Historically, TTC used an institutional effectiveness process to regularly evaluate its academic programs and services. Every three years, program managers established criteria for assessing programs. The results of these assessments were used to create an action plan for the continuous improvement of the program. Because the college is charged with responding to community needs, many academic programs found the 3-year cycle insufficient to meet their planning needs. As a result, in 2003 the college implemented annual evaluations of all academic programs. The annual cycle for academic planning begins in July and ends the following June. This cycle aligns with the college’s budget planning cycle, allowing academic program managers to use the results of these evaluations as part of their process for justification for budget requests. Because of the success of the annual evaluations of academic programs, beginning in the 2005-2006 annual planning cycle the college will begin evaluating all services annually.
All academic programs assess their performance on a series of core program objectives. These objectives include headcount enrollment, number of graduates, job placement/college attendance rate for graduates, employer satisfaction with graduates, and student satisfaction with instruction. Additionally, all programs that have a required credentialing/licensing exam for their graduates use pass rates on these exams for evaluation. Program managers may add additional program-specific assessment measures if they choose. The Office of Institutional Research is responsible for providing the data for all core program objectives. Program managers use the results of these assessments to identify program strengths and weaknesses and develop plans for improving areas with poor performance. The college reports the results of academic program assessments to the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education for its required Instructional Program Review, as well as to the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education in compliance with the South Carolina General Assembly’s Act 255 (1988), Institutional Effectiveness.
Beginning with the 2004-2005 academic planning cycle, the college has undertaken an initiative to integrate extensive assessment of student learning outcomes in the annual academic program assessment process. Program managers are in the process of identifying student learning outcomes appropriate to each acedmic program, and developing evaluation strategies. The first full cycle of student learning outcomes assessment will be completed in the summer of 2005.
