The Academic Portfolio Review and Academic Resource Review aim to develop and refine a framework to review our academic offerings on a regular basis. The purpose of developing this framework is to ensure AACC aligns its resources most effectively to support student, faculty and staff success. The Tenure Expansion Assessment will explore and develop considerations to our current and potential tenure policy. Ultimately, the findings from these important projects will help us respond proactively to long-standing external challenges to higher education while fulfilling our mission to offer high quality, affordable, accessible and innovative lifelong learning opportunities.
This portion of the project will focus on AACC's academic offerings.
This portion of the project will focus on AACC's current tenure process and policy, and considerations of how adjustments would impact AACC.
Tanya Millner, Ed.D., provost/vice president for the Division of Learning, will lead these projects. She will be supported by a steering team and data team, and will partner with rpk GROUP. rpk GROUP was chosen as partners in this work because they have a proven track record of building the capacity of AACC’s faculty and staff to replicate the work and use the results to drive decision-making beyond the time frame of the project.
Tanya Millner – project leader; provost/vice president for Learning
Dan Baum – executive director, Strategic Communications
Kathy Bolton – special assistant to the vice president for Learning
Suzanne Boyer – executive director, Human Resources
Art Cimiluca – assistant dean, Mathematics
Karen Cook – dean, School of Business and Law
Sam Cordero–Puchales – student success and retention advisor, SASP
Shad Ewart – professor, Business
John Grabowski – dean, Enrollment Services
Andrew Little – associate vice president, Learning Resources Management
Shuang Liu – associate vice president, Continuous Improvement and Innovation Analytics
Kathy Bolton – data team leader; special assistant to the vice president for Learning
Audra Butler - professor, Education
Shuang Liu – data team leader; associate vice president, Continuous Improvement and Innovation Analytics
Lisa Bradley – instructional coordinator, Business
Sue Callahan – director, Budget Office
Riley Clark – assistant dean, Continuous Education and Workforce Development Operations
Liz Clary – academic course scheduler, Learning
Shannon Gilkey – director of operations, Health Sciences
Kellie McCants-Price - professor, Psychology
Lisa Phillips – director, Enterprise Application Services
Lisa Sanford – director, Human Resources Operations
Erin Reeder – director, Enrollment Services Integration
Tricia Selby – assistant director of reporting, PRIA
Tina Smith – interim associate vice president for learning and academic affairs, Learning
Rachelle Tannenbaum – professor, Psychology
Robyn Toman – professor, Mathematics
The project will begin in August 2022. We anticipate the process to move through the academic year and will include the milestone events highlighted below.
| Month | Academic Portfolio and Resource Reviews | Tenure Expansion Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| August 2022 | Kickoff | N/A |
| August-September 2022 | Data collection and verification | Data collection and verification |
| October 2022 | Initial analyses | Data collection and verification |
| November 2022 | Refine/revise analyses | Initial analyses |
| December 2022 | Refine/revise analyses | Refine/revise analyses |
| January 2023 | Final report and recommendations | Final report and recommendations |
| February 2023 | Workshops with academic leaders | N/A |
| March 2023 | Workshops with academic leaders | N/A |
As higher education has developed its response to changes in the external environment, institutions have begun the difficult work of reviewing their academic portfolios. The goals of this project should be to move away from an emphasis on cutting (budgets, people, programs) and a shift to an investment lens. That lens looks at monetary “returns,” and at time, quality, equity and student success.
The academic portfolio review is intended to help determine where program investments can be made and reallocations can occur. An academic resource review investigates how to maintain high quality instruction that leads to student success. Both analyses will be conducted simultaneously for this project.
AACC currently has a cap on the number of faculty members that can be awarded tenure, and faculty and AACC’s administration are interested in understanding the impact to AACC on lifting the tenure cap. rpk GROUP will review the current tenure policy, compare current policy to national trends and best practices, assess the impact of tenure expansion on AACC in the short and longer terms, and make recommendations to AACC's leadership about whether to expand and how to expand tenure eligibility.
As outlined in AACC’s strategic plan, meeting the objective of being a higher education institution promising excellence, engagement and innovation means we must carefully examine how we use existing resources. This project bolsters the capacity of AACC’s administration, faculty and staff to utilize data-informed processes that ensure good stewardship of resources. Within our emphasis on continuous improvement, this work allows AACC to appropriately identify opportunities to harvest and reallocate efforts toward strategic goals that support student success.
AACC selected rpk GROUP to assist us with this project. rpk GROUP has previous experience working with institutions nationally on reshaping their portfolios and identifying resources for reinvestment, and we previously worked with rpk GROUP on an administrative services review in 2020. rpk GROUP will work with a steering team and data team that represents an intersection of academic and finance team members and pulls personnel from across AACC.
Program elimination is not a focus of this project. The project will provide a framework and tools to allow stakeholders to understand the entire academic portfolio, including student success across programs and how programs contribute to AACC’s financial health. Any decisions regarding the academic portfolio will follow AACC’s established governance procedures.
We anticipate the project to be a focus for the 2022-2023 academic year.