September 27, 2007

Program Review and Assessment Committee

Present:  Susan Felsenfeld, Ray Mugno ( Chair / recorder), Radha Narumanchi, Thomas Radice, Elena Schmitt.

We welcomed our new member, Felsenfeld,  and introduced her to PRAC's history and procedures. She asked two very important questions, which we spent most of the meeting discussing. First, "What is PRAC's role in the assessment and program review process?" Second, "Where does the push for assessment come from?"
PRAC's role will be more defined when the Program Review Task Force's document is finalized and approved. One proposal is that PRAC will function similar to the Academic Standards Committee of the Graduate Council. There seemed to be consensus in the committee that "the push for assessment" comes both from faculty members who use assessment to improve student learning and from accrediting agencies, such as NCATE.

PRAC also discussed the need for more members on the committee if we are to review on average 7 proposals / programs per year. We also need better school coverage, because we have no members from the School of Education and no members from the School of Communication, Information and Library Sciences.

We also discussed how to change the Faculty Development workshops we have offered. Topics the committee would like to see addressed are, How to approach assessment and How to guide assessment.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 AM.