English
College of the Redwoods
Program Review Committee
Executive Summary
Adopted November 6, 2009
Mission Statement The College of the Redwoods’ Program Review Committee leads and facilitates authentic
assessment as it relates to student success and planning at the institution for all subject and service areas.
The committee reviews Annual and Comprehensive Program Reviews that provide the strong foundation
upon which College of the Redwoods develops, identifies, states and documents quality improvement plans
and goals including providing the direction of prioritization of funding, and support needs as organized under
the strategic planning objectives.
Objective: To provide an evaluative Executive Summary of this program’s review for authors, the
Integrated Planning Committees, and the District.
Program Review Subject/Service Area: ___English_________________
Program Review Authors: Susan Nordlof , Pam Kessler, Judie Hinman, David Holper, Peter
Blakemore, Ruth Rhodes, Ken Letko
Summary and Recommendations:
Additional Comments:
1. Program Strengths:
• Despite staffing crisis, department remains committed to
maintaining its integrated, coordinated composition
program.
• Department is deeply invested in the success of basic skills
students as well as students fulfilling transfer requirements.
2. Program Challenges:
• Within two years, the English department has lost four fulltime faculty to retirement with no replacements. In
addition, one FT faculty has been on leave for 09-10 year.
• On the EKA/ARC/MCK sites, the ratio of fulltime to parttime faculty has gone from67% FT/33% PT four years ago to
approximately 30 % FT/70% PT projected for SP 10. These
conditions render it very difficult to orient, mentor, and
evaluate PT faculty and to maintain coherent standards and
curriculum.
• Budgetary difficulties at HSU have diminished the number
of MATW graduates, typically CR’s most steady source of PT
faculty.
• Integrating regular course SLO assessment has increased
professional duties of remaining FT faculty substantially.
• Lack of information on Writing Center budget—as well as
the limit of offering ENGL 41 Peer Tutoring course only once
a year—makes it difficult for the department to hire an
adequate number of trained work-study peer tutors for the
Writing Center.
• Lack of adequate technology for virtual meetings makes it
Process:
PRC will forward completed Executive Summaries to program review authors.
Authors will have two weeks to provide feedback and corrections on errors of fact and/interpretation
PRC will forward Executive Summaries and authors response (if available) to the appropriate integrated
planning committee and the CPC.
English
difficult to work together on district-wide departmental
curriculum, policies, and assessment.
• Inadequate faculty development program for PT faculty
(dismantling of CTE, etc.) adds to
training/mentoring/communication burden on the small
number of FT faculty.
3. Commendations:
English department continues to do an outstanding job, even
with the budgetary and reduced faculty issues;
Provides strong support for book of the year;
Students enrolled in Reading classes are have a high success
rate in other college courses;
1. 4. Program Budget/Funding Sources:
• Full-time faculty needed.
• Transparent funding and staffing (work-study peer tutors)
needed to maintain Writing Center services and increase
tutoring for basic skills students.
• Budget-line item for basic skills testing materials needed.
• Maintenance of facilities needed, including technology in
classrooms.
5. Program Goals/Plans:
• Maintain uniform departmental control over the English
curriculum, insuring its high academic quality district-wide.
• Keep requesting technology to improve communication
between campuses and centers
• Maintain communication with the HSU English department.
• Offer English 41 Tutor Training every semester (EKA
campus) to increase the number of trained peer tutors in the
Writing Center.
• Recommend to the Academic Senate that Faculty Drops and
FW Grades be reestablished in order to make success and
retention data more accurate and petition for changes in the
fill rate calculation for the DRP lab course ENGL 52 to render
English fill rate data more accurate.
• Track the success of those Reading 360 students enrolled in
GS 361 against those who are not.
Recommendations:
Need more full-time faculty;
Facilities and technology is deficient –see
replacement/needs list in the program review;
Maintenance is deficient – deferred maintenance is a
problem campus-wide;
(A suggestion was made regarding the need for new
projectors: purchase the higher-quality projectors
needed by ART and use existing ART projectors in
English classrooms, which don’t need such high
quality projectors;)
Begin moving categorical funding operations to
district funding operation;
• Consider reinstating some BSI funding for peer
tutors in the Writing Center.
6. Program Outcomes Assessment (PLOs/SLOs):
• Assessment in progress for all reading and composition
courses., including ENGL 52.
• Assessment plans in place for literature and creative
writing courses.
7. Student Success/Achievement Basic Skills
Obstacles/Challenges:
• Graduates from HSU MATW program typically have little
training in teaching reading and basic skills in general and
require extensive mentoring to teach these courses at CR.
Process:
PRC will forward completed Executive Summaries to program review authors.
Authors will have two weeks to provide feedback and corrections on errors of fact and/interpretation
PRC will forward Executive Summaries and authors response (if available) to the appropriate integrated
planning committee and the CPC.
English
Across all discipline issues:
Facilities and technology is deficient;
Maintenance is deficient;
Staffing, budget is deficient;
Deferred maintenance is a problem campus-wide
Entry and Exit surveys can increase student success, retention and persistence;
Lack of replacement of lost faculty; finding qualified faculty to teach
Challenge that IT doesn’t support Mac Computers; most science, math and arts use Mac computers
*Need for transcript evaluator and document imaging system will support all disciplines.
General: Is there a budget set aside for bulb replacement for projectors, campus wide and district wide?
Process:
PRC will forward completed Executive Summaries to program review authors.
Authors will have two weeks to provide feedback and corrections on errors of fact and/interpretation
PRC will forward Executive Summaries and authors response (if available) to the appropriate integrated
planning committee and the CPC.