The Graduate School

Graduate Program Review
Information regarding external and accreditation reviews

Many UW-Madison graduate programs are subject to specialized accreditation reviews. Programs in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences are required to participate in CSREES (Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service) reviews. Graduate programs located in the accredited professional schools (Business, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine) are required to participate in periodic accreditation reviews.

When an accreditation or external review is combined with a ten-year internal review, the lead school/college will appoint a faculty representative to participate in the full review. The Graduate School deans and college counterparts will determine whether the GFEC representative will attend all external agency review sessions, or only the sessions pertaining to the graduate program. The Graduate School will work with the schools/colleges in advance of such combined reviews to determine the roles and responsibilities of the internal reviewers, and will clearly articulate those expectations to the review committee members.

Accreditation reviews generally require a self-study, and UW-Madison attempts to coordinate internal review with this activity.  However, accreditation generally seeks to ensure minimum standards, while program review is intended to encourage continuous assessment and improvement.  Therefore, the accreditation self-study report may need to be supplemented with additional information for the program review.

In those rare cases where an accrediting review of a graduate program does not permit an internal review component, the process below will be put in motion.

The rational for the process is that, while an accrediting review can provide high-quality feedback regarding a program’s compliance with accrediting guidelines, those guidelines may not address all the issues of interest to the Graduate School or to the campus. An internal review, thus, needs to be designed to accomplish that latter task.

The process:

• When the external review team’s report is in hand, along with any departmental reactions to that report, lead School/College and the Graduate School will appoint a three-person committee. Two individuals will be appointed by the School/College Dean while one will be appointed by the appropriate Graduate School Divisional Associate Dean.
• The committee will be given access to the program’s self study, the external review team report, and any departmental responses to the report. If the committee needs further information, it will have the authority to ask the program for supplementary documents or for additional interviews with faculty, staff or students.
• The committee will write a brief (3-5 pages) report, with recommendations as it sees fit. That report will go to the program, and the unit can respond in writing if it feels that a response is warranted.
• The School/College’s Academic Planning Council will vet both the internal and external reports.
• The Graduate Faculty Executive Committee will vet the reports.

Other campus resources for external and accreditation reviews:

Information on Program Review (provides review policies of schools and colleges), Office of the Provost