Institutional Effectiveness: Strategic Planning and Assessment

Mission

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness provides leadership and administrative support to the strategic planning process and reporting and to the assessment processes and documentation of assessment findings and reports of the institution and serves as the liaison with outside accrediting agencies.

Unit Goals

Provide leadership and administrative support to institutional effectiveness planning and assessment across campus
Provide leadership and administrative support to strategic planning and assessment processes across campus
Provide administrative support to the Senate Committee on Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness
Provide administrative support and guidance to departments and the college with respect to outside accrediting agencies

Institutional effectiveness is the term used to identify the degree to which an institution fulfills its mission and goals, its shorter-term goals and objectives. At Queensborough Community College (QCC), this process includes a commitment, as one of the colleges in a university system, to the goals and objectives of the City University of New York (CUNY). Two primary components of the process are strategic planning and assessment.

Strategic planning is the term used to identify the process by which the institution demonstrates its commitment to its mission and college goals, its shorter-term goals and objectives. The institution's mission and goals provide the local framework within which strategic goals and objectives are articulated. The college also aligns its strategic goals and objectives with the larger, more long-term university-wide goals of CUNY.

Assessment is the term used to identify the process by which the institution demonstrates the degree to which it meets its goals and objectives at various levels across the institution. This process includes setting goals and objectives, identifying the means for measuring the degree to which they have been met, reflection on the evidence provided by the measures and reflection on the findings, taking appropriate action, and repeating the process to ensure a sustained effort of purposeful change and improvement.

Strategic Plan 2021-2026
Planning and Assessment
Assessment of Student Learning
General Education
Accreditation

Planning and Assessment

Planning and assessment are the terms used to identify college-wide planning and assessment processes. College-wide planning results in the annual strategic plan and the annual department reports, both teaching and non-teaching departments. College-wide institutional assessment results in the annual completion report, which is submitted to CUNY. The department reports include both planning and assessment components.

Strategic Planning

The strategic planning process, which is a college-wide effort, produces two kinds of documents: the annual strategic plan or "goals and targets" and the annual "goals and targets report" or completion report. Strategic planning at the college is a process that produces an annual strategic plan based on the strategic priorities of the college and an annual completion report that demonstrates the degree to which the institution has met its goals and objectives for the year.

The process is informed by the input from academic departments, college divisions, HEO and student feedback, and year-long consultation with the College Advisory Planning Committee (CAPC), which comprises the senior leadership of the college, the faculty, and the students.

Department Reports

Both teaching and non-teaching departments complete annual reports that include the year's accomplishments, assessment results and findings, and planning for the following year.

Key Documents

College Mission and Goals

Consultative Groups

Assessment of Student Learning

Assessment of student learning outcomes is conducted on three levels—general education, program, and course. Though assessment at these three levels combines direct and indirect evidence of student learning, the primary means of assessing student learning is through the evaluation by faculty of student artifacts.

General Education

General education outcomes assessment is based on the four general education outcomes of the college. Faculty submit student artifacts from a wide variety of courses, the artifacts are collected and organized by general education outcome, and faculty score the artifacts according to rubrics developed by faculty. Results are discussed by the General Education Task Force, and findings and recommendations are articulated in the task force's annual report, which is submitted to the Academic Senate. Faculty who submit artifacts also receive individualized reports on their students' outcomes.

Program

All academic programs undergo a program review on a roughly five-year cycle. The review is completed by a faculty member or team, the latter especially when the program is co-sponsored by multiple departments. Student data and demographics are provided to the faculty team by Institutional Research. The team completes a report following guidelines and template provided to them. When the report is completed, arrangements are made for an external reviewer to read the report, visit the campus, and provide a separate report on the program based on review of the team's report and the site visit. Following the site visit, the faculty team and department chairs meet with the president and provost and discuss next steps. The faculty team then produces an action plan, which is operationalized by the administrative response from the provost. Subsequent reporting on the action plan items appears in the department's annual report.

Program Review Reports, Action Plans, and Administrative Responses

Course

Courses are assessed by the faculty of the department that sponsors the courses. Course assessment takes into account course-level outcomes and the corresponding program-level outcomes that the courses support. Emphasis is placed on direct assessment of student learning: artifacts of student work evaluated and scored by faculty across sections of the course, followed by analysis and discussion of possible recommendations for improving student learning as appropriate. The college provides support to faculty in this effort through the Assessment Institute, offered once in the fall and once in the spring, and a course assessment form that summarizes information in a useful and practical way.