Planning and assessing program quality in light of institutional mission is essential for good stewardship of resources and for continuing improvement of teaching, research, and service at North Carolina State University.
In the last two decades NCSU has devoted significant time and resources to enhancing the effectiveness of planning and, more recently, the assessment of institutional quality. Recognizing the need for effective planning to guide institutional direction, NCSU secured permission from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to devote its last self-study to a review of planning activities. The 1983-84 self-study produced a number of recommendations for enhancing the quality of University planning. Implementation of those recommendations gave the University valuable experience both with the rewards of effective and coordinated planning and with the difficulties of achieving broad agreement on institutional direction in a university with historically strong and diverse components.
As a result of this experience, in recent years NCSU has substantially changed its planning and evaluation process. These innovations have been directed toward making the process more coherent and more oriented toward outcomes. The three most important changes are: the combination of the large number of planning and budgeting documents that were formerly required yearly into a single planning document; the implementation of a process for student-outcome assessment in all schools and colleges; and the combination of University planning and institutional research functions in a single unit, the Office of University Planning and Analysis [3.0.1; 3.0.2; 3.0.3].
The University views the student-outcome assessment effort as separate from (but parallel to) the planning and evaluation process that drives the budget. Accordingly, this chapter will first address the traditional planning and evaluation process and then discuss the student-outcome assessment in a separate section.
