Minutes - PRAC
Sept. 17, 2009

Present: Patty Kahlbaugh, Adam Abugri, Imad Antonios, Gene Brady, Sue Clerc, Charlie Dellinger-Pate, Marybeth Fede, Susan Felsenfeld, Marty Hartog, Tricia Lin, Tom Radice

The following agenda items were discussed:

1.   Familiarization with the timeline for 2009-2010, the departments under review, and the processes by which we receive, review, revise and vote on departmental assessment documentation. P. Kahlbaugh informed the committee of the following points:
• The 2009-2010 Review schedule is on line.
• Political Science - will be submitted Wednesday, 9/23 and will be voted on 10/1 at the next PRAC meeting.
• Electronic copies of last year's approved reviews will be made available to the committee members, either by posting them on the UCF website or sent via email.
• Assessment documents would arrive through email the week between PRAC meetings.

2.  Familiarization with the assessment documentation passed by UCF.  We will be going further into the process this year and will need to examine standards 1-9 (and possibly further) in the document.
The committee had a brief discussion of the PRAC Program Review document to familiarize new members of the committee about the document.

3.  Old Business: 
Deb Weiss visited the committee and discussion of the following points ensued:
a. She informed the committee that 6 credits for assessment will be phased into the assessment by giving .6 credits per semester for five years. Programs up for review are being given an option to receive either credits or receive monetary compensation, as funds in the budget exist. It is not certain if this proposal is retroactive to last year.
b. She discussed what the assessment office is doing to facilitate the data gathering process, such as what they are doing with the library to help gather data related to library holding, etc. Concerns were raised about creating a guide for how to fill out the review reports. Deb suggested that the task of the committee include creating those guidelines and in a sense be assessing the assessment process.
c. Deb presented the form that programs receiving outside review would have to submit to PRAC with their report. The form contained 5 minimum requirements that correlated to PRAC's 17 standards that the external review needed to address. The question of how and when that report would be reviewed by PRAC was a concern.
d. The question of extending the timeline to 7 years was discussed. Points discussed included:
• Whether it needed to be coordinated with the Graduate Program Reviews.
• When external reviews for departments undergoing accreditation are up for review in order to decide if one program could replace one of the full reviews scheduled for Spring 2010.

The meeting adjourned at 10:55 a.m.
Minutes submitted by M. Hartog
Sept. 17, 2009