The Dark Ages - those of us who worked in this area of NSCC through the years just prior to the creation of the Academic Quality Assurance & Program Development division (AQA&PD), would understand what I mean by the dark ages. Overall leadership of Academic Services in general was less-than-stellar, but the area of curriculum management was particularly deficient. Alternating between periods of micromanagement and the wild, wild west, there was no consistency, alignment, or clarity of the departmental mission. Plenty of work was done - most of which was generally ignored by everyone, even those who sponsored major academic projects. Great ideas came...and went. Projects - when they didn't completely fail mid-course - resulted in recommendations, policies, processes and so on that were never acted on or implemented. Communications were non-existent and morale in the unit was accordingly dismal.
One abiding consistency was the understanding that curriculum consultants (who reported to School Deans) were responsible for maintaining the curriculum and bringing curriculum to an increasingly quality-driven level. For the most part, curriculum consultants and academic chairs ran the faculty working groups and that activity was focused on defining and capturing the curriculum - in particular the program and course outcomes. Meanwhile, Program Review and Renewal was generally ineffective and scarcely used, with the exception of those programs which had external review and accreditation. It was also considered a specialized function and so (for any major reviews outside of those accreditations) I was most often the one who conducted them.
The Enlightened Age - With the creation of a department of Academic Quality Assurance & Program Development in 2013, much of that experience has been erased and almost everything about the work of the curriculum consultant changed with the exception of the one constant noted above - that consultants are still responsible to facilitate the maintenance of curriculum and to elevate the quality of that documentation. Under the new structure, consultants are detached from direct reporting to Schools and are assigned to a Dean for the new department. Under his direction, Faculty Working Groups are given back to faculty; consultants become change champions and quality process specialists; the function of program review is distributed across all the consultants and this has resulted in the ability to get back to a rigorous and comprehensive calendar of reviews for all programs.
Of particular significance to this blog, the new Dean - recognizing the need to assign unit coordination to an operational manager - created the role for which I was successful in competition (Manager for Program Development). I believe that this is a significant opportunity for me to grow and contribute at a whole new level, and also for the department and the team to benefit from a structure in which the supporting and coordination functions I was providing previously (ad-hoc) now become a more significant part of my official role, while the Dean can spend more time and effort focusing on strategic and policy direction. Win-win!
In my next post, I will begin to go from looking backward to look inward - to my strengths and opportunities for growth - and outward to the expectations of the department and my team.I recently met with my mentor again and we are starting to move towards defining the possible outcomes of our mentorship. Future blog posts will present those outcomes in greater detail. Meanwhile, welcome to the age of enlightenment.
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