Comprehensive Standard #3.4.1 (Approval/review of programs)

The institution demonstrates that each educational program for which academic credit is awarded (a) is approved by the faculty and the administration, and (b) establishes and evaluates program and learning outcomes.

Compliance Certification

The College of William and Mary is in compliance with this comprehensive standard.

Explanation (a)

The College

The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools approves significant substantive changes in degree offerings, following approval of the relevant faculty, dean, Provost, Board of Visitors, and the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).

Arts and Sciences Baccalaureate Degrees

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved and adopted the current general education curriculum on April 15, 1993 (see Minutes of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Meeting on April 15, 1993). The Dean of Arts and Sciences and the Provost approved the curriculum subsequently.

Acting on behalf of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Educational Policy Committee and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences review and approve all academic majors and minors. (Relevant policy is described in Bylaws, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Article IV and Article V, Sections 3.1 and 3.2.) The Educational Policy Committee and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences review all new courses, changes in degree requirements, and new programs. The Educational Policy Committee, the Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Provost, the Board of Visitors, and the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) must approve new degree programs.

Educational Policy Committee Minutes from the following meetings provide evidence of specific instances of program review and approval or disapproval: October 13, 2000, December 1, 2000, January 22, 2001, February 5, 2001, March 2, 2001, February 20, 2002, September 4, 2003, February 6, 2004, and April 14, 2005.

Arts and Sciences Graduate Degrees

The Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Provost, the Board of Visitors, and SCHEV must approve all degree programs. The Committee on Graduate Studies reviews and approves all graduate courses, programs, and program revisions. The Dean of Graduate Studies chairs this committee. Committee membership includes one representative from each graduate department or program. Representatives typically are the directors of graduate studies for departments or programs. (See Arts and Sciences Faculty Committees for a listing of recent members.) Annual reports from the committee capture the role and functioning of the committee in overseeing and approving courses and program. (See, for example, Committee on Graduate Studies Annual Report 2004.)

Schools of Law, Business, Education, and Marine Science

All of the schools have curriculum committees that review degree requirements, courses, and programs for their curricula. The deans, the Provost, the Board of Visitors, and SCHEV must approve all degree programs. The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools must approve all substantive changes to degree programs.

The Bylaws, School of Business Administration, Article IV, Section 1 describe the relevant policy. Article V, Section 5 describes the responsibilities of the Curriculum Committee.

The Bylaws, School of Education, Article IV and Article V, Section 1.1 provide the relevant policies, while Article V, Section 1.3 describes the composition of the relevant committee.

The Bylaws, School of Law, Article VI, Section 2 provides the relevant policies for the Law School Curriculum Committee.

The Bylaws, School of Marine Science, excerpts describe the relevant policies for the Marine Science graduate programs.

Explanation (b)

As noted in the discussion of compliance with Comprehensive Standard 3.3.1, the College establishes and evaluates program and learning outcomes. The response to Core Requirement 2.5 describes the history and recent developments in monitoring institutional effectiveness, with special attention to the newly implemented Process of Institutional Effectiveness. Through that process, academic schools, departments, and programs (1) link to the College's mission through purpose statements; (2) specify learning expectations, (3) identify learning experiences for achieving those expectations, (4) evaluate the extent to which expectations are met; and (5) use the evaluations to maintain and enhance student learning. This process is aligned with a university-wide process of institutional effectiveness that ensures intentional and transparent budgeting and decision-making in a continual effort to enhance student learning. (See PIE Implementation Status Worksheet for a summary of the implementation of the process across academic schools, departments, programs, and the general education curriculum. Note: The certification requirements of the schools of business, education, and law require slightly different considerations. Those schools are incorporated into the PIE design accordingly.)

The response to Comprehensive Standard 3.3.1 makes clear that the College has in place rigorous arrangements for review of the general education and for Academic Units. The Academic Department, Program and GER PIE Database provides detailed information that is collected annually. The faculty has tied each of the general education requirements to the College's mission through purpose statements. The database includes a careful description of the learning expectations for each requirement. Faculty members link individual courses to the requirements and provide detailed descriptions of how students achieve expectations through learning experiences. They provide examples of student work to document learning and to provide the basis for evaluation. Faculty working groups, appointed by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, use the examples of student work, information about the courses, student survey data, and faculty comments to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning experiences, as described in the response to Comprehensive Standard 3.3.1. (See Tables 3.3.1A and 3.3.1B and Tentative 5 year PIE Schedule in the discussion of Comprehensive Standard 3.3.1 for past, present, and future schedules for assessment.)

The College has organized external program reviews for academic schools, programs, and departments for approximately 20 years. Readers can see examples of the focus and consequences of recent reviews at the following site: Examples of Program Review Results. The relatively new approach to institutional effectiveness (see Process of Institutional Effectiveness) redirects the emphasis of external program reviews by focusing attention more sharply on student learning. The Academic Department, Program, and GER PIE Database summarizes the development of planning efforts to date. Beginning in Fall 2005, a select group of academic departments and programs will collect student work to pilot the process of evaluating learning experiences. Following that, academic units will follow a five-year comprehensive schedule (Tentative 5 year PIE Schedule).

References