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Assessment and Program Review Policy
Applies to: Faculty Staff
Month/Year Posted: Apr 2026
Policy Number: VPAA 26-02
Purpose of the Policy
To promote continuous, evidence-based improvement in support of the university’s statement of purpose, this policy outlines the requirements for assessment and program review in academic programs, including the GEAR program, and co-curricular programs at Cal Poly Humboldt.
The practices of assessment and program review serve both external and internal needs at Cal Poly Humboldt, as the university is beholden both to the expectations of its external key partners and accreditor and to its own internal standards of excellence.
Externally, rigorous practices of assessment and program review are essential for Cal Poly Humboldt, both as a public trust expected to create, preserve, and disseminate knowledge for the public good and as a WSCUC-accredited university subject to numerous review criteria. To maintain and improve the university’s accreditation, Cal Poly Humboldt’s degree programs and co-curricular programs/units are charged with assuring the quality and continuous improvement of the education and services they provide. Among other things, the university’s accreditor looks for evidence of an infrastructure to assess student learning at program and institutional levels, effective co-curricular programs designed to support all students’ personal and professional development, and a deliberate set of quality-assurance processes in both academic and non-academic areas.
Assessment and program review also serve internal needs. While compliance with accreditation expectations is vital, robust processes of assessment and program review are also indispensable components of Cal Poly Humboldt’s goals to foster excellence, creativity, and innovation. Faculty, staff, and administrators are united in their commitment to continuous improvement based on the results of inquiry, evidence, and evaluation. Importantly, this commitment is motivated not by the pursuit of compliance but by the pursuit of excellence.
Definitions
Academic assessment is the process of measuring and improving student learning in academic programs. Faculty define their expectations via learning outcomes, collect empirical data to evaluate student attainment, and reflect on findings to improve learning.
An academic program is a sequence of courses leading to a degree. 1 Some academic programs constitute an entire department, some share department designation with other academic programs, and some span multiple departments. Additionally, the university’s GEAR program is treated as an academic program, in accordance with Executive Order 1100, which requires assessment of GE learning outcomes and “regular periodic reviews of GE program policies and practices in a manner comparable to those of major programs, including evaluation by an external reviewer.” 2
Co-curricular refers to student activities, programs, and learning experiences that complement what students learn through the academic curriculum. These programs primarily have direct engagement with and/or impact on students and their learning. This category includes academic support programs/units, initiatives, activities, and services and can demonstrate impact on student retention, persistence, and/or graduation. Other campuses may refer to this as student affairs assessment. Examples include Housing and Residence Life, the Academic Advising Center, and the individual Cultural Centers for Academic Excellence.
Co-curricular assessment is the process of measuring and improving the effectiveness of student-support programs/units, whether that is by measuring student learning or impact on student success.
Policy Details
I.Guiding Principles of Assessment
The following principles implicitly respect and support shared governance, drawing on the subject-matter expertise of our faculty, staff, and administrators. Our assessment activities are guided by Cal Poly Humboldt’s collective purpose, vision, and values.
Student Centered: Assessment should be conducted with the goal of improving the student experience.
Prioritized and Supported: Quality assessment is a vital component of university integrity. Resource allocation should support its practice — and should prioritize innovations that result from it. Leaders from all principal key partners must support good practice as an ongoing and dynamic effort that is sensitive to change. This includes recognizing and rewarding examples of best practice.
Meaningful: Assessment should be useful and significant. Results should answer questions that are important to the program or unit doing the measuring while also informing overall institutional quality. Efforts should compare findings with desired outcomes and objectives — not with the findings of other programs or units.
Formative: Assessment is a formative process where various ongoing assessments yield insights that inform program changes in real time, including the action of making no change.
Summative : Assessment examines results over an entire cycle, which allows for summative reflection on the effectiveness of practices followed by evidence-informed changes.
Inspirational: Insights from earnest assessment can prompt bold re-envisioning and transformational action. Assessment should be seen as an opportunity to identify alternative pathways to achieving desired outcomes. It should yield actionable results — results that should never be used punitively
II. Annual Assessment
IIa. Academic Assessment in Degree Programs
Responsible Parties:
Expectations of learning assessment in degree programs are communicated under the authority of the vice president of Academic Affairs, with year-to-year coordination and oversight by the university’s director of assessment in collaboration with the dean of undergraduate and graduate education, department chairs, and program coordinators.
What Programs Do:
Programs will structure their faculty workload in such a way that ensures that they are fulfilling the following learning-assessment activities in support of evidence-based continuous improvement:
Programs maintain six-year assessment plans 3 posted on the university’s assessment web page. Plans are structured according to the CSU’s expectations, with student learning outcomes (SLOs) aimed at demonstrating achievement of program learning outcomes (PLOs), which, in turn, are aligned with the university’s institutional learning outcomes (ILOs). All PLOs shall be assessed at least once per six-year cycle.
Programs collect and analyze data according to the schedule identified in their assessment plans.
Programs submit annual assessment reports to the director of assessment describing the findings, discussions, and actions resulting from their assessment activities.
