Academic program review

Purpose and guiding principles

The Arizona Board of Regents (2-225) requires academic program reviews at least once every seven years. Periodic program reviews provide a mechanism for faculty to evaluate the effectiveness, progress and status of their academic programs on a continuous basis. The UPRA Office coordinates the APR process, which is intended to provide a comprehensive assessment of the current status of an academic unit based on its programs, activities and achievements since its last program review, while also providing the unit the opportunity to think strategically regarding its curricular offerings and its future direction. In doing so, the unit:

• Provides comparisons with its peers, identifying strengths and weaknesses in its curricula and pedagogy
• Assesses student quality and learning outcomes
• Provides an account of faculty contributions in teaching, research/creative activities and service
• Assesses resource availability and needs
• Summarizes special features or services provided by the unit. 

The program review should enable the unit, in partnership with the university, to build on existing strengths, maximize opportunities for growth, and problem solve using innovation.

APR for units with specialized accreditation

Arizona Board of Regents policy allows specialized accreditation reports to substitute for an APR, although expectations are that areas missed in the specialized review are addressed separately.  For example, ABET reviews only undergraduate engineering programs, so the UPRA Office also gathers a review of graduate programs using a modified self-study template (see the example from the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering). 

The APR process allows the unit to thoroughly and candidly evaluate:

• The mission and goals of the program and its relation to those of the university
• Its future direction and strategic initiatives
• The reputation of the program among peers in the discipline
• The educational objectives, curriculum, and student learning outcomes of undergraduate and graduate programs
• The quality of teaching and retention and graduation rates for undergraduate and graduate students
• The quality and diversity of faculty and staff (including retention rates for underrepresented faculty) and their contributions to program mission and goals
• Resources (e.g., laboratories, physical facilities)
• Readiness for accreditation, if appropriate

The guiding principles for the APR process include:

• The process should be broadly participatory involving faculty, students, staff administrators and relevant community constituents.
• The APR should provide a framework for excellence and is an opportunity to explore, enhance and integrate student learning and faculty teaching, service and scholarly efforts into the unit's mission and goals.
• The process should facilitate short-term and long-term strategic planning in areas such as curricula development, resource allocation (e.g., financial, physical), faculty/staff hiring/workload and research foci.
• The APR provides the opportunity for the university to account for its use of public resources and facilitate relationships with its various constituencies.

Those directly responsible for the APR process should familiarize themselves with all parts of the manual along with the related checklists and appendices.