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Program Prioritization2015-2016 Academic Task Force Report

Submitted by the Academic Task

ForceApril 30, 2016


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NIU PROGRAM PRIORITIZATION 2015-2016

FINAL REPORT OF THE ACADEMIC TASK FORCE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Senior leadership at Northern Illinois University (NIU) initiated a systemic Program Prioritizationprocess in the Fall of 2014 in response to a variety of factors: the recent hiring of a new university

President as well as an Executive Vice President and Provost, a report by the Higher Learning

Commission Site Team in 2014 that noted a lack of connection between budgets and the institutional

mission, constriction in budgets as a result of regional and national economic crises, and the lack of

participation and support of units of NIU’s shared governance structure. The Program Prioritization

process was originally undertaken in order to assist senior leadership align expenditures with NIU’s

institutional mission, however the higher education budget crisis in Illinois in 2015/2016 brought

financial issues to the forefront of the campus community’s attention. Despite that, the Program

Prioritization process at NIU differed from those conducted at other institutions in that the NIU task

force charters had no specific charge with regard to the economic impact of the outcomes of its work.NIU’s Program Prioritization Coordinating Committee, made up of 14 members drawn from various

shared governance bodies across campus, initiated a process for selection of members of an Academic

Task Force (AcTF). That task force was charged with the evaluation and categorization of 223 existing

academic programs and 10 newly proposed programs with the ultimate goal of assigning those

programs in relatively equal proportions to one of five (5) categories.

A challenge of the Program Prioritization process has been creating and balancing quantitative and

qualitative metrics for analysis of programs across disciplines. The AcTF recognized the need to respect

both type of metrics when evaluating program narratives.

The AcTF also recognized the financial efficiency with which programs at NIU are operating while

providing quality education and degree programs at a significantly lower cost than other academic

institutions of comparable size and purpose nationally and in Illinois.

The following is a general overview of the AcTF program placements:

Category 1 – Candidate for enhancement : 44 programs (20.6%). Programs in this category are of

high importance to NIU and are high performing making efficient and effective use of their

current resources. Programs in this category were recognized for having unmet demand or

potential for growth and that NIU is missing the opportunity to excel without resource

enhancement.

Category 2 – Candidate for unchanged resources: 45 programs (21.0%). Programs in this

category are important and necessary to NIU and are making good use of their currentresources. Programs in this category are generally meeting demand and doing well with current

resources. However, the potential for growth is not as great as for the enhanced resource

category.

Category 3 – Candidate for reduction in resources: 40 programs (18.7%). Programs in this

category may be underperforming or may have excess capacity or less potential for growth

relative to other programs at NIU.


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Category 4 – Candidate for transformation: 44 programs (20.6%). Programs in this category

need to transform to improve importance, performance, and/or use of resources.

Transformation may involve an increase in resources to a program or a refocus of current

resources. These programs appear to have greater potential than their performance indicates.

Category 5 – Candidate for review : 41 programs (19.2%). Programs in this category, relative to

category 1-4 programs, are lower performing and of lower priority to the NIU mission. Theremay be internal and external demand for some of the programs in this category, but there are

too few student to make the program feasible. Some of these programs were slated for

deletion by their offering department. Prior to elimination, further review is intended for these

programs. Any program elimination will follow NIU policy.

The following are specific task force recommendations in no particular order of importance:

Ensure programs are built with a clear foundation of tenure track faculty.

Bring more attention to academic programs through high quality program marketing.

Examine teacher licensure in an institutional context.

Develop an institutional plan for making Graduate Assistant (GA/TA/RA) stipends morecompetitive.

Ensure student outcome data are available for all programs.

Engage in a campus-wide discussion of what diversity means and address the graduation rates of

underrepresented students.

Address the institutional barriers to the success of interdisciplinary programs.

The evaluation of academic programs and thinking strategically about the future is of importance to

higher education generally, and of importance to NIU specifically. The distribution of revenues in

alignment with future projections will assist the university with the provision of robust and well-

rounded educational programs.

The Academic Prioritization Task Force endeavored to evaluate the performance and future potential

of programs impartially, impersonally, logically and thoughtfully based on qualitative and quantitative

information and discussion amongst task force members. It is the hope of the Academic Task Force

that this work enhances Northern Illinois University’s mission to provide an excellent educational

experience for all students that is affordable, enriching and beneficial for their personal and

professional goals.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction ....................................................... written by administrative staff ................ pg. 1

Background and Context ............................ ............................................................... pg. 1

Goal, Guiding Principles and Key Elements . ............................................................... pg. 2Phases, Timeline, and Evaluation ................ ............................................................... pg. 4

Task Force Selection, Orientation and Support ........................................................... pg. 5

II. Task Force Methodology ................................... written by the Academic Task Force ....... pg. 8

Early Task Force Processes .......................... ............................................................... pg. 8

Task Force Ground Rules and Norming Process ........................................................... pg. 8

Scoring Rubric and Categories ..................... ............................................................... pg. 9

Program Review and Voting Procedures ..... ............................................................... pg. 11

III.

Results ............................................................... written by the Academic Task Force ....... pg. 14

Recurring Themes ....................................... ............................................................... pg. 14

General Category Characteristics ................ ............................................................... pg. 16

Creation of New Programs and Voluntary Elimination of Existing Programs ............... pg. 22

General Comments and Broad Recommendations ...................................................... pg. 22

IV.

Categorization of Programs ............................... written by the Academic Task Force ....... pg. 25

V.

Appendices ........................................................ ............................................................... pg. 75

Appendix A: Task Force Nomination Forms ....... ............................................................... pg. 75

Appendix B: Task Force Charge and Charter ...... ............................................................... pg. 77

Appendix C: NIU Academic Program Prioritization Criteria Questions ............................... pg. 79

Appendix D: Scoring Rubric and General Guidelines for Program Authors ......................... pg. 82

Appendix E: Categorized Programs Sorted by College and Department ............................ pg. 85

Appendix F: Categorized Programs Sorted Alphabetically by Program Name ......... pg. 152


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I. INTRODUCTION

1. Background and Context

This report is a product of the Northern Illinois University (NIU) Program Prioritization Academic Task

Force. To preserve the autonomy of this group, only this first introductory chapter has been written byadministrative staff at NIU. The purpose of this opening chapter is to provide background information

related to the Program Prioritization effort undertaken at NIU and to offer context for this report. The

remainder of the report is solely authored by the Academic Task Force.