Timeline:
Each fall, programs will submit a report describing the learning-assessment activities of the previous academic year. 4 These annual assessment reports are due on November 1st. A template identifying report specifics as well as submission and archival procedures is located on the university’s assessment web page.
IIb. Academic Assessment of General Education
The CSU policy on General Education (GE) Requirements states that “campuses shall develop an assessment plan that aligns the GE curriculum with campus GE outcomes; specifies explicit criteria for assessing the stated outcomes; identifies when and how each outcome shall be assessed; organizes and analyzes the collection of evidence; and uses the assessment results to make improvements to the GE program, courses and pedagogy.” 5 In accordance with this expectation, Cal Poly Humboldt endeavors with this policy to establish a sustainable protocol for annual assessment of student learning in general education. Attempts to measure learning will focus on student achievement of Cal Poly Humboldt’s institutional learning outcomes (ILOs).
Responsible Parties
Expectations of GE learning assessment are communicated under the authority of the vice president of Academic Affairs, with year-to-year coordination and oversight by the university’s director of assessment in collaboration with the dean of undergraduate studies, university faculty, and the GEAR Committee.
What Programs Do:
Academic departments seeking certification or re-recertification of upper-division general education courses must participate in program assessment practices whenever those courses are offered. Participation entails the following:
(Re-)Certification of an upper-division GE course requires identification of a signature assignment designed to elicit student demonstrations of the skills and knowledge necessary to achieve one of the seven ILOs. (The course outline submitted in the (re-)certification process requires this description for upper-division GE courses; signature assignments are not required of other GEAR-certified courses.) The degree of room for individual faculty personalization of a signature assignment will vary according to the degree of specificity communicated in the course outline.
To maintain certification of an upper-division GE course, faculty teaching each iteration of the course must deposit copies of all student signature assignment submissions in the university’s GE signature assignment repository by the end of the semester’s faculty work days. Anonymization of submissions is not required, as the repository will meet university requirements for protection of student identification, but faculty may remove such identification.
What the GEAR Committee Does:
Annual assessment of learning in GE will occur in the GEAR Committee each spring. Committee members will score student artifacts via a rubric designed to measure learning of skills and knowledge necessary to achieve one of the seven ILOs. Assessment protocols will be described in more detail (i.e., rubric authorship, inter-rater reliability, etc.) in the ICC bylaws for the GEAR Committee.
Timeline:
The GEAR Committee chair and the director of assessment will present annual spring assessment findings and committee recommendations to the university the following fall.
IIc. Co-Curricular Assessment
Responsible Parties:
Expectations of assessment are communicated under the authority of the vice presidents of Academic Affairs and Enrollment Management & Student Success, with year-to-year coordination and oversight by the university’s director of assessment in collaboration with program/unit directors and coordinators.
What Programs/Units Do: Programs/Units will structure their staff workload in such a way that ensures that they are fulfilling the following assessment activities in support of evidence-based continuous improvement:
Programs/Units maintain six-year assessment plans posted on the university’s assessment web page. Plans are structured according to the expectations set forth by the WSCUC expectation that the university “assesses the effectiveness of its student support and co-curricular programs and services and uses the results for improvement” 6
Programs/Units collect and analyze data each academic year according to the schedule identified in their assessment plans.
Programs/Units submit annual assessment reports to the director of assessment and divisional leadership describing the findings and discussions resulting from their activities.
Timeline:
Each co-curricular program/unit is responsible for designating a team or person to write and submit its annual report describing the assessment activities of the previous academic year. These annual assessment reports are due on June 30th. A template identifying report specifics as well as submission and archival procedures is located on the university’s assessment web page.
III. Program Review
IIIa. Academic Program Review: Degree Programs
Responsible Parties:
Academic program reviews shall be conducted under the authority of the vice president of Academic Affairs, with coordination and oversight by the university’s director of assessment in collaboration with the Integrated Curriculum Committee (ICC) and the Office of Institutional Research, Analytics, and Reporting (IRAR).
What Programs Do:
Each program undergoing review (see below for exceptions for externally accredited programs) will prepare a self-study in which program faculty engage with institutional data identifying program performance in metrics reflecting university priorities, summarize and reflect on the cycle’s assessment activities, create a new six-year assessment plan, and draft an action plan for the coming cycle. The self-study template is located on the university’s assessment web page. 7 Self-studies are submitted to the ICC for university-internal peer review according to ICC bylaws 7 and according to the deadline in place for that academic year. Programs will reflect on peer recommendations prior to sending their self-studies to external reviewers. After receiving its ICC peer review, the program in review will send its self-study to an external reviewer in advance of the reviewer’s campus visit. 8 External reviews shall be conducted in the spring of the review year. The specifics of the external reviewer’s report are contained in a template available on the university’s assessment web page. 9
What Administration Does:
After reading a program’s self-study and internal and external reviews, the provost, college dean, department chair, and program lead (where applicable) will bring the process to a close via an action plan by the end of the following fall semester. These plans identify actions and responsible parties for the coming cycle.
