Revising the Program Portfolio: Elevating Academic Program Performance and Strategic Alignment

At many institutions, program review is an underproductive exercise. Review of existing programs is often a check-the-box formality, with inconsistent criteria and little connection to institutional priorities or funding considerations. Decisions about where to concentrate resources across the portfolio can be highly politicized. This report profiles how academic planning exemplars use program review as a strategic tool, integrating data on academic quality, student demand, and resource utilization to improve the economics of challenged programs and prioritize programs for investment and expansion.

Expediting New Program Development: Meeting Market Demand and Leveraging Internal Resources

Expediting new program development can help universities meet student and employer demand while gaining an edge over competitors, but coordinating program development and approval requires careful preparation and execution. This report profiles strategies to measure market demand for new programs, choose programs for accelerated development, and leverage internal resources. The report also suggests ways to structure and staff program development to maximize speed and effectiveness.

Consolidating Program Accreditation Data for Regional Review

Regional accreditors often desire the same metrics and data collected by professional program reviews, but may use different terminologies to describe this information; as a result, some schools must manually translate or even recollect data already stored. This report profiles strategies to proactively consolidate the language and policies of accreditation to avoid duplication of labor and to efficiently route program accreditation data that will be repurposed in regional review. It also suggests ways to select new technologies that can streamline data collection, storage, and presentation.