NIU began work in the fall of 2014 on a comprehensive program prioritization process. The impetus for

the process was multifactorial: (1) strong enthusiasm and support for program prioritization arose

following key changes in senior leadership including the arrival of a new President in 2013 and the

appointment of a new Executive Vice President and Provost (EVPP) in 2014, both of whom were

dedicated to maximizing the alignment of NIU’s resources with its mission to advance the university

and NIU’s cornerstone goal of student career success; (2) the Higher Learning Commission Site Team

that completed NIU’s 10 year comprehensive accreditation visit in 2014, cited a lack of a demonstrablelink between budget and mission and encouraged NIU to consider a process such as program

prioritization to address this deficit; (3) a commitment by NIU to maintain good stewardship of public

funds was gaining increased importance at a time when the campus was confronting the economic

reality that state funding would continue to decrease in an environment where tuition increases would

be incompatible with NIU’s mission of access and affordability; and (4) these factors resulted in an

exploration of program prioritization undertaken in the fall of 2014 by a group of 11 individuals

representing various shared governance bodies across the university. In November 2014, the individuals

in this group were named by the EVPP to the NIU Program Prioritization Coordinating Team that has

guided this process for the past 18 months. Shortly after this group initiated their work, three

additional members were added to the team, two students and one staff member-at-large. The

Coordinating Team members and their affiliations include:

Table 1.1: NIU’s Program Prioritization Coordinating Team

Team Member Name Home College/Unit Affiliation/Role

Bill Pitney College of Education President of Faculty Senate and Executive

Secretary of University Council

Andy SmallCollege of Liberal Arts and

Sciences

Former President of Operating Staff

Council and Chair of the State University

Civil Service System’s Employee Advisory

Council

Jeff Reynolds Academic Analysis andReporting Data/Reporting Support and SupportiveProfessional Staff

Ibrahim Abdel-

Motaleb

College of Engineering and

Engineering Technology

Chair of the Resources, Space, and

Budget Sub-Committee of the University

Council

Marc FalkoffCollege of Law Vice-chair of the Academic Planning

Council

Denise SchoenbachlerCollege of Business Representative for the Council of Deans


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* denotes Coordinating Team Facilitator

2. Goal, Guiding Principles and Key Elements

From the start, Program Prioritization at NIU was undertaken as a way to better align resource

allocation with NIU’s mission and priorities. It was not designed as a cost-cutting exercise. Specifically:

The goal of Program Prioritization at NIU is to allocate our resources to maximize the impact of our

institutional program portfolio, across both academic and administrative programs. Further, the program

prioritization process is a data-informed process aligned with NIU's vision, mission and strategic

framework.

While some universities undertake program prioritization as a cost-cutting exercise, this was not the

primary purpose of program prioritization at NIU. That said, the recent budget impasse in the state of

Illinois has led to an absence of state funding for all public higher education institutions for the past 10

months. Therefore, the need to better align our resource allocation with our priorities has gained

increased significance. The campus now looks to program prioritization not only as an endeavor to

align resource allocation with mission, as it was initially intended, but also as a potential means of

addressing the continued lack of state funding support through strategic allocation of limited resources

and responsible stewardship of available funds.

There are three Guiding Principles of Program Prioritization at NIU:

All academic and administrative programs will be reviewed

All contracts with all employees will be honored

All students will be guaranteed to be able to complete their current academic programs

With this goal and its associated guiding principles in mind, the program prioritization process at NIU

was built upon four key elements that are crucial to NIU’s culture and operations:

Brett CoryellDivision of Information

Technology

Representative for the Senior Cabinet

Dillon DomkeCollege of Liberal Arts Representative for undergraduate

students

Brian CunninghamCollege of Law Representative for graduate students

Kelly Wesener

Michael

Division of Student Affairsand Enrollment Management

Member-at-large

Diana RobinsonDivision of Outreach,

Engagement, and Regional

Development

Member-at-large

Lisa FreemanAcademic Affairs Executive Vice President and Provost

Carolinda Douglass*Academic Affairs Vice Provost for Academic Planning and

Development

Susan MiniAcademic Affairs Vice Provost for Resource Planning


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The first of these is that program prioritization was to be inclusive of all campus stakeholders. This

element was first enacted through the composition of the Coordinating Team which included

representatives from faculty, staff, and students. It was further demonstrated in the development

of Program Prioritization Criteria by gathering input from the university community and

empowering shared governance groups to determine the final criteria and their weighting. Finally,

the selection process and ultimate composition of the Task Forces charged with conducting thereview of academic and administrative programs included representation from multiple campus

constituencies.

Second, program prioritization was to be standardized and data-informed with the best available

data delivered through central sources and in a centralized data platform for program authors

(those writing the narratives for their programs) in support of their data analysis efforts and the

creation of their narratives. Though data provided centrally were primarily quantitative in nature,

program authors were encouraged to include additional data, both quantitative and qualitative, to

elucidate their program narratives.

The third key element of program prioritization at NIU was that it was to be an open and

transparent process. Toward this end, communications about the process were issued through a

number of channels including open Coordinating Team meetings; presentations to multiple

audiences including formal shared governance groups as well as informal student groups, faculty

groups, and staff groups; discussions at Presidential Town Hall meetings; articles in NIU Today

(NIU’s online campus communication) and Northern Star (NIU’s student newspaper); and, most

notably, through a comprehensive and highly active program prioritization website at

http://www.niu.edu/program-prioritization/. Further, communication has been designed as a

reciprocal practice. Feedback has not only been welcomed but expected across all divisions and

from faculty, staff, and students at multiple points in time. Individuals wanting to provide feedback

on this report may do so via the program prioritization website. Feedback (anonymous or

otherwise) will be accepted through May 23, 2016 and distributed to the appropriate individuals

charged with developing action plans during the implementation phase.

The fourth key element of NIU’s program prioritization process was that it should be conducted with

rigor and integrity. At every stage in the process, evaluation has been executed for the dual purpose

of generating formative data for creating process improvements in the current round of program

prioritization and providing summative data for the overall assessment of the process.

Understanding what was accomplished, how it was achieved, and what was positive and negative

about each phase of the process is critical to the rigor and integrity of the process and essential to

NIU’s institutional culture.

http://www.niu.edu/program-prioritization/http://www.niu.edu/program-prioritization/http://www.niu.edu/program-prioritization/


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3. Phases, Timeline, and Evaluation

To date, the program prioritization process at NIU has included five phases with distinct purposes

although, at times, temporarily overlapping time periods:

Phase 1. Planning and Launch: including the development of the Coordinating Team and its subgroups;

establishment of planning documents to guide the process; and development of a communicationsplan for increasing awareness of program prioritization on campus. As part of this planning and

launching phase, the program prioritization process was designed with NIU’s unique culture in mind

and with attention to all of the key elements. One example of this is the inclusion of all campus

stakeholders as demonstrated by the ways in which NIU has brought in student voices at multiple points

in the process.

Phase 2. Process Development : including the creation of support teams; the establishment of Program

Prioritization Criteria through a campus-wide process that had at its core the key element of inclusion of

all campus stakeholders; the selection of Task Force members; and the execution of an ongoing

evaluation process, all of which were developed through methods conducted with rigor and integrity.

Phase 3. Data Platform Development and Population: including the construction of program definitions

and inventories; the selection and specialized customization of a data platform, Prioritization Plus TM;

the identification and population of data within that platform; and the training of campus constituents

in the use of the platform.

Phase 4. Program Narrative Writing: including providing training, assistance, and communications in

support of completing 223 Academic Program narratives and 236 Administrative Program narratives.

Phase 5. Task Forces’ Scoring and Report Development : including supporting the Task Forces with

resources, meeting space, technical support, and communications assistance during the scoring of

program narratives and report development.

Although the Coordinating Team has overseen each of these phases, multiple individuals and groups

have been drawn into the process at various points based upon their occupational expertise and

campus perspectives. Thus far, nearly 500 distinct individuals have played an important role in program

prioritization at NIU. This number is expected to increase in the upcoming Phase 6, Implementation.

Planning andLaunch

ProcessDevelopment

Data PlatformDevelopment and

Population

ProgramNarrative Writing

Task ForceScoring and

ReportDevelopment

Implementation


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A full description of each phase of Program prioritization is beyond the scope of this report. In

alignment with the key elements of an open and transparent process, creating standardized and data-

informed practices, and having program prioritization conducted with rigor and integrity, a Program

Prioritization Evaluation Report will be issued by the Evaluation Team, a subgroup of the Coordinating

Team, to the university community in fall 2016. That report will include descriptions of all components

within each phase of the process, associated evaluations of each of those components, andrecommendations for the future. At this juncture, a description is needed of the manner in which the

Academic Task Force was selected, how the members were oriented to their task, the charge they were

given, and the support that was provided to them during their work on program prioritization (aspects

of Phases 2, 3, and 4).

