Graduate
Program Review
Joint review:
Issues important to the continuation of a graduate program
Recruitment: How competitive is the department relative to similar departments at other schools? How do they know? What is the quality of the graduate applicants as indicated by GPA, GRE, competitive awards, and other measures appropriate to the field? What are the admissions criteria and procedures? How many applicants are admitted? What is the yield rate? What strategies does the program use to recruit, admit, and enroll a diverse student population? Are the faculty actively engaged in the recruitment process?
Commitment of resources: What is the level of school/college administrative resources available to the program? How is faculty commitment to the program demonstrated? How does the involvement of faculty in this program influence their responsibilities within their tenure home (if different from this program)? Does the program have student recruitment and retention resources, and how are they deployed? What are the sources of this funding? How will these resources be sustained over time? What kind of funding is available to enrolled students (RA, TA, PA, fellowships, traineeships, other)? Is there sufficient support staff to administer this program?
Advising/degree committees: How are advisers assigned? At what stage? What process do students employ to change advisers? How many advisees does each faculty member have? How often do students meet with advisers? Do students receive written feedback on their academic progress? How do students choose their degree committees? Are there written guidelines for the reading of theses and dissertations and the scheduling of defenses?
Satisfactory progress guidelines: How is satisfactory progress determined? Does actual practice coincide with published criteria? (The published criteria for each program can be found in the Graduate School Catalog.) How do department criteria compare to those in similar programs?
Professional development opportunities for graduate students: Are there opportunities and funding available for graduate students to attend and present at professional meetings? Does the program provide/require education in the responsible conduct of research to its students, faculty, and staff (e.g., data management, mentor/trainee relationships, publication practices, peer review, collaborative science issues, human subjects, research involving animals, research misconduct, conflict of interest)? Are there resources and guidance for exploring academic and non-academic careers? Does the program have flexibility that allows students to experience teaching opportunities that advance their careers?
Quality of student life within the program: Is there a climate of an institutional home (community) within the program? Has the program established a process for student appeals? Is that process published? Does the program offer graduate students opportunities to participate on program governance committees?
Department information accessibility: How does the program communicate standards (student handbooks, web sites, notification of progress or lack of progress)? Does the web site publish satisfactory progress criteria, guidelines for graduate study, admission criteria, faculty interests, curriculum? Is the information on the program's web site consistent with that published in the Graduate School Catalog? Are courses needed by the students readily available? How accessible is the director to students, staff and faculty? How involved in the executive committee?
Continuous assessment: Does the program collect evidence to assess if student learning meets the program's goals and expectations? Has the program set mechanisms in place to regularly ask: Who are we? What do we do? And why? If this program were terminated, what would be the impact? Does the program regularly review its academic benchmarks (curriculum, criteria for satisfactory progress, admission policies, prelims, master's exam)? Is there regular review of students' satisfactory progress? What are the statistics on retention and graduation? How many degrees are produced each year? Placement of graduates?
Optional Questions for Interdisciplinary Programs: How is the program administered? What are the responsibilities of each department, unit, school or college? How are students learning to integrate more than one discipline to address complex research questions? Are students using instruments, techniques or theories from more than one discipline? How do you ensure students have the tools to pursue problem-based and other types of interdisciplinary research? Are interdisciplinary endeavors reflected in master’s theses and doctoral dissertations and how are they evaluated?