Program Planning & Review

Program Review

Welcome to Foothill College's Program Review website!

Purpose 

Program review is an integral part of institutional effectiveness and the strategic and budget planning process. Program Review offers an opportunity to gauge successes and design improvement actions to ensure the quality of academic and student success programs. Annually and every five-years, program faculty and staff reflect collaboratively on educational practices and performance outcomes while completing the template forms.

The primary goals for Program Review are to:

• Assess how well we serve our students and how we can improve.
• Demonstrate program effectiveness through continuous  improvement.
• Align academic and service program needs, campus resources, and priorities within the planning and budgeting processes.
• Ensure that program priorities are driven by the College and District mission and planning documents. 

Our Process 

The program review process improves the quality of the instructional disciplines and student success programs offered at Foothill College. The process follows a timeline that includes a Comprehensive Program Review every five years and Annual Program Review to track and monitor student success, strategic planning and budget allocation at the program and discipline level, and overall improvement.

Every five years, all programs must engage in the Comprehensive Program Review process. This requires all program stakeholders to participate in a reflective review using the template prompts and performance data provided. The Comprehensive Program Review is designed to encourage a program to look longitudinally at the last five years of performance data in order to identify program strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential challenges. The narrative prompts ask the program to reflect on and analyze the data and outline actions for innovation and improvement.

The Comprehensive Program Review process will provide:

• a framework for continuous improvement and excellence
• an opportunity to explore, enhance, and integrate student learning and faculty teaching into the program’s mission and program-level student learning outcomes
• an opportunity for full participation involving faculty, students, staff, administrators, and relevant stakeholders as mutually agreed upon by the college senates and administration
• an opportunity to facilitate and execute short-term and long-term strategic planning 
• evidence for the college to meet the obligations of institutional accreditation and account for its efficient use of public