BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

Guidelines for Departments

1. Bryn Mawr College has in place a program to review the activities of academic departments by committees of experts from outside the College: “Visiting Committees.” Many reviews are conducted jointly with Haverford College, so that counterpart departments on both campuses are visited simultaneously. Haverford's guidelines are linked.
2. Visiting Committees will examine the total program of a given department with the purpose of helping the department make a more effective contribution to the life of the College. In addition, Visiting Committees will be interested in the professional activities of faculty within a department for the same purpose. Additional, specific charges to the Committees may be framed by the administration and/or the Committee on Academic Priorities and the Educational Policy Committee.
3. Visiting Committees will base their work first on a self-study by the department reviewed. Such a study should include long and short-run goals of the departmental program, the role of the research of departmental members, the disposition and resources of the department, plans, ideals, suggestions for improvements, etc.
4. Committee members will be drawn from outside the College. Suggestions for membership of Visiting Committees will be solicited from the department reviewed, from the counterpart department at Haverford (if any), from related departments here, and from the Committee on Academic Priorities, but membership will not necessarily be confined to names so suggested.
5. Visiting Committees will be asked to meet two or three times on campus alone, and also with members of the department or departments reviewed, with other departments engaged in allied programs, with CAP, with counterpart Haverford departments (if the review itself is not Bi-College), and with students.
6. Reviews should take less than 3 months to complete. A comprehensive written report with suggestions for the future will be expected. This report will be available to the department, to the President and the Committee on Academic Priorities.
7. Departments to be reviewed will be chosen by the President, in consultation with the Committee on Academic Priorities and the Provost. Departments will be asked for their views on the timing of reviews.
8. A report of the review will be sent to the department. The department is to write a response to the review, which will be shared with CAP and the EPC.

Schedule of Reviews, 1979-2009