E L PA S O C O M M U N I T Y C O L L E G E
ENSURING QUALITY THROUGH PROGRAM REVIEW
All too often the assessment of a program’s quality is put
on the back burner until a program finds itself in trouble. Of
course, by that time, it is often too late. To address the
issue of program quality, and to put outcome data in the
hands of faculty, El Paso Community College (EPCC) has
designed a comprehensive Program Review Process that
in the past four years has proven to be highly successful. In
contrast to other assessment processes, which review the
effectiveness of programs every three to five years, the
EPCC Model conducts a thorough review annually. What is
exciting about this prototype is that it was designed, piloted
and evaluated with the support of faculty. The term
“program review” can have a negative connotation among
faculty. However, program review is intended to be a
process that improves programs and makes them more
relevant to changing society. With upfront buy-in, faculty
can trust that the principal use of the findings is for the
improvement of a program, and subsequently improving
students’ performance.
A diverse group of faculty, administrators and staff were
called together to research, review and create a program
review process that had broad-based support, produced
annual data that gave faculty and administrators a current
snapshot of the program’s level of performance, and
provided a comparison of performance over a three-year
period. Though some colleges may shy away from annual
assessments, it is just that, the annual compilation of data
and the three-year trend
comparison, that give the
EPCC Model its unique
value. Especially valuable
to those faculty and
administrators involved in
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workforce education
programs are the
elements of the model
that resonate with
business and industry,
such as employer satisfaction with graduates and meeting
the demand for technical graduates to fill positions in the
workforce.
The taskforce, after studying existing models used
elsewhere in the country, opted to “build a model which
contained all of the features that were identified to be
crucial to an effective review process.” The EPCC Model is
predicated on two types of performance indicators: Viability
and Quality. The Viability Indicators, such as “Number of
Graduates” and “Number of Graduates Employed in the
Workforce,” are used to benchmark the health and wellbeing of the program. There are eight Viability Indicators
clustered under the following two headings: “Student
Learning” and “Instructional Support.” The Quality
Indicators, such as “Student Satisfaction with Program” and
“Student Licensure and Certification,” are used to
benchmark the value-added dimensions of the program.
There are twenty Quality Indicators, clustered under the
same two headings: “Student Learning” and “Instructional
Support.”
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The Best Place to Start
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ENSURING QUALITY THROUGH PROGRAM REVIEW
The Program Review Report, though highly sophisticated,
is easy to read and contains valuable data that can be
used by faculty and administrators to assess a program’s
strengths and challenges. Two special features of the
report are the “Workforce Demand listing by CIP Code” for
the El Paso region, and the listing of “Area Effectiveness
Plans,” which are developed by faculty in the discipline to
indicate what actions can/should be taken to improve both
Viability and Quality Performance Indicators. These Plans
are also considered during the annual budget development
process as a way of demonstrating need for the extent to
which Effectiveness Plans were met by the program. This
full-loop process is vital to each program’s viability and
quality as it assesses effectiveness, prepares plans to
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improve, allocates necessary resources, carries the plans
out, and begins the loop over again by assessing the
program’s performance.
Through the EPCC Program Review Process, the college
has been able to identify programs in trouble, and by
providing very targeted data helped them to become viable
once again. Program Review has also given many
workforce degree and certificate offerings data that has
been used to take already good programs and make them
great.
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The Best Place to Start
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