The Academic Quality Improvement Program infuses the principles and benefits of continuous improvement into the culture of PCC by providing an alternative process through which PCC can maintain its accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission.
At PCC, we strive constantly to improve the quality of our services to students and the community. To foster this improvement, we have adopted the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP), sponsored by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association. Under this process, PCC is committed to continuous, systematic, and measurable quality improvement.
Improvement Initiatives
PCC has adopted the following initiatives, in the form of AQIP Action Projects, to guide our improvement processes over the next 2-3 years.
1. Strategic Planning: We are committed to developing an effective and repeatable strategic planning process and to crafting a new strategic plan for our institution by December 2007.
2. Employing Student Assessment Results in Annual Planning: To support improvements in instruction, we are focusing on ways to tie the results of our student assessment program to the annual planning and budgeting process.
3. Developmental Skills: We are undertaking a three-year study of problems and solutions related to developmental education. During the third year, we will fully implement tested improvements in this area.
4. Freshman Seminar: We are conducting a freshman seminar pilot project to determine the feasibility of requiring a freshman seminar to improve student retention.
5. Quality Assurance of Online Courses: We are developing peer review and assessment processes to assure the quality of PCC online courses.
6. Library Revitalization: We are redesigning and reconfiguring our library to provide greater access to students and enable them to pursue learning actively and socially within the library walls.
Along with these formal initiatives, PCC is also engaged in ongoing improvement projects in the areas of advising, new student orientation, and diversity in the curriculum.
Assessment of Student Achievement
PCC believes that the systematic assessment of student learning provides the most meaningful basis for decisions about program improvement and institutional change, which should always be evaluated in light of their effects on student achievement. In addition to formally assessing learning outcomes in each discipline, the Assessment of Student Learning program uses our general education learning objectives as “core competencies” and assesses them across a broad range of courses for both degree and non-degree seeking students. We are now moving from course to program level assessment to broaden the impact of our assessment efforts. Each year, we publish an Annual Report on the Assessment of Student Learning to inform students and other PCC constituents of our results and recommended improvements.
Click here to go to our Assessment of Student Learning page.
For information about PCC's quality improvement programs, contact:
Bill Lewis
Director of Planning, Accreditation, and Effectiveness
719-549-3002
bill.lewis@pueblocc.edu.