4. Task Force Selection, Orientation and Support

The Task Force Selection process began in March 2015. The Coordinating Team developed a

nomination form (see Appendix 1-A) that was distributed widely and communicated in an open and

transparent process via the program prioritization website, NIU Today (the online communication for

the NIU campus), and through shared governance groups. As can be seen on the nomination form, the

Coordinating Team believed that individuals chosen to serve on the Academic Task Force should:

Understand and embrace NIU’s mission as a student-centered research and teaching institution

with a strong commitment to engagement within our region.

Enjoy the respect of their peers and have achieved a high level of credibility.

Have participated in university-wide initiatives such as service on committees, task forces, shared

governance bodies, etc.

Have a reputation for getting things done and meeting commitments within a specific timeframe

Have the ability to consider the university’s long-term vision and participate as a representative of

the entire university, not just his/her own department or unit (i.e., have a “trustee mentality”).

Be committed to the principle of confidentiality in all task force work. Be willing to take the time needed to fully participate in all task force activities.

Further, potential nominees were informed that the work of the Task Force would be time-intensive,

and estimated to take at least 6-10 hours a week over a five month period. (In actuality, the task was

even more time-intensive than originally believed, taking many Task Force members twice as much,

and in some cases, three times as much time as initially anticipated.) Because of the heavy time

commitment predicted by the Coordinating Team and the possibility of power differentials among Task

Force members, the Academic Task Force membership was limited to tenured faculty and non-tenure

track instructors only. Faculty who were on the tenure track but not yet tenured and students were not

invited to participate in the Task Force. However, In keeping with our key element of being inclusive of

all campus stakeholders, nominations could be made by all campus constituents including faculty of alltypes, staff, and students. Nominations were open for four weeks from March 16 to April 10, 2015. A

total of 63 individuals were nominated for the Academic Task Force.

The Coordinating Team supported the creation of an ad-hoc Task Force Selection Group, with

representation from shared governance groups, to select the members of the Academic Task Force.

This was seen as a way to further underscore NIU’s commitment to being inclusive of all campus

stakeholders. (See Table 1.2).


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Table 1.2: NIU’s Task Force Selection Group

Member Title Group Represented

Lisa Freeman Executive Vice President and Provost Senior Cabinet

Bill Pitney Executive Secretary, University Council and

President, Faculty Senate

University Council and

Faculty Senate

Melissa Lenczewski Associate Professor, College of Liberal Arts and

Sciences

Faculty Senate

Greg Long Distinguished Teaching Professor, College of

Health and Human Sciences

Faculty Senate

Richard Siegesmund Associate Professor, College of Visual and

Performing Arts

Faculty Senate

Jeanne Meyer Director, Office of Student Conduct Supportive

Professional Staff

David Long Operations Manager, Holmes Student Center Operating Staff

Council

Nathan Lupstein President, Student Association Student Association

The Task Force Selection Group was asked to select 20 members for the Academic Task Force based on

the nomination criteria and to ensure that there was at least one member on the Task Force from each

of NIU’s seven colleges. Keeping in mind that all Task Force members were expected to participate as

representatives of the entire university, not just their own departments or colleges, the Coordinating

Team felt it was also important that the perspective of each college be included in composition of the

Task Force. The Task Force Selection Group identified members, alternates, and a chair for the

Academic Task Force. The chair later had to step down from that role due to personal reasons and theTask Force voted to appoint two co-chairs to lead the group.

Academic Task Force Members

John Bentley (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

James Byrd (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Rod Caughron (College of Education)

David Changnon (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Therese Clarke Arado (College of Law)

Alan Clemens (College of Education) **

Brianno Coller (College of Engineering and Engineering Technology)

Alexander Gelman (College of Visual and Performing Arts) Janice Hamlet (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Anne Hanley (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Bernard Harris (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Jeanne Isabel (College of Health and Human Sciences)

Jeanette Rossetti (College of Health and Human Sciences)

Brad Sagarin (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Rebecca Shortridge (College of Business)


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George Slotsve (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) **

Francisco Solares-Larrave (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Molly Swick (College of Education)

Kendall Thu (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)***

Josephine Umoren (College of Health and Human Sciences)

Laura Vazquez (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

**Task Force Co-chairs

***Served on the Task Force until April 23, 2016

The Academic Task Force was first convened as a group on September 4, 2015 and completed an initial

training that day with Larry Goldstein from Campus Strategies, LLC. The Task Force members were

informed that they were to sign a charge and charter agreement form to help ensure that this stage of

program prioritization would be conducted with rigor and integrity (See Appendix 1-B), and they were to

utilize the Program Prioritization Academic Criteria developed through a campus-wide survey and

shared governance group process in early 2015. (See Appendix 1-C.) The Academic Criteria were linked

to specific program questions and centralized data sources, where available, for individuals who

authored program narratives. In subsequent meetings, the Task Force was trained to use the dataplatform, Prioritization PlusTM, and was given assistance in customizing the platform for scoring

purposes by members of the Data Support Team.

During the months that ensued, and particularly during the months in which the Task Force was

reviewing program narratives and categorizing programs, the Task Force Support Team supported the

efforts of the Academic Task Force. This included meeting with Task Force Co-Chairs biweekly to

assess current progress and needs of the Task Force; providing training and customization to the

scoring system as needed; providing meeting rooms and materials for weekly Task Force meetings; and

working with Task Force Co-Chairs to provide relevant communications to the university community.

However, throughout this time period, members of the Task Force Support Team were not privy to the

content of the Task Force deliberations nor to the evaluative work they performed in order to generate

this final report. Now that we have reached the conclusion of the Task Force work, we thank the Task

Force members for their commitment, diligence, and trustee-mentality and we look forward to

reviewing the results in this report.


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II. TASK FORCE METHODOLOGY

1. Early Task Force Processes

Preparation for the work of the AcTF began September 4, 2015 with a full-day workshop facilitated by aconsultant with extensive Program Prioritization experience (see page 7).

Public panel discussions were scheduled for the benefit of program authors seeking advice and

feedback; in addition, closed panel discussions between the AcTF and Program Prioritization alumni

from other institutions were held October 14-15, 2015. The closed discussions highlighted the range of

procedures used across their institutions and emphasized the need for the AcTF to define its own

operational procedures.

Toward that end the AcTF met on October 20, 2015 for purposes of establishing the procedural rules

(voting thresholds, absentee policies, etc.) and operational protocols (voting procedures, conflict of

interest standards, etc.) that would define its operation. (Voting procedures are outlined in detail on

page 11.) In the week subsequent to the meeting of October 20 the AcTF developed a scoring rubric andgeneral guidelines document for program narrative authors. The rubric and general guidelines

documents are discussed further on page 9 and included in Appendix D.

On November 13, 2015, the AcTF received training on interpreting the institutional and other data that

was likely to appear in program narratives, training on the software to be used during the program

prioritization process, and further refined its operational rules and protocols. At this meeting the AcTF

formally made the decision to separate the processes of scoring each program against the rubric and

assigning each program to a formal category.

2.