Schedule of Academic Program Review:
Reviews of academic programs occur every seven years. Program cycles comprise six years of learning assessment and other actions, followed by review and planning in year seven. Actions performed over the six years (beyond annual assessment expectations) are determined by the action plan that ended a given program’s previous review cycle. The director of assessment establishes and maintains the sequence of program reviews, which is posted on the university’s assessment web page. Postponements or accelerations are granted only at the discretion of the director in consultation with the college dean and associate vice president for academic programs.
Externally Accredited Programs:
Program review for externally accredited programs diverges somewhat from the protocol for other Cal Poly Humboldt programs. Accredited degree programs undergo periodic reviews with their accreditors, and, given the significant workload that these reviews involve, these programs are not required to prepare the standard program review self-study for the university. However, the process of accreditation still comprises a self-study, an ICC peer review, an external review, and an action plan upon completion.
The year preceding an accreditor’s evaluation shall be considered the program review year for an externally accredited program. The accreditor determines the self-study format (diverging from Cal Poly Humboldt’s standard self-study) and serves as the external reviewer. The ICC will conduct its peer review by reading the self-study prepared for the accreditor; the deadline for submission to the ICC will be determined by the deadline for the accreditation paperwork.
The action plan concluding the process will identify a timeline of actions and responsible parties for the coming (in this case, accreditation) cycle. As with non-accredited programs, the action plan will be agreed upon by the program, the college dean, and the provost. The accreditor’s requirements and recommendations may determine much of the action plan’s content.
IIIb. Academic Program Review: GEAR Program
Executive Order 1100 states that “campuses shall provide for regular periodic reviews of GE program policies and practices in a manner comparable to those of major programs, including evaluation by an external reviewer. The review should address the meaning, quality, and integrity of the campus GE program and how ongoing assessment informs improvements to the delivery of and student learning experiences in GE.” 10 In accordance with this expectation, the university establishes expectations, with this policy, for periodic comprehensive reviews of its GEAR program.
Responsible Parties:
GEAR program reviews shall be conducted under the authority of the vice president of Academic Affairs, with coordination and oversight by the dean of undergraduate studies, the GEAR Committee chair, and the university’s director of assessment in collaboration with the Integrated Curriculum Committee (ICC) and the Office of Institutional Research, Analytics, and Reporting (IRAR).
What Responsible Parties Do:
Elements of a GEAR program review are free to evolve from cycle to cycle. A recommended timeline of steps for future iterations is given:
- gather IR data (spring)
- conduct campus surveys for information desired beyond available IR data (spring)
- contract with external reviewer (summer-fall)
- prepare self-study in advance of external review (summer-fall)
- external review (winter)
- add conclusions and recommendations after the external review (spring)
- present conclusions and recommendations to the ICC and University Senate (following fall)
Schedule of GEAR Program Review:
Given the number of programs offering general education courses, GEAR program reviews involve significant coordination across the university. In light of the extensive planning and labor, GEAR program reviews will occur every ten years, less frequently than the seven-year review cycle for degree programs.
IIIc. Co-Curricular Program Review
WSCUC and CSU expectations for quality assurance and continuous improvement of co-curricular programs are captured in WSCUC’s criterion for review 2.14: The institution assesses the effectiveness of its student support and co-curricular programs and services and uses the results for improvement . Annual assessment endeavors fulfill this expectation, and, thus, the university has no systematic program review requirements for co-curricular programs. The divisions of Academic Affairs and Enrollment Management & Student Success are free to establish expectations for periodic reviews of their co-curricular / student-support units as they see fit.
History
Reviewed by Academic Policies Committee: 03/09/2026
Reviewed by University Senate: 04/14/2026
Approved by Provost: 04/22/2026
Footnotes
1 For the purposes of this policy, academic programs do not include certificates or credentials.
2 California State University, Executive Order No. 1100, CSU General Education (GE) Requirements, PolicyStat No. 13059034, Calstate.policystat.com (accessed March 11, 2026), https://calstate.policystat.com/policy/13059034/latest/ .
3 Plans align to the university’s seven-year program-review cycle by outlining six years of assessment activity followed by program review in the seventh year.
4 This is the strongly recommended timeline, though it is not required. Programs are free to perform assessment activities in the fall shortly before reporting.
5 CSU Executive Order 1100, PolicyStat No. 13059034.
6 WASC Senior College and University Commission, 2023 Handbook of Accreditation, (Alameda, CA: WSCUC), Standards and Criteria for Review (CFRs), CFR 2.14, accessed March 11, 2026, https://www.wscuc.org/handbook2023/ .
7 Cal Poly Humboldt, Faculty Handbook, Appendix G: Integrated Curriculum Committee Bylaws and Rules of Procedure (updated August 2023), in Faculty Handbook, Academic Affairs, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, https://www.humboldt.edu/academic-affairs/faculty-handbook (accessed March 11, 2026).
8 Virtual external reviews are subject to dean approval on a case-by-case basis.
9 Cal Poly Humboldt, Assessment & Program Review, accessed March 11, 2026, https://www.humboldt.edu/academic-programs/assessment-program-review .
10 CSU Executive Order 1100, PolicyStat No. 13059034.