Strategic Program Assessment | The Graduate School

Strategic Program Assessment (SPA) is MSU’s process for reviewing graduate programs, including graduate certificates.

Engaging in the SPA process gives departments and colleges a chance to take a step back and think broadly about its programs, where they are working, and where they can be improved.

The Graduate School will:

conduct a high-level review and provide feedback.
identify trends across campus and identify potential areas where we need to provide more guidance and support through mechanisms such as adopting MSU wide policies or through our Graduate Handbook update process.

Note: The Graduate School will not use SPA to decide which programs are terminated or which programs get resources.

We recognize that completing your self-study will require work. However, we have tried to make SPA a useful process that produces a useful result. Anecdotally, those who put in the most effort and engage the unit broadly get the most out of SPA.

Timeline

Prior Spring

Confirm program lineup

Prior Summer

Initial Communication
Data packets generated

Fall of SPA Year

August kickoff meeting
Decide college deadline
Grad School SPA workshops
December progress reports due

Spring of SPA Year

January SPA check-ins
Decide college deadline
Grad School SPA workshops
December progress reports due

Summer of SPA Year

Grad School review
Grad School meetings with GAADs
GAAD meetings with programs

Process

Each graduate program is scheduled to go through SPA on a regular basis, typically every 7 years.

Some programs might go through this more frequently to align with an external accreditation process that has a shorter cycle. These timings were initially set by each College’s Graduate Assistant/Associate Dean (GAAD).