Task Force Ground Rules and Norming Process

Ground rules for the AcTF were first established at the initial orientation and training. They consisted

of a set of overarching principles encompassing the task force’s operation. There were five in total:

Maintain an institutional perspective

Come prepared and on time to meetings

Civil and respectful interactions

Focus on the task

Have respect for the integrity of the schedule

These directly contributed to the development of a number of the operational protocols for the group:

Advocacy for a program based on personal interest, or based on knowledge outside of the

scope of data provided within the narrative, was prohibited.

Every academic program would be read and evaluated by each member of the AcTF.

Voting would be open (not by secret ballot) for all votes. (Voting should not be confused

with scoring, which is discussed on page 11.)


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A critical aspect of the AcTF’s work related to confidentiality regarding the process and materials

generated as a part of the process. AcTF members elected to use Blackboard (NIU’s learning

management system, which includes supporting space for non-instructional groups and committees)

for the transmission and storage of messages and documents.

Scoring occurred in two phases:

1. AcTF scored each program within the rubric

2. AcTF placed individual programs into their final category.

Phase One: On December 16, 2015, the AcTF conducted a practice session during which a small sample

of programs (six in total) were scored for the purpose of norming each of the eight criteria and

confirming procedural protocols. At the conclusion of the meeting the AcTF decided that the narratives

scored during the practice session would be rescored as part of the full schedule of scoring.

Additionally, the AcTF decided to review all programs within a department in the same week. A

schedule was laid out for reviewing the 223 programs which distributed the programs from each college

as evenly as possible over the scoring period and ensured that programs from different colleges were

discussed each week.

Phase Two: Phase two began on March 18, 2016 and continued through April 22. After completion of

the scoring of all programs in the inventory, the AcTF held a series of meetings related to the

placement of programs into the Program Prioritization categories. The task force also refined the

operational meaning of each of the five categories during this period with the addition of the phrase

“candidate for” to the title of each category.

3. Scoring Rubric and Categories

Narrative authors for existing programs were provided eight criteria (see Appendix C) that would be

used in the evaluation process; narrative authors for proposed programs were provided a subset of sixof those criteria (omitting Quality of Faculty and Quality of Students, since faculty assignments and

students enrollments were only hypothetical). The AcTF created a scoring rubric (see Appendix D)

based on its interpretation of the criteria and a document titled “General Guidelines for Program

Evaluation” that provided the authors general advice relevant to writing their program narratives.

Access to both documents was provided through the NIU Program Prioritization website. According to

the rubric, the set of possible scores for each criterion was: 1 (below expectations), 5 (meets

expectations), or 9 (exceptional).

The ultimate objective of the program prioritization process was to place every academic program

offered at NIU into one of five categories listed in Table 2.1. The names of some categories were

modified slightly from the form presented at the AcTF orientation to include the words “Candidate for

…” The wording acknowledged that final decisions, including magnitude, type, and scope of action,

would be determined by the administration upon further review in the steps that followed submission

of this task force report. As will be discussed further in the Results section, ultimately 13 programs were

not categorized.


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Table 2.1: Category Descriptions

Category Description

Category 1.

Candidate forEnhancement

High importance and excellent performance relative to other NIU academic

programs

Efficient use of available resources, as demonstrated by scholarship/artistry,

teaching, and/or service

High potential to improve quality of scholarship, artistry, teaching, and/or service,

and NIU would be missing an opportunity to excel without such enhancements.

Enhanced resources recommended may include additional faculty lines, graduateassistantships, professional development, funding for program activities,

enhanced marketing and improvements to equipment and/or laboratories

Category 2.

Candidate for

Unchanged

Resources

Sufficient importance and performance relative to other NIU academic programs

Adequate use of current resources as demonstrated by scholarship/artistry,

teaching, and service Program should continue at current resource levels

Category 3.

Candidate for

Reduction in

Resources

Programs placed in this category may possess strong importance or performance

elements, however they have one or more of the following characteristics:

o Relatively high levels of resources compared to existing demand; may

require adjustment to achieve balance

o Underperformance relative to other programs at NIU

Category 4.

Candidate for

Transformation

Transformation needed to improve importance, performance, and/or use of

resources Recommendations for programs placed in this category suggest one or more of

the following :

o Refocus on areas that are more productive or more viable

o Seek more appropriate balance of scholarship/artistry, teaching, and/or

service

o Resize the program to better serve existing and future constituencies

o Reorganize to leverage complementary components

Transformation may require an increase of resources to a program or refocus of

current resources

Category 5.

Candidate for

Review

Does not demonstrate an effective/efficient use of institutional resources

Unclear whether program’s value and viability would improve with continued

investment

Further review necessary to re-evaluate the program

Possible candidate for phase-out and eventual elimination


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4. Program Review and Voting Procedures

On Friday, January 8, 2016 the AcTF held the first of a series of meetings for the purpose of assigning

scores to each of the eight criteria for every program. Prior to each weekly meeting task force

members were assigned 21 to 24 program narratives to read, record observations and score. Individual

AcTF member scores were entered anonymously into a data collection system designed and developed

by NIU’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Each of the criteria was scored as a 1 (below

expectations), 5 (meets expectations), or 9 (exceptional). On Thursday of each week, the individual

program’s criteria scores were locked and summary statistics of results for each program were posted.

This allowed task force members to review their program notes prior to the Friday meeting.

Meetings during this period were dedicated to reaching consensus on each of the eight criterion scores

for each of the 223 academic programs. Consistent with the advice of the consultant, the AcTF

determined that 17 out of 21 votes were needed to assign a consensus score for each criterion within a

program. If the anonymous preliminary scoring produced consensus on a particular criterion, that score

was locked and relevant notes from AcTF members were recorded. In cases were the preliminary

scoring failed to produce consensus, discussion followed of relevant data drawn from the submitted

program narratives; the AcTF did not allow information that was outside the narrative to enter into the

discussion of a program. AcTF members were additionally not allowed to advocate for their own

programs. Subsequent to those discussions, open votes were taken on scores until consensus was

reached.

Given the intense scrutiny of each criterion score for each program, the Friday meeting time was

lengthened from 4 hours to 4.5 hours, and eventually to 8 hours each week. During the scoring process,

detailed notes were taken for each program as well as general notes on the program prioritization

process and recurring themes present across multiple narratives.

An additional ten proposed programs were scored separately after existing programs were scored.

These proposed programs were scored using a subset of the original eight criteria.

Finally, the AcTF reexamined the criteria scores for programs scored during the first few weeks. The

scores appeared consistent with the scoring done in later weeks, so the scores were left unchanged.

Starting in March, 2016, after all criterion scoring was completed, the AcTF began the process of

categorization. Programs were initially categorized without explicit consideration of the number of

programs in each category. Unlike the initial scoring, programs were categorized individually, and not

by department. Degree granting programs and minors were categorized first. Thereafter, other

programs (e.g., certificates) were categorized using the same procedures.

Programs were ordered for categorization decisions based on the rubric scoring results. The rubric

evaluation criteria were divided into two groups:

Program Performance criteria:

Faculty quality and outcomes (16%)

Student quality and outcomes (16%)

Financial efficiency (11%)

Contribution to diversity (5%)


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Program Importance criteria:

Internal demand (14%)

External demand (11%)

Importance to NIU mission (16%)

Program potential (11%)

Criteria weights are reported in the parentheses. Using the criteria weights as sub-weights, a

“performance” score and an “importance” score were calculated as well as an “overall” score. The

“overall” score was the sum of the “performance” and “importance” scores. All programs were then

ranked by the “overall” score. In cases where more than one program had the same “overall” score the

programs were then ranked according to their “importance” score and finally according to their

“performance” score.

