October 1, 2007 

Dear HawCC Ohana,

 As part of the Assessment Committee’s (AC) charge, quality improvements to the Program Review process and template are considered after each year.  As reported to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), this is especially important in HawCC’s first four-year cycle of comprehensive Program Reviews.  Accordingly, because the four-year Program Review cycle that we are currently using may hinder some programs from being able to request biennium budget items, I will be allowing programs to submit comprehensive Program Reviews out of cycle as recommended by the Assessment Committee for this year.  Please notify Shawn Flood by Friday, October 12, 2007, of your intention to do a comprehensive Program Review.  All  Program Reviews, Annuals and Comprehensives will be due on Friday, November 30, 2007.  Data will be delivered to programs by Oct. 19.

Additionally, in light of the experience of the past three years, which entailed considerable time and energy to do multiple levels of review by governance bodies, the Assessment Committee has voted to streamline the process this year by having an enlarged College Effectiveness Review Committee (CERC) review all the comprehensive Program Reviews for both biennium budget requests and institutional effectiveness.  Essentially, this will eliminate three levels of review:  a front-end technical review by the old CERC, and separate reviews by the College Council and the Academic Senate.  A revised flow chart will follow as well as a streamlined template.

After this year’s cycle, opportunities from the campus community and governance bodies will be solicited to see if this new review procedure has resulted in a better process.  This change should provide more transparency and a greater degree of shared governance in campus budget formation and in Academic Development Plan review and updating which must be completed by 2010.

 Me ‘oe kuu mahalo,

 Chancellor Rockne Freitas