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The Game Plan of Program Review

By Jadell Forman (Class of 1990)

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Click Photo to Enlarge ORU's state-of-the-art Program Review ensures intellectually challenging and relevant opportunities for students.

Click Photo to Enlarge Through Program Review, the art department formally recorded sharpening its degrees throughout the 1990s in response to dramatic industry changes.

Like a well-stocked game closet, a vital university offers an array of intellectually challenging opportunities.

And in order to ensure intellectual challenge, the adroit home manager will implement a review of games on a regular basis. During spring cleaning, for example, players will evaluate and inventory each game. Is this game still challenging? Do we have all the necessary pieces?

Likewise, a robust university looks at each program (degree) and asks, Is this program still relevant and adequately resourced?

And that's the game plan of ORU's Program Review--to ensure that each degree's strategy, pieces, and players yield a quality education and serve the aims of the university.

Since 1985, ORU has been evaluating General Education courses, such as Humanities and Math and Society. But the process has been sporadic until recently, according to Dr. Cal Easterling, director of the newly formed Program Review.

In 2003, Dr. Easterling launched a modernized and methodical review process for all programs. "Now, with Program Review, we are taking a real look at our majors and at General Education."

Every ten years, each program will be thoroughly examined within a three-year process. (For an overview of the three-year process, click here.)

"In short," Easterling says, Program Review is "the study of our programs for the purpose of reallocating resources."

Although many faculty members continually review and enhance their own departments, Program Review offers a formal opportunity for change, according to Easterling.

For instance, in the 1990s art professor Doug Latta posted want ads on a bulletin board every Monday. In so doing, he observed changes within the art industry. The department adjusted accordingly, thereby keeping up with market demands.

Even so, the Program Review process allows the art department--having now completed the self-study and survey portions--to go on record with the strategy and success of those adjustments.

The formal, internal Program Review process creates more work for the faculty, but, according to Easterling, less work than an outside accreditation would require.

A department already approved by an outside accreditation is not reviewed by Easterling's internal group, since that outside process is more arduous. However, the university's Program Review standards can facilitate accreditation by providing a pattern for preparation.

During a recent reaccreditation review in the engineering, physics, and physical science department, reviewers found the department ahead of the curve. According to the department chairman, Dr. Dominic Halsmer, "Our ePortfolio system is state-of-the-art when it comes to outcomes-based assessment." (Click here to read more on ePortfolio.)

Outside-accreditation site team members for the education department made similar comments, and "hold up ORU as an example to other schools," Easterling reports.

Feedback like this indicates that ORU's Program Review succeeds in its own game plan of keeping the university programs vital and relevant.