committees visiting the campus for a defined 2-day period, to participate in concentrated meetings with relevant parties. We recommend that undergraduate program reviews be performed by a panel of three members who would meet over two days and then draft a report following the same basic method used in graduate reviews. The reviews would be structured such that they would occur in a specified quarter and be completed within two or three days.
   
   The Review Meeting – The first day of the meeting should consist of the review panel meeting with various members of the campus community. A list of possible groups that the panels may wish to meet with includes:
   • Dean (suggested that the Dean be first on the interview schedule)

   • Department Chair (and Vice Chair for Education, or equivalent, if appropriate)

   • Faculty representative from Department UG Curriculum Committee, or equivalent
   • Faculty Undergraduate Advisors
   • Staff Undergraduate Advisors
   • Small groups of majors (juniors & seniors)
   • Representatives (faculty and/or staff) from client departments
   • College Academic Advisors (they accumulate much knowledge of the undergraduateexperience)

   During the first day the panel should have access to the AVC-UE for clarification of data.
   
   The second day of the meeting should be mostly free for the panel to discuss and possibly ask for more information, to meet with other individuals, and to draft their report. We suggest that toward the end of the day, an exit meeting would be held with the Dean, the AVC-UE, sometimes the SVC-AA, and on occasion the Chancellor. The exit meeting would provide an opportunity for the panel to discuss their preliminary findings and to clarify any points of confusion.
   
   The Review Report – Sections 3A-3D of the current CEP policy specify the content of the report. We suggest that the detailed statements in 3A (description of the current operation of the department/program, administrative structure, numbers of majors, curriculum description, etc.) be replaced by a broader historical overview of changes since the last review and plans for future growth or change. Section 3B (analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the undergraduate program) seems appropriate, but a critique of advising practice should be included. Section 3C (analysis of strengths and weakness in the context of campus and University policies) and 3D (recommendations for alleviating problems) are the meat of the report.
   
   

4. Review committees should include one faculty member, typically from another UC campus
   We recommend that each program review should be performed by a panel of three faculty members – two UCSD faculty from related disciplines plus one outside faculty member in the discipline. The outside faculty member will typically be from a sister UC campus. The concept of an external reviewer was supported by most of the divisions. Examination of curricular questions is an element that has often been absent in undergraduate reviews. The addition of an external reviewer from the same department or discipline would enable constructive feedback on the curricular issues that internal reviewers have not felt qualified to comment on.
   
   Appointment of the review committees would be accomplished in a manner similar to the appointment of external graduate program review committees. The department/program slated for review would be invited to suggest to the AVC-UE campus departments from which it would be appropriate to draw review panel members, as well as names of potential external reviewers. The AVC-UE might contact another external person in the discipline not on the slate to ask if an individual on the department’s list is a good choice. This process has worked well for graduate program reviews, and we are confident it will be effective for the undergraduate review process.
   
   
5. Undergraduate reviews should be coordinated with the graduate review
   We were charged to consider the possibility of combining the graduate and undergraduate program reviews. Our decision not to recommend requiring combined reviews was influenced by a number of factors. The Graduate Council subcommittee considered combined reviews, and their report (Appendix II) concluded that undergraduate and graduate reviews will continue to be conducted separately. While the subcommittee reported that they heard arguments that combined graduate/undergraduate reviews are more efficient and cost-effective, experience at some other campuses has shown that combined reviews dilute the effectiveness of the graduate program reviews. Some campuses are moving away from combined reviews.
   
   Our survey of department chairs and program directors also yielded little support for combined reviews, but the disciplines that did favor combined reviews had strong arguments in support of this approach. This led to our conclusion that departments should have two options: (1) the undergraduate and graduate program reviews could be coordinated, with the undergraduate review occurring one year before the graduate review, or (2) the reviews could be combined by conducting the undergraduate and graduate reviews simultaneously. In the first instance, the report of the undergraduate review committee should be made available to the graduate review committee.
   
   Given that the Graduate Council increased the interval for graduate reviews from seven years to eight years, this would place undergraduate reviews on an eight-year cycle. CEP would retain the prerogative of initiating an earlier review if warranted.
   
   
6. Jacobs School of Engineering departments can take advantage of their comprehensive ABET accreditation reviews to limit the extent of additional review required
   The Jacobs School of Engineering submitted extensive materials to describe the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation review process (see Appendix X), and we engaged in a lengthy discussion about the exhaustive nature of ABET reviews when we met with the engineering dean and department chairs. On the recommendation of the Graduate Council subcommittee, graduate programs that are subject to regular, required external reviews for accreditation purposes may be permitted by the Council to substitute the accreditation report for an external program review report.
   
   Again using graduate program reviews as a model, we propose that accreditation reviews of undergraduate programs be accepted, upon approval by CEP, in lieu of campus reviews. CEP and the AVC-UE could add a review of any aspects deemed important to the campus that were not included in the accreditation study. Some engineering departments offer degree programs that are not covered by ABET accreditation. CEP and the AVC-UE will need to determine how reviews of these specific majors should be conducted.
   