It is important to recognize that these numerical rankings were employed by individual members or by

the AcTF as a whole only to provide an initial ordering of programs as an aid to structuring discussion.

Particular categorization of any program was both a qualitative and quantitative process; scores

informed the categorization process but scores did not solely determine the outcome. As with initialscoring, a vote of 17 out of 21 was needed for placement of a program into a category. Any member

could request reconsideration of the category for a program. Re-categorization required 17 out of 21

votes; all votes were open.

During this process, the AcTF identified six M.A./M.S. programs that were closely linked to their

associated Ph.D. programs. These programs are identified in the categorization tables in Section IV

and are referred to as “bundled” programs. The factors used to make those decisions involved both a

quantitative and qualitative analysis. The relevant variables considered included:

Whether the master’s degree could be reasonably considered a terminal degree in its own right,

or if it either a) had been functionally combined with the doctoral degree to produce an

accelerated program path, or b) existed as an option for those students who opted not tocomplete the associated doctoral program.

Whether there was any differentiation in faculty between the master’s and doctoral degree

programs.

Whether there was any difference in the sequence of courses between the master’s and

doctoral degree programs.

In the six cases where the task force determined that the two academic programs were sufficiently

inseparable, the programs were combined and treated as a single program for categorization. (The task

force considered this a removal from categorization, and thus this reduced the total number of

programs being categorized from 223 to 217).

Newly proposed program narratives were reviewed in the same fashion as the other existing programs

using six of the eight criteria. After review, the AcTF concluded that the criteria used to evaluate

existing programs were ill suited to the task of evaluating the proposed programs, and decided not to

categorize proposed programs, but to discuss them in the final report. Similarly, the AcTF decided not

to categorize three programs that were unique in that they existed in the official program inventory but

had not yet enrolled students. These three were included with the proposed programs in the final

report, further reducing the number of programs in the inventory from 217 to 214. At the time


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prioritization narratives were drafted, it was not possible for authors of these new programs to include

critical data necessary to evaluate the programs on the same basis as others.

Once all programs were initially categorized, the AcTF examined the proportion of programs in each of

the five categories to determine the number that would need to be moved to achieve approximately

equal distribution, which was a charge of the task force’s original charter. Programs were reviewed if

the commentaries being prepared for the report seemed inconsistent with the category within which a

program had been placed. Only a modest number of programs were moved as a result of either

process, and the movement of each program required 17 out of 21 votes.


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III. RESULTS

1. Recurring Themes

During the review of the narratives, the AcTF encountered a variety of themes mentioned within

multiple narratives, or made observations across the review of multiple narratives that cannot be

appropriately addressed in comments to any individual program.

Structural realignments in personnel: The recent loss of tenured and tenure-track faculty due to

retirement and migration has had a significant impact on an overwhelming number of programs. The

replacement of full-time faculty with Visiting Assistant Professors, instructors, and in some cases

graduate teaching assistants (TA) has damaged faculty morale and significantly impacted the

educational experience of students enrolled (vis-à-vis the quality of the learning experience, student

advising, and mentoring) in a variety of programs.

Graduate stipends: Graduate stipends that support Graduate Assistants (GA), Teaching Assistants, and

Research Assistants (RA) were consistently highlighted as lower across disciplines than external and

competing graduate programs, making it very difficult for NIU to compete with other institutions fortop-notch graduate students. Attracting graduate students across is important for maintaining NIU’s

research high status. Those graduate students not only contribute to the vitality of the graduate

programs within which they are enrolled, but additionally contribute as GAs and TAs to the strength of

undergraduate programs across campus.

Program financial efficiency: The nature of this process focused attention on program performance over

the past five years, a period during which the country struggled with recovery from a devastating

economic crisis. The AcTF recognized the financial efficiency with which programs at NIU are

operating, frequently providing degree programs at a significantly lower cost than competitors in the

region and peer institutions of similar size and purpose to which we are compared in national

databases. It was often the case that nearly 100% of the operating costs of any particular programwere dedicated to employee salaries, indicating that many programs across campus have stripped

away almost all other operational expenses in an effort to retain employees. The AcTF is concerned

that operating in this manner is not sustainable and, in fact, puts the integrity of many programs at risk

over the long term.

Program marketing: The evidence of the need for an improved institutional marketing strategy for

academic programs was present both explicitly and implicitly across the program narratives. Many

authors raised concerns about the visibility of their programs, particularly in exploration of Program

Potential (Criterion 5) and Internal Demand (Criterion 7). The AcTF noted a number of additional cases

in which an academic program appeared well designed and well aligned to market conditions but still

appeared to be struggling with enrollments, and frequently a key element of that struggle appeared tobe remediable through effective promotion.

Teacher licensure: Revisions to certification/licensure, reduction in budgets, and an increasingly critical

public discourse about education, have all contributed to fluctuating enrollments in a variety of teacher

preparation programs across campus. These are primarily housed in the College of Education (COE),

but the impacts have been felt in programs in Mathematics, Art, History, and others outside of the

COE. Structural issues such as the organization and purpose of departments in the COE, the


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relationships between academic and administrative offices providing services to education, and

programmatic issues all appear to be contributing to a situation where some programs are

overburdened and others lack sufficient enrollment or support to continue. Some of these issues were

referenced within narratives, and others became apparent in the analysis across teacher licensure

programs.

Reliability/consistency of data: A significant challenge to comprehensive analysis of this type is its

dependence on the accuracy of data being drawn from a variety of systems on campus used to collect

and report that data. It was common for data received from Institutional Research (an office in NIU’s

Division of Academic Affairs) to be inconsistent with data received from the Office of the Provost, and

again inconsistent with data extracted from MyNIU (the institutional portal used by faculty and

students to interface with registration and records systems, financial systems, etc.). Rapidly growing

reporting requirements and particularly the data collection and reporting requirements of a process as

extensive as Program Prioritization only serve to highlight the inconsistencies in those data systems.

An additional challenge to a process of this type relates to the difficulty in creating metrics for analysis

of academic programs across disciplines. Some disciplines are more disposed, by their nature, to

quantitative analysis than others. In some cases this manifests itself in data that appears to be

objective like enrollment or faculty load statistics, but which must be considered within the context of

disciplinary standards or other external mandates. In other cases this manifests itself in the difficulty of

quantifying the qualitative: how does one compare the expertise or productivity of units that develop

and stage artistic performances for the local community with units whose expertise is in the solicitation

of grant funds for the operation of research laboratories? The AcTF recognized the need for processes

like Program Prioritization to retain a respect for the qualitative aspects of our colleagues’ work and of

the broader higher educational enterprise, and recognized repeated references to that complexity

across program narratives.

Interdisciplinary programs, minors and certificates: While many programs were commendable, the AcTF

observed that interdisciplinary efforts were the most difficult to assess due to inconsistent reporting.

Often there was little data on faculty identity or productivity, student enrollments and learning

outcomes. Some of these programs faced inadequate oversight, lack of commitment to a program’s

teaching requirements and/or problems with regular course offerings.

Graduation Rates for Underrepresented Students: For a considerable number of undergraduate

programs, there is a wide gap between the number of underrepresented students that enroll and the

number that successfully graduate. An inconsistency existed in the degree to which that gap was

addressed in the narratives, suggesting that some programs were more cognizant of this gap than

others, or that programs were not addressing the problem.


