WILMINGTON — UNCW will be revamping several of its policies as the new year rolls around, including how it reviews academic programs and establishing a new class. The changes come at the behest of the UNC System.
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One policy already received approval from the UNCW Board of Trustees meeting on Dec. 13. Passed by the UNC Board of Governors this past spring, the policy requires all UNC System campuses to have a “robust” academic program review at the undergraduate and graduate level. A policy must be in place by Jan. 1, 2025.
The reports generated from the reviews will be subject to UNC System Board of Governors evaluation. The BOG can also discontinue a program, if it sees fit, though it is unaccustomed to doing so. The first program cut requests from an institution didn’t happen until this year when the BOG approved curtailments at UNC Asheville and UNC Greensboro due to declining enrollment.
UNCA majors eliminated included ancient Mediterranean studies, drama, philosophy and religious studies, while UNCG reductions included anthropology, secondary education in geography, and physical education. All cuts were at the universities’ behest, not the BOG.
UNCW’s policy outlines the process for how programs will be reviewed to comply with the new guidelines. Each academic program will go through an annual assessment at the programmatic level, where faculty can make tweaks. A more comprehensive review will be conducted once every seven years involving university leadership; the university already does this with its graduate programs. Accredited programs may be exempt from review.
The university policy also includes ad hoc reviews, or additional randomized evaluations, conducted as necessary and based on emerging needs or directives from the chancellor.
“Now we don’t have a lot of room on the criteria to maneuver,” Provost James Winebrake said at the December UNCW BOT’s meeting. “The system office has dictated what those criteria need to be for the periodic program review.”
While the annual review is conducted by faculty in accordance with student learning outcomes, the periodic review calls for analysis of student success (graduation rates, retention, job outcomes), along with the program’s contribution of professions “critical to the health, educational attainment and quality of life for North Carolinians.”
“We’re going to interpret that pretty broadly,” Winebrake said, but noted they would be using student and market demand trends.
Lastly the UNC System is requiring a periodic review of cost and productivity of each program, including the cost of delivering a program, how much revenue it brings in and credit hours it generates.
Because a periodic review is required at least every seven years, UNCW will be conducting 15 to 20 every year. Reviews will begin with faculty, who will make a final report to the dean of their respective college. Any major changes proposed by the dean will be recommended to the Faculty Senate University Curriculum Committee or the Graduate Council; any actions taken are subject to Provost Winebrake’s review. Winebrake will then take his recommendations to the chancellor, who will give the final decision on retaining, changing, or discontinuing a program.
At the meeting, Winebrake commented on the depth of the process.
“It’s not a trivial amount of work,” he said. “And for all of those six boxes I showed you, they all have a non-trivial amount of work. … We try to remind the system office that when they put these things on campuses, this requires a lot of attention and time and resources from campuses.”
Port City Daily asked Winebrake if he worried about the assessment fully capturing a program’s value to the campus and if he perceived any threats of discontinuation of some programs. In response, a university spokesperson pointed out the newly passed policy will head to the faculty senate in the new year for more detailed guidelines on implementing the review processes.
“We are committed to continuous program improvement and developing a robust process to allow for a comprehensive review,” spokesperson Sydney Bouchelle wrote in an email. “In addition to the criteria required by [the system office], we will also consider criteria that align with our university’s strategic plan. For example, those criteria may be in areas related to student success, community engagement, applied learning, creative work, and research, to name a few.”
In April, Winbrake presented growth and enrollment trends for the university’s biggest and most popular programs to the trustees, though it’s what he said on the university’s smaller programs that illuminates how the university will view them in upcoming reviews.
“A lot of the programs in Humanities, Social Science and the Arts, and Science and Engineering are delivering courses for our general education curriculum,” Winebrake said. “They’re generating thousands of student credit hours, students are taking these programs for minors.”
He used music education as an example; it only graduated two students last year, though many students take a music course as part of their general education.
The new policy is scheduled for a fall 2025 implementation, with summaries of the progress and programs under review due to the UNC System Office in January 2026,
However, academic review is not the only policy change coming to the university in the new year; faculty performance reviews are also seeing changes.
400.3.1.1[R]: UNC Regulation on Teaching Effectiveness in the University of North Carolina now requires all UNC System campuses to ensure teaching effectiveness is assessed, evaluated, and rewarded.
As do many campuses, UNCW has a process already in place for doing this, but the UNCW Faculty Senate approved minor changes to its faculty handbook to ensure compliance with the amended regulation. The tweaks are not major enough to require approval at a higher level.
The same process occurred for the BOG’s changes to 400.3.3.1[R]: UNC Regulation on Performance Review of Tenured Faculty (Post-Tenure Review), which now requires all UNC System campuses to ensure that tenured faculty continue to undergo a robust tenure review process.
UNCW is currently reviewing two other policy changes from the UNC System office; this includes changes to 700.10.1[R]: UNC Regulation on Awarding Undergraduate Credit for Prior Learning. Bouchelle told PCD regulation is forthcoming on how to implement these changes.
400.1.5. UNC Policy on Fostering Undergraduate Student Success now requires all campuses include two student learning objectives related to the Foundations of American Democracy in their curricula.
The policy requires all students to take at least one course covering the founding of America as an independent nation, how the government functions and the “nation’s ideals.” This includes coverage of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail — documents often covered in high school history curricula. These items can be taught in a standalone class or interwoven into existing courses.
As reported by WUNC, the policy is an offshoot of a failed North Carolina General Assembly bill titled Reclaiming College Education on America’s Constitutional Heritage. It would have required similar documents as the UNC System’s proposal, but with a mandate for students to take a full three-hour credit course on American government.UNCW has established a faculty senate committee to provide recommendations for delivering the two associated student learning outcomes. Campuses are expected to have a plan by July 2025 as to how students will achieve these learning objectives.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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