1
Unit Profile
1.1
Briefly describe the program-level planning unit. What is the unit's purpose and function?
The Natural Resources Department has A.S. degree and Certificate in Environmental Conservation programs, along with seven Environmental Conservation Technician Certificates. We serve students who plan to work immediately in the environmental science field and/or transfer to a 4-year university, as well as students who are changing careers, lifelong learners with a special interest, or working professionals wishing to deepen/broaden their knowledge in a particular area. As a CTE program, we also offer an internship/work experience program, and also work with our private, academic, agency, and non-profit advisory committee members and other community partners to explore opportunities for our students and graduates. We are deeply invested in providing an academically unique and rigorous learning experience for these diverse groups as well as promoting community engagement and environmental stewardship. We have an active, ongoing creek restoration project and environmental monitoring program in the creek area adjacent to campus (one of our outdoor classrooms). We prioritize critical thinking and the connections between science, the environment, and one's everyday life experiences, in an inclusive and vibrant learning environment, with a focus on real-world/field experiences and personal growth.
The Natural Resources department supports the mission statement of American River College. In addition to providing A.S. and Certificate programs, our courses fulfill general education requirements for ARC and transfer institutions. We are moving towards teaching a few of our courses online, to meet student needs. We are committed to equitable learning and have initiated several efforts in this area.
2
Assessment and Analysis
The program review process asks units to reflect on the progress they've made towards achieving the goals they identified in each of the Annual Unit Plans they submitted since their last Program Review.
Follow this link to access your previous EMP submissions.
For Faculty support, please contact Veronica Lopez at lopezv@arc.losrios.edu.
2.1
Consider the progress that has been made towards the unit's objectives over the last six years. Based on how the unit intended to measure progress towards achieving these objectives, did the unit's prior planned
action steps (last six years of annual unit plans) result in the intended effect or the goal(s) being achieved?
Broad objectives for our program over the last 6 years included (but were not limited to) the following highlighted here:
1. Update technology and methodology throughout our curriculum--
*we have gradually gone through all of our equipment and reviewed most laboratory activities for complete inventory, replacement, repair, and revamping based on current best practices and state-of-the-art tools (this last piece has been accomplished to the extent that our funding allows);
2. Expand opportunities (e.g., through our internship program, undergraduate research in collaboration with our faculty, employment, and transfer)--
*work in this area has included learning about programs at 4-year institutions, especially in California but elsewhere as well, to better mentor our students and to understand articulation constraints and opportunities;
*we have increased the number of our courses that have complete (i.e., ARC-GE, IGETC, and CSU-GE) transferability as general education;
*we have worked to diversify our internship program site offerings;
*we have developed an online clearinghouse for information useful to our current, prospective, and former students including job openings, current events, professional meetings, etc.
3. Program growth and student success with a focus on equity and diversity--
*overall we have seen steady but very minimal growth
*we visited area high schools but not enough and not often enough
*participation by non-whites is still unacceptably low, but appears to be changing this year, perhaps due to faculty efforts and professional development
The standard data set is intended to provide data that may be useful in promoting equity and informing departmental dialogue, planning, decision making, and resource allocation.
Recent updates include (1) better integration with ARC’s Data on Demand system to provide users with more sophisticated and nuanced ways of exploring their unit’s data and (2) greater emphasis and access to disproportionate impact data
(how student achievement outcomes vary by gender, race/ethnicity, veteran, foster youth, disability, and income/poverty level status)
to enable users to engage in more advanced
student-centered
and
equity-centered
analysis, reflection, and planning.
To access the Enrollment or Disproportionate Impact data reports, you may be prompted to log in to ARC’s Data on Demand system. If so, click on “Log in with ARC Portal” and enter your Los Rios single sign-on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
(To streamline the standard data set, the productivity data element has been removed, as has the green-yellow-red light icon system for all data elements except for department set standards.)
The two data sets show 5 years of fall or spring duplicated enrollment, disaggregated by gender and ethnicity. Note that ARC's data-on-demand tool will soon provide considerably more sophisticated ways of viewing and analyzing
your planning unit's headcount and enrollment trends.
- Green
- current fall/spring semester enrollment is equal to or exceeds the prior year's fall/spring enrollment.
- Yellow
- current fall/spring semester enrollment reflects a decline of less than 10% from the prior year's fall/spring enrollment