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2.

General Category Characteristics

The AcTF was charged with reviewing all academic programs and placing them in relatively equal

proportions into the five categories. The AcTF was originally given 223 programs, and as discussed

previously, six programs were combined with other programs and three new programs were placedwith the group of proposed programs, resulting in a total of 214 categorized programs. The 214

programs were placed in five categories for an average of 43 per category. The assignment of programs

into categories was based on an initial scoring of individual programs across the eight criteria, followed

by a review of every program’s scores and Task Force comments for category placement. A summary of

all program categorizations is listed below, providing a glimpse of the distribution of programs via three

lenses: by category (see Table 3.1), by college or unit (see Tables 3.2-3.7), and by type of program (see

Table 3.8-3.11).

Minors and certificates tended to be placed more frequently in Categories 3 to 5. Category 5 includes

eleven programs that requested elimination. Individual program categorizations with commentary

sorted by category and college or unit are provided in Tables 4.1-4.5 in Section IV.

Table 3.1: Distribution by Category of all Programs

Category Number of Programs Percent of Programs

Category 1 44 20.6%

Category 2 45 21.0%

Category 3 40 18.7%

Category 4 44 20.6%

Category 5 41 19.2%

Total categorized 214


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Program categorization by College is listed below. The results indicate variation across colleges. The

Colleges of Business, Health and Human Sciences, and Liberal Arts and Sciences have a higher

percentage of programs in Categories 1 and 2. The Colleges of Education and Engineering and

Engineering Technology have higher percentages of programs in Categories 4 and 5. The College of

Visual and Performing Arts has a relatively large number of programs in Categories 3 and 4.

Table 3.2: Distribution of Programs within the College of Business

Category Number of Programs Percentage

Category 1 4 17%

Category 2 6 25%

Category 3 6 25%

Category 4 3 13%

Category 5 5 21%

Table 3.3: Distribution of Programs within the College of Education


Category 1 3 9%

Category 2 9 26%

Category 3 5 15%

Category 4 10 29%

Category 5 7 21%


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Table 3.4: Distribution of Programs within the College of Engineering and Engineering Technologies


Category 1 4 18%

Category 2 1 5%

Category 3 4 18%

Category 4 4 18%

Category 5 9 41%

Table 3.5: Distribution of Programs within the College of Health and Human Sciences


Category 1 8 32%

Category 2 5 20%

Category 3 3 12%

Category 4 4 16%

Category 5 5 20%


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Table 3.10: Distribution by Category of Certificates of Study


Category 1 0 0%

Category 2 3 7%

Category 3 11 25%

Category 4 6 14%

Category 5 24 55%

Table 3.11: Distribution by Category of Other Academic Programs


Category 1 4 22%

Category 2 2 11%

Category 3 3 17%

Category 4 6 33%

Category 5 3 17%


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3.

Creation of New Programs and Voluntary Elimination of Existing Programs

NIU’s implementation of the program prioritization process made the option available for academic

units to propose new programs. Commentaries for each of the 10 programs that chose to submit

proposals, as well as the three programs in the existing inventory that had not admitted students areincluded in Tables 4.6-4.7. As a result, these programs were not categorized.

In addition, academic units were offered the opportunity to voluntarily request the elimination of

programs within their inventory. Requests were received for the elimination of 11 programs. Those

programs were all placed in Category 5 and appear in Table 4.5 without commentaries.

4. General Comments and Broad Recommendations

The AcTF recognizes that NIU has a significant number of nationally and internationally acclaimed

programs in addition to a number of high performing programs with aspirations of growth that are

candidates for support. The overall results highlight the strong academic foundations essential foroperation of a research-high institution. However, the results also reveal problematic issues within

program development and suggest the need for institutional leadership. The AcTF recognizes that NIU

needs to focus human and capital resources to maintain quality and meet the needs of our students and

the greater society that we serve.

Program Prioritization was introduced to Northern Illinois University in response to a number of

internal and external factors highlighted below. These factors lend contextualization to the process

and afford a richer understanding of the AcTF’s findings. A national economic crisis, the ongoing

budget crisis in the State of Illinois, decreases in state funding support for higher education, continuing

increases in the cost of operations, demographic changes in the state and the resulting decrease in the

number of high school graduates, have all contributed to an operational climate within which

maintenance of the status quo is no longer possible.

Rapid changes to the State Universities Retirement System have precipitated the departure of faculty

and staff in a premature and non-strategic manner, including the loss of high-impact personnel in a

variety of offices and disciplines. Some of the consequences of this loss of personnel include decreases

in enrollment, retention and graduation rates. The remaining personnel have been tasked with

responding to this challenge while academic salaries remain static, even as some administrative salaries

continue to rise, and conditions create a general state of instability, leading to a general decline in

morale across campus.

The current administration at NIU has attempted to respond to a variety of these issues with anextensive catalogue of aggressive remedies, including modifications to the admissions process and

institutional financial management practices. Despite some inconsistency in their success, the AcTF

recognizes that these initiatives represent real attempts to address the myriad challenges our

institution faces. NIU needs to continue to change and the AcTF recognizes that Program Prioritization

was selected as a process through which the NIU community could clarify its priorities and lend

cohesive direction to our continuing change and growth.


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The challenges notwithstanding, the AcTF believes that realizing the goals of Program Prioritization are

essential while remaining cognizant of the fragile state of the university. To use the nomenclature of

Program Prioritization, the recent history of budget constriction has effectively placed every program

in Category 3, a continued reduction of resources. Prioritization, if implemented with fidelity, provides

an opportunity to identify priorities and purposefully direct the future of Northern Illinois University.

The following are specific task force recommendations in no particular order of importance:

Ensure programs are built with a clear foundation of tenure track faculty. While recognizing the valuable

and often high-quality contributions of instructors, teaching assistants, adjunct faculty and other

members of the instructional faculty, the long term success of academic programs is dependent on the

presence of tenure track faculty with active research agendas and a commitment to the health of their

program and the institution. The AcTF recommends the institution ensure the long term health of

academic programs by committing to fill vacant tenure-track faculty positions for the variety of

academic programs that can demonstrate the crises being created by these critical shortages.

Bring more attention to academic programs through high quality program marketing. One recurrent

problem among many programs (particularly stand-alone minors and certificates, but including a

variety of degree programs) was the low number of participants and the lack of awareness of their

existence. This purportedly led to low enrollments and participation. While reading program

descriptions, the AcTF encountered several admirable programs that have been poorly promoted and,

as a result, are not sufficiently populated. In order to effectively communicate the existence of these

programs, the AcTF suggests a renewed focus on the promotion of our outstanding catalogue of

academic programs, including high-level efforts by the offices tasked with institutional marketing and

departmental or local/internal efforts that could include the following:

Program coordinators communicate with academic advisors: Minors and certificates frequently

suffer from neglect because they are not well known outside their home departments. This

problem may be solved if the coordinators of these programs consulted with or at least

contacted academic advisors from other academic units to promote these programs among

new pools of students.

Students visit classrooms and promote these programs among their peers: Students

participating in minors or certificates can visit sections of courses with potential students, and

speak to them about these programs. Students are often better at answering questions or

addressing concerns of other students than advisors or coordinators.

Promote these programs through electronic and print means: NIU must aggressively and

creatively promote all programs through websites, social media and print, emphasizing the

interconnectedness and strength of its academic programs. Courses taken for minors and certificates: Minor and certificate participation could be

improved by sharing courses and allowing students to count them for more than one program.

