CLAS Department Chairs' Handbook - Section X

External Unit Reviews

Introduction

Regular external review of departments and programs encourages self-study and planning, and provides objective feedback on a unit's effectiveness and productivity.  It is our goal to conduct external reviews of CLAS academic units every seven years.  In some cases external unit reviews will be coordinated with important programmatic decisions in which external reviews are also required.  External reviews of CLAS units will be coordinated through the CLAS Associate Dean of Departmental Affairs.

Basic points:

• Departments should conduct external reviews every seven years. This means that four or five departments will be conducting external reviews each year.
• The review visit by the external evaluators should take place in the winter term or early spring terms of each year, although the preparation for the review should begin during fall term.
• Departments being reviewed should meet with representatives of the Dean's office as soon as possible during fall term of the review year to begin planning.
• Working with the Dean's office, the Department should prepare a narrative describing what the Department expects to accomplish during the review and a list of questions to be addressed.

Selecting Reviewers:

• The Department will work with the Dean's office to identify potential reviewers.
• Reviewers should be experts in the same academic area, familiar with the issues of departments of this nature, and have stature in the field.
• Potential reviewers with prior experience conducting reviews or those who are officers in related professional organizations are preferred.
• The Dean's office will have the final word on the external reviewers.

Documents that should be sent to the reviewers before their visit:

• The narrative statement of what the Department hopes to accomplish in the review including the Department's strategic plan and the list of questions it would like the review to answer.
• Description or statistical information on the Department, including the number of faculty, students, graduates, major curriculum, departmental by-laws, graduation rates, etc.
• Any internal documents that address the history or activities of the Department (e.g. letters to alumni, faculty presentations, etc.)
• Description of the grants and contract history of the Department over the last five years.
• Department's current budget, including faculty salaries.
• Other Department accomplishments
• CVs of all tenure-track faculty.
• Course syllabi
• Links to the Departmental website
• Any brochures or other material about the department.
• Five year data on enrollment patterns, graduate rates, class sizes, number of majors and minors, etc.
• Information on community partnerships and service learning.
• Information, if available, on the careers or placement of past students.

Institutional Data

• OIRP information on PSU faculty and students.
• Links to the University website.
• Other PSU documents on development, University activities, including PSU Currently, PSU Magazine, the CLAS newsletter, etc.

Visit

• External reviews are generally conducted during winter or spring term.
• The Department will be responsible for coordinating the review, including the arrangement for travel, lodging, and stipend of the reviewers.
• The Department will coordinate the review with the Dean's Office.
• Funds for the costs of the review will be provided by the Dean's Office.
• There will generally be two reviewers, although in some cases a third reviewer may be required.
• The review visits will last two or three days.

Meetings

• The review will begin and end with a meeting with the Dean or a representative of the Dean's Office.
• The external reviewers should meet with the department as a whole one to two times.
• The external reviewers should meet at least once with each faculty member.
• The external reviewers should meet with a group of graduate students, if appropriate, and a group of senior majors.
• The external reviewers should meet with faculty from other departments who have relationship with the department, if appropriate.
• The external reviewers should meet with other administrators upon request and availability

Final Report

• A draft of the review report will be completed at the end of the review.
• A final report from the external reviewers will be sent to the Dean's Office within three weeks of the review.
• This report, along with comments from the Dean's office, will be shared with the Department.
• The Department will have two weeks to respond to the external report.
• The Department will meet with the Dean's office to discuss how to implement recommendations and address other comments made in the report.
• At the end of the academic year following the external review, the Department will be expected to report on progress in implementing recommendations or suggestions made in the review.

Schedule for External Reviews

2008 - 2013