   
7. The follow-up mechanisms should be strengthened
   Our conclusion that a more formal follow-up mechanism is needed for undergraduate program reviews was supported in our discussions with department chairs and program directors. Under CEP’s current procedure, the report is sent to the department/program for comment, and CEP appoints a lead reviewer to guide the committee’s discussion of the report as well as the department’s response to the report. Department chairs/program directors are frequently invited to a CEP meeting to discuss the review. After considering the report, CEP transmits the report to the Administration along with the committee’s recommendations and the department/program response. CEP conducts a follow-up to the review after one year, seeking information about changes that have been made as a result of the review.
   
   We recommend that CEP and the AVC-UE should develop a formalized procedure to ensure that CEP, the divisional Deans, the departments/programs, and the AVC-UE play a consistent role in ensuring that review recommendations receive appropriate attention from parties that are in a position to bring about change.
   
   
8. The divisional Deans should be more integrated into the review process
   The results of our survey of department chairs and program directors and our task force discussions led to the conclusion that the role of the divisional Deans in the review process should be enhanced. We agreed that the Deans should be included in the exit meeting with the undergraduate program review committees, and that the Deans should receive copies of the review report, the department/program response, and the CEP recommendations. Instructional funds are allocated to General Campus departments and programs by the Deans, so it is important for the Deans to be more directly included in the review process than they currently are.
   
   We also discussed a role that the Deans could play in the ongoing assessment of undergraduate programs using data, surveys, and student meetings. As a general principle we encourage the idea that formal review every eight years is not enough to assure that programs are strong and healthy. We hope that the Deans, in whatever way possible, will encourage their departments and programs to develop continuous self-review as an important adjunct to focused external review. It was suggested that the Deans should meet periodically with students, independent of the departments, to get their informal feedback.

C. Reviews of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Programs, Majors and Minors

The current list of undergraduate programs and minors includes 32 programs of various types and 12 minors (see Appendix V). The characteristics of the undergraduate programs and minors vary widely, in size, in scope, and in the nature of program activities. We concluded that it would not make sense to recommend a one-size-fits-all review process for this diverse set of programs, and we offer the following models for consideration. The guiding principle should be to build in sufficient flexibility to allow tailoring of the review processes to the range of activities of the various programs. This flexibility is needed to ensure a better integration of the proposed review processes with the reviews of larger units on campus.

Despite their differences, it is possible to group the programs into four broad categories that share similar characteristics. These suggested groupings are given below, along with recommended approaches to program review for each category.

(a) Department-like Interdepartmental Majors

Some interdepartmental major programs have characteristics that make them very similar to majors offered through departments. The following programs grant B.A. or B.S. degrees, some programs also offer minors and honors programs, and their number of majors is as large as that of many department programs.

We recommend that these large interdepartmental majors follow the review process adopted for undergraduate majors offered by departments. Some minor adjustments in the review committee selection process might be needed to allow input from the collaborating departments, as opposed to a single department. Flexibility in the composition of the review committees would be desirable. For example, larger committees might be desirable to include the breadth of disciplinary perspectives represented in the program, or the ratio of external to internal review committee members might be increased to include faculty affiliated with similar programs from other UC campuses. Faculty from departments that participate in interdepartmental majors should be allowed to serve on review committees for interdepartmental programs if they (the faculty members) do not directly participate in the program. For example, for the review of the Human Development Program, only Cognitive Science and Psychology Department faculty who are affiliated with the Human Development Program should be excluded from service on the review panel.

The B.S. program in Chemical Engineering is accredited by ABET, hence this program should be reviewed in the same manner as Jacobs School of Engineering ABET-accredited departmental majors.

(b)“Small” Interdepartmental Majors

There are currently 13 major programs that we classified as “small,” although we did not define an upper limit beyond which a program would grow and be considered a “large department-like” major. In examining the 13 small majors, we found that they can be grouped into three general clusters – Area Studies, Cultural Studies, and Interdisciplinary Science:

We recommend that the programs within each cluster of majors could be reviewed simultaneously, by a single review committee, since many of the issues (both philosophical and programmatic) would be similar. The basic model for review of department majors will need to be adjusted to fit each cluster area. The instructions to the major programs, the charge to review committees, and the essential elements required for review of these “small” majors would be modified to tailor the review process to the programs.

(c) Minors

CEP’s list of programs subject to review includes 12 minor programs, and these are currently reviewed in the same manner as departmental majors. The minors range in size from 0 to 142 enrolled students, and there are instances in which the minor program being reviewed has fewer students than the number of faculty members on the review committee! It is difficult to determine with certainty the number of students participating in a minor at any given time because minors are optional for most students, and many students wait until they are close to graduation to declare their minors officially. The enrollment figures listed below were extracted from StudentLink:

A number of the minor programs have not been reviewed on schedule because of the difficulties in appointing the review committees. This has created frustration in the Academic Senate Office as well as within the minor programs. The programs have sometimes submitted review materials, only to have the review delayed, with a subsequent request for updated review materials when a committee is eventually appointed.