This strategy would strengthen programs giving students enhanced educational opportunities.

Examine teacher licensure in an institutional context. Issues with enrollment in and the performance of a

variety of teacher licensure programs on campus were explored on page 14-15. The artifacts of NIU’s

history as a normal school include the distribution of academic and administrative offices across


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campus. The AcTF recommends that the review and analysis of programs in teacher licensure should be

inclusive of the variety of programs and offices across campus connected to this programmatic

offerings and reflect the sort of institutional leadership previously mentioned in these comments.

Develop an institutional plan for making Graduate Assistant (GA/TA/RA) stipends more competitive.

Already addressed under Recurring Themes, the AcTF believes an essential element to the success of

NIU’s graduate programs is its ability to attract and retain the highest caliber of graduate student. The

quality of our graduate programs is reflected in the steady flow of applicants for admission, but authors

consistently highlighted stipends as an underlying reason why their programs struggled to convert

those applications into enrollments. The AcTF strongly recommends the university demonstrate its

commitment to graduate education by improving the competitiveness of graduate student stipends

across campus.

Ensure student outcome data is available for all programs. A variety of authors struggled to provide

student outcome data for their programs, highlighting the need for improvement in both the systems

used to collect that data, and the collective commitment of academic programs to monitor the

progress of their students, particularly in non-degree granting programs. The AcTF strongly believes

that an institutional commitment to collection and provision of data is an essential component of

effective program review and decision-making in the future.

Engage in a campus-wide discussion of what diversity means. The range of responses to Criterion 8

(Diversity) reflected a lack of focus or understanding of an institutional definition of diversity. Given

NIU’s reputation as a leader in respect for and support of diversity issues related to sexual orientation

and gender identity, for example, narratives reflected broad inconsistency in what academic programs

appeared to be trying to accomplish vis-à-vis diversity. The AcTF encourages NIU’s administration to

bring strong leadership and focus to an exploration of what diversity means in a fashion that permeates

our campus community. This includes addressing and improving a disturbingly low graduation rate

among underrepresented groups.

Address the institutional barriers to the success of interdisciplinary programs: A variety of institutional

barriers exist that inhibit the success of interdisciplinary programs. NIU has encouraged the

development of these programs as a response to market conditions. However programs suffer from

inadequate resources, outdated operational rules, and/or a culture which does not sufficiently

incentivize cooperation among academic units. The institution must respond with comprehensive

action plan if these programs are to have any chance of long-term success.

The quality of narratives, data, and approver reviews varied significantly. The quality of the

institutionally provided data varied significantly across types of data and programs. The AcTF believesthat evaluating programs and thinking strategically is important to the future of higher education and

NIU. Distributing revenues based on a forward-looking view of programs is the only way for universities

to thrive and provide a strong, well-rounded education for students. We have endeavored to evaluate

programs based both on performance and future potential. Members of the AcTF have dedicated time

and attention to this project as evidence of the collective commitment to the institution and its

continued excellence. We hope our efforts help the university thoughtfully consider its strategy moving

forward.


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IV. CATEGORIZATION OF PROGRAMS

Table 4.1: Candidate for Enhancement

Candidate for Enhancement

College Department Program Name AcTF Comments

CBUS Accountancy B.S. in Accountancy This nationally ranked program has a high

student CPA exam pass rate. It has

demonstrated commendable support for

student diversity. The AcTF suggests the

program open up more seats in classes in

high demand areas.

CBUS Accountancy Master of Accounting

Science

A nationally ranked program that is very

successful. AcTF applauds its plans for

diversity and interdisciplinary

actions. Program has been authorized by

IBHE for off campus delivery, but funding to

do so is unavailable.

CBUS Oper Mgmt &

Info Sys

B.S. in Operations

and Information

Management

A nationally ranked program with good

interdisciplinary efforts, international

partnerships, study abroad opportunities,

and service to other programs. Strong jobdemand has supported steady enrollments

and consistent degree conferral in time of

overall declining enrollments. Narrative

reflected thoughtful diversity actions

including good scholarship opportunities for

underrepresented groups. Positive

graduation rates for minority students.

AcTF encourages NIU to enhance support

for faculty research.


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CHHS Allied Health

& Comm

Disorders

Doctor of Physical

Therapy

Program is in high demand and has

excellent student outcomes in graduation

rate, licensure rate, and employment

success. Its faculty and students have a

very good level of engagement in the

university and regional community. It has

made impressive efforts to foster a diverse

faculty and student body. New resources

should go to more competitive faculty

salaries.

CHHS Allied Health

& Comm

Disorders

M.A. in

Communicative

Disorders

A strong program with good engagement

and 100% placement of graduates. It has

the potential to offer continuing education

credits but cannot due to resource

constraints. This is an area of potentialgrowth. New resources should be

committed to faculty hires.

CHHS Allied Health

&

Communicati

ve Disorders

B.S. in Health

Sciences

Laudable curricular changes to improve

graduation rates. This program needs

faculty in order to be successful with only

2.1 FTE for 700 students. Enhancements

could include resources to provide career

counseling that will benefit students. AcTF

strongly recommends additional faculty

hires to enhance scholarly productivity and

reduce student/faculty ratio.

CHHS Family,

Consumer &

Nutrition

B.S. in Nutrition,

Dietetics, and

Hospitality

Management,

Comprehensive

Major

Impressive hands-on program that heeded

recommendations of their external review.

Admirable awarding of degrees and minors.

Program needs to focus on increasing

degrees conferred to minority students.

AcTF agrees that hospitality should be a

separate program. AcTF also strongly

recommends additional faculty hires toenhance scholarly productivity and reduce

student/faculty ratio.


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CHHS Nursing &

Health

Studies

B.S. in Nursing An important programs at NIU that is very

short-staffed. Number of students exceeds

capacity, which will hurt the potential of

program. Size has had a negative effect on

scholarly productivity; scholarship infuses

their teaching. There is a need for

restructuring the program, advising and

right-sizing the program to better align

numbers of faculty and students.

CHHS Nursing &

Health

Studies

M.S. in Nursing A strong program with high graduation

rates and excellent performance on

licensure exams. It appears to be cost

efficient, but this may be at the expense of

attracting high caliber faculty. Effective

response to faculty shortage, particularlythe online offerings as a way to manage

student numbers. AcTF recommends that

resources be committed to additional

faculty hires to lighten teaching loads and

enhance scholarly productivity.

CLAS Anthropology B.A./B.S. in

Anthropology

Narrative showcases impressive scholarship

by the faculty. Future addition of faculty

will enhance the demand for the program.

Important to address how the faculty will

deal with increasing the enrollment of the

program. Loss of faculty in archeology a

serious concern and must be addressed.

AcTF recommends faculty hires to replace

recent losses.

CLAS Biological

Sciences

B.S. in Biological

Sciences

A strong program that is doing well in spite

of reduced funding. Faculty productivity

may be enhanced through future hires.

Strong demand from students from CHHS.

Impressive plans for the program’s future,which could include collaboration with HHS.

AcTF acknowledges the important service

provided by the cadaver lab.


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CLAS Center for SE

Asian Studies

Center for Southeast

Asian Studies

Impressive level of interdisciplinary efforts.

Global experience fulfills an important NIU

goal. Excellent tracking of student

outcomes, although enrollment drop is a

point of concern. Excellent fundraising

efforts. Program needs to fill open faculty

lines to maintain strengths.

