Program Reviews

Each program review is a part of a College-wide process that asks us, once every eight years or so, to step back and reconsider our academic programs and how they might be improved. Confronted with the demands of our teaching, research, and service, we tend to look at program matters one day, week, or term at a time. The program review process gives us the opportunity to pause and consider the bigger picture — including the relationship of the program to the College's mission and learning goals — and to make plans for the future, including possible new directions.

The ultimate goal of the process is to help programs fulfill their educational missions and to improve the quality of educational programs through a review undertaken within the programs themselves (the self-study process), supplemented by the insights of consultants from peer institutions who read the self-study documents and visit campus. The external consultants are brought in as a resource, to help the program understand itself from other vantage points. The visit of the consultants is an important part of the process, but it should not overshadow regular ongoing assessment activity within programs and the review and planning process that occurs both before and after the visit. The visit is in service of those activities.

When the whole process works well, it stimulates an agenda and strategic planning to guide the program in the years after the review.

While each review is taiored to the program, below are some links to help with the process.

• Program Review Schedule
• Program Review Guide (2020)
• Program Review Checklist (2023)

The Associate Dean for Faculty is in charge of the program reviews. If you have additional questions, please contact him (facultydevelopment@knox.edu).