We recommend that the review of minor programs should be more limited, without the formation of a review committee. The Office of the AVC-UE would prepare an objective report that might consist primarily of a simple counting of the number of students taking or completing the minor over a period of time, a summary of the availability of courses in the minor, and results of a brief student questionnaire (conducted electronically). The program director should also be asked to submit a brief report to identify any issues that should be noted or examined. The Council of Provosts would be invited to comment on the report prior to its submission to CEP, and any comments offered by the Provosts would be provided to CEP along with the report.

The undergraduate minor in the Teacher Education Program (TEP) is a special case. The remainder of TEP’s programs are at the Masters and Ed.D.level and are reviewed by Graduate Council. TEP also undergoes a licensing review process for its credentialed programs. [p1] We concluded that a separate CEP review of the undergraduate minor is not warranted.

(d) All-campus Cross-cutting Programs

The all-campus cross-cutting programs do not offer degrees or other coherent academic credentials that appear on diplomas, such as minors. Unlike departments or interdepartmental programs, they do not typically have a structured group of faculty working as a unit, although some of the programs do have Faculty Advisory Boards. The review process for these programs needs to take into account the differences between the program and departmental majors, as well as the variations in the nature of the cross-cutting programs themselves. Review processes should be flexible and designed to achieve an outcome that will be meaningful to the programs and to their campus constituencies. The programs included in this category are:

• Language
  • Linguistics Language Progra
• College Core Sequence plus Writing Program
  • Culture, Art, and Technology (Sixth College Core)
  • Dimensions of Culture (Marshall College Core)
  • Humanities (Revelle College Core)
  • Making of the Modern World (Roosevelt College Core)
• College Writing – “Stand-alone” Program
  • Muir Writing Program
  • Warren Writing Program
• Writing Preparation
  • English as a Second Language[currently reviewed by Academic Senate Committee on Preparatory Education (COPE)]
  • Subject A
• Other Cross-Cutting Programs
  • Academic Internship Programs
  • Education Abroad Program/Opportunities Abroad Program (EAP/OAP) *
  • Office of Academic Support & Instructional Support (OASIS) [reviewed by COPE] UC San Diego Washington Center (UCDC) *

* -- currently no Academic Senate review process; the Senate Committee on International Education provides oversight of EAP/OAP

We concluded that the writing programs, language instruction, and college core sequences require special consideration and flexibility. Tailored procedures for review of these programs should be developed in consultation with CEP.

Review of Program Directors – We did agree that Program Directors who serve in this capacity for five or more years should be reviewed at some regular interval. The campus does not have an existing procedure for conducting these reviews, and we recommend that the Office of the AVC-UE work with the Office of the Assistant Vice Chancellor-Academic Personnel to develop a review policy, in consultation with the SVC-AA, the divisional Deans, and the Academic Senate.

IV. CONCLUSION

The principal changes we recommend primarily affect the undergraduate program reviews. The improvements we suggest rely on a partnership between the Administration (AVC-UE) and the Academic Senate (CEP) that parallels the structure and process that has been so successful for graduate program reviews. We understand that numerous details remain to be agreed upon by the Academic Senate and the Administration, but it is our view that this can be an ongoing process if the general ideas proposed by our task force are accepted.

Respectfully submitted:

_________________________             ___________________________

David R. Miller, Co-Chair                           James W. Posakony, Co-Chair

Senate-Administration Task Force to Examine Program Reviews

• Mark Appelbaum (Academic Affairs--Undergraduate Education)
• Richard Attiyeh (Graduate Studies & Research)
• Steven Cassedy (Graduate Studies & Research)
• Vincent Crawford (Economics)
• David Miller (Academic Affairs), Co-Chair
• Stanley Opella (Chemistry & Biochemistry)
• Maria Polinsky (Linguistics)
• James Posakony (Cell/Developmental Biology), Co-Chair
• Frank Powell (Medicine/Biomedical Sciences)
• Barnaby Rickett (Electrical & Computer Engineering)
• Michael Schudson (Thurgood Marshall College)
• Janet Smarr (Theatre & Dance)
• Mark Thiemens (Physical Sciences)

1. Task Force Charge Letter (Senate Chair Dimsdale and SVC Chandler, March 24, 2003)
2. Recommendations of the Graduate Council for Improvement of the GraduateProgram Review Process (approved by the Graduate Council March 17, 2003)
3. Evaluation of UCSD Graduate Program Review Process by External Review Committee Members
4. Current CEP Policy and Procedure for Review of Undergraduate Programs
5. Undergraduate Programs List (by program type), 2002-03
6. Graduate Programs Reviewed, 1993-94 through 2002-03
7. Graduate Program Reviews Expense Estimates, 2002-03
8. Undergraduate Program Review Schedule (1987–2003)
9. Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry Student Survey Questions
10. Jacobs School of Engineering – ABET Accreditation Process
11. Summary of Telephone Survey of Four Public “Comparison Eight” Institutions
12. Department Chair/Program Director Survey - Summary of Quantifiable Responses