Maui College

Maui Community College

Student Services

 

Comprehensive Program Review Summary

AY 2006

July 28, 2006

 

 

For AY 2006, two departments were scheduled for program reviews; Admissions & Records and Counseling (Academic Advising).

 

Program Review Teams were appointed to review the respective self-study of each department.  The review teams were comprised of:

 

            Counseling

·        Elaine Yamashita, Associate Professor, Human Services

·        Wallette Pellegrino, Associate Professor, Cooperative Education

·        Kiope Raymond, Associate Professor, Hawaiian Studies

 

Admissions & Records

·        Robyn Klein, Assistant Professor, Business

·        Michele Katsutani, Associate Professor, Counseling

·        David Grooms, Assistant Professor, Accounting

 

Both program review teams based their review on the standards and guidelines of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS).  Due to the complexity of the CAS process, both program review teams required significantly more time than anticipated in completing their review.  The Program Review Team for Admissions & Records is currently finalizing their report, which will be submitted to the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs in two weeks.  The Program Review Team for Counseling submitted their report in late May 2006.

 

COUNSELING

 

The Counseling self study focused on the CAS Standards for Academic Advising as the Department determined that this standard reflects a major portion of their current work with students.  The academic advising effort includes “discussing career and educational goals; reviewing course transferability and articulation; transcript evaluation; clarifying short and long term benchmarks students’ educational goals; gaining an understanding of employment and family commitments; identifying and developing strategies for removing barriers; and prioritizing and selecting courses for the upcoming and subsequent semesters.

 

The major findings of the Program Review Team for the Counseling Department pointed to (1) the need for more, general funded staffing to provide stability and flexibility, (2) the need to define and establish the position of a “Counseling Director” for the department and (3) the need for counseling representation on the Executive Committee.

 

In response to the findings of the program review team, the VC of Student Affairs:

 

·        Has proposed a biennium budget proposal for three tenure track, general funded positions that would allow for the institutionalization of three federal funded positions.  While this initiative would not add new positions to the staff, this initiative will dramatically stabilize and provide the Department with more flexibility in utilizing these positions.

·        Has discussed the establishment and role of a Counseling Director with other UHCC Deans of Student Services.  There has been no formal establishment of such a position at any campuses.  All campuses handle this issue in the same manner by empowering their counseling staff to work with their respective college to informally determine the appropriate workload.  Discussion on this topic is ongoing.

·        Will revisit the EC membership with the Counseling staff as the origins of this topic probably occurred during the time when instructional department chairs were EC members.

 

While the findings of the program review team are discussed below, I would suggest my own findings regarding the self-study.

 

·        The Counselors are commended for developing a mission for their department that defines their department within the context of MCC’s and UHCC’s missions.

·        While the counselors are commended for beginning the process of identifying and describing student-learning outcomes, the counselors need to identify and describe the assessment infrastructure and matrixes that truly defines their effectiveness.

·        While the counselors have documented and implemented strategies to improve services to students, the need to include discussion on how student feedback and assessment strategies are used to identify, prioritize, and implement the improvements.  Once improvements are implemented, describe and show examples of how the improvements are assessed for effectiveness and further refinement.

·        While the counselors have been a “driving force” in working with faculty for the implementation of the student educational management program for CTE programs, the counselors need to take a more active role in working with faculty to develop the most effective way(s) the educational management system can be used to assist the liberal arts program in retention, program review, and enrollment management.

 

Admissions & Records

 

In April 2006, the Program Review Team reviewed the comprehensive self-study for Admissions and Records.  They also interviewed program staff and VC Alvin Tagomori. 

 

The Program Review Team reports that while the comprehensive self-study contained general discussion of the various CAS standards and its application to Admissions & Records, there is very little detailed discussion that included data, assessment, and utilizing student feedback to make programmatic improvements and meet student-learning incomes.

 

The recommendation of the Program Review Team is that the Office of Admissions & Records performs a comprehensive self-study in accordance with the CAS standards and guidelines.

 

While I will likely support the recommendation of the Program Review Team, we have not had a chance to have a full briefing on their recommendation as their summary was only delivered two days ago.  Upon completion of the full briefing, I will submit an update of this report.