In
1990 the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, instituted a policy that
requires each program within the state's three regents institutions to
undergo a program review at least once every seven years. The purpose
of such reviews is to provide a mechanism to ensure the improvement of
the universities' academic programs.
Ordinarily,
these reviews are conducted at the departmental level. Because many of
our programs already engage in periodic external reviews for
accreditation, however, College of Design and Iowa State University
administrators find it beneficial to conduct a review at the collegiate
level to address issues and opportunities that transcend program
boundaries. In addition, for the College of Design, three key dimensions
of the review are to determine how much progress we have made since the last review, how we compare with the best programs of
our type in the United States and how we fit within and contribute to
Iowa State University.
The first
College of Design review took place during the 1997 fall semester. We
engaged in our second collegewide program review during spring 2005.
The
review entails three steps: the preparation of a self-evaluation
report, an external peer review, and the development of a plan of
action. View the
self-evaluation report prepared for the 2005 program review. The external peer review (site visit)
took place Feb. 27 - March 2, 2005, culminating with a public forum at
which the seven-member review team presented a synopsis of its
findings. The team then submitted a
final written report.
The
college is using the findings and recommendations emanating from this
review to guide its response and plan of action, currently under
development. The review team's report also played a prominent role in
the development of the college's draft 2005-2010 strategic plan, which
has been forwarded to the provost for comment.