CLAS Chemistry &

Biochemistry

Ph.D. in Chemistry A good program that is closely aligned with

NIU’s mission, with strong regional ties and

good student engagement components. It

is proactive in plans for improvement,

especially ideas to move it beyond the

traditional educational model. It needs

more money to support doctoral students

and faculty research. This program maybenefit from faculty hires and facility

improvement.

CLAS Center for

Latino & Latin

American

Studies

Center for

Latino/Latin

American Studies

Center is very important to mission of the

university engaging in new planning and

programming to connect to the campus

community. Program has doubled number

of minors; demographic changes will

increase demand. AcTF recognizes the

need to hire a Mexicanist and encourages

continued application for external grants to

support program development.

CLAS English B.A. in English Narrative supports a program with

outstanding scholarly production and high

teaching evaluations. Faculty engaged in

outreach to other departments and

community via teaching and cultural

events. Important engagement via

Freshman English, CHANCE composition,

teacher licensure. Detailed and well-conceived plans for the future. AcTF

recommends enhanced resources to

encourage and support faculty research and

publication.


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CLAS English Ph.D. in English Noteworthy faculty publication record.

AcTF appreciates efforts on student

placement. Impressive course offerings

that expose students to diverse topics.

Concern noted about the lack of student

diversity. Resources may be needed for

research and publication support.

CLAS Environmenta

l Studies

B.A./B.S. in

Environmental

Studies

Substantial scholarly production by faculty

associates in program. Largest program in

Environmental Studies in Illinois, attracting

students who would not otherwise come to

NIU. Demonstrated need for additional

faculty and for dedicated academic space.

CLAS ForeignLanguage &

Literature 1

B.A. in Spanish A strong program with great contribution tostudent career success, including significant

work with Spanish minors. AcTF

encourages program to continue

investigating work with external partners.

Resources required for hiring translation,

business, health and/or education faculty.

CLAS Foreign

Language &

Literature 1

Minor in Japanese

Studies

A strong minor that aligns well with

university mission. AcTF noted strong

outreach with business and applauds efforts

to bring foreign students to the university.

Minor is well suited to become a major due

to healthy student enrollment, external

demand, excellence in teaching and

scholarship. AcTF endorses this promotion

to major with appropriate resources.

CLAS Geography Ph.D. in Geography This relatively new program has good

potential and demand for its students, but

its resources are stretched thin. The AcTF

has real concerns about program capacity.It strongly advises that new faculty lines are

necessary for it to address the demands of

all the department’s programs in order for

this PhD program to be viable.


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CLAS Mathematical

Sciences

B.S. in Mathematical

Sciences

Program attracts high quality students and

is delivered by productive faculty. Proactive

reforms include laudable redesign for non-

majors and impressive EMPORIUM concept.

Strong tutoring and retention efforts,

including all-women sections of courses to

increase women majors. Resources will

benefit continued expansion into

contemporary fields of math as well as

much-needed facility expansion.

CLAS Mathematical

Sciences

M.S. in Mathematics Strong job growth with many students

enrolled in combined M.S./Ph.D. More math

education faculty are needed. M.S. students

have high pass rate to Ph.D.

CLAS Mathematical

Sciences

Ph.D. in

Mathematical

Sciences

Program exhibits good faculty productivity

and financial efficiency, with strong

demand for graduate assistantships.

Program’s internship requirement held up

by external reviewer as a model for other

programs. AcTF applauds the actions to

encourage women to pursue the degree,

and was impressed at the growing number

of women students in the program.

Separating MATH and STAT into two

departments would enhance both

programs. Resources will benefit continued

expansion into contemporary fields of math

as well as much-needed facility expansion.

CLAS NGO

Leadership &

Development

(NGOLD)

B.A./B.S. in

Community

Leadership and Civic

Engagement

The program has exhibited strong growth in

numbers of students and student diversity.

Program reaches large number of non-

majors through course offerings, which

should only increase the enrollment in the

program. Resources will benefit programfacilities and allow for additional hires.


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CLAS Physics M.S. in Physics

Bundled with Ph.D.

A strong program with exceptional faculty

and financial productivity. Excellent student

outcomes in terms of graduation and

publication. AcTF was concerned that

attention paid to the graduate program had

potentially negative impact on

undergraduate program, as large undergrad

sections are taught by GTAs. Committee

also noted the low attention to minorities

and women in the diversity plan. Valuable

program that needs enhanced material and

equipment, improved undergraduate

teaching, and improved diversity actions.

CLAS Physics Ph.D. in Physics

Bundled with M.S.

Strong program with exceptional faculty

and financial productivity, and excellentstudent outcomes in terms of graduation

and publication. The AcTF was concerned

that the attention paid to the graduate

program had potentially negative impact on

undergraduate program, as large undergrad

sections are taught by GTAs. Committee

also noted the low attention to minorities

and women in the diversity plan. Valuable

program that needs enhanced material and

equipment, improved undergraduateteaching, and improved diversity actions.

CLAS Political

Science

B.A./B.S. in Political

Science

The narrative presents a solid program with

compelling evidence of student

engagement. Loss of faculty has weakened

the program somewhat. The AcTF

recognizes the need for faculty hires to

balance offerings in US and international

fields.


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CLAS Political

Science

Ph.D. in Political

Science

Bundled with M.A.

Narrative presents a solid program with

strong existing and potential interactions

with other CLAS programs. Loss of faculty,

especially in International Relations,

constrains program and its future. The MA

is bundled with the PhD as a “pass through”

program that serves to prepare students for

continuation to the Ph.D. at NIU. Based on

the program’s historical strength, AcTF

feels that providing additional TTE faculty

will likely enhance it.

CLAS Political

Science

M.A. in Political

Science

Bundled with Ph.D.

M.A. in Political Science appears to support

the Ph.D. as its mission. The narrative was

unclear what graduates do with the M.A.

degree other than go on to a Ph.D. AcTFrecommends creation and implementation

of a plan to increase diversity within the

program.

CLAS Psychology M.A. in Psychology

Bundled with Ph.D.

High admissions requirements in this

quality program. It has good faculty

quality, admirable grantsmanship, and

significant outreach into the community.

Applications are high. Future potential

appears sound. The program is doing

satisfactorily in terms of demand and

diversity actions. Resources are needed to

hire a faculty member with background in

quantitative analysis.

CLAS Psychology Ph.D. in Psychology

Bundled with M.A.

Faculty has won many awards of excellence

and is strong in obtaining grants, while

students, admitted through a highly

selective process, are engaged in

scholarship and publication. The program

has excellent engagement in thecommunity. Resources are needed to hire a

faculty member with background in

quantitative analysis.


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CLAS Psychology Psychology Services

Center

Excellent program offering psychological

counseling to the community. Integral part

of graduate student training for licensure;

strong student outcomes as measured by

percent of licenses attained. Excellent

service, impressive pro bono work, but

demand for services far outstrips ability to

deliver. Program is strongly related to PhD

and MA programs and should have been

included in the narratives for those

programs. Excellent and under-resourced.

Program requires additional resources to

meet demand for services as well as for

electronic records system, which Center

might explore in conjunction with Speech

Clinic.

CLAS Public Admin Master of Public

Administration

Narrative highlights program’s alignment

with NIU mission, but gave cause for

concern over the out-migration of faculty

and its effect on program’s ability to grow.

AcTF appreciates that the program has a

developed strategic diversity plan. It needs

to hire additional faculty.

CLAS Statistics M.S. in Applied

program prioritization academic task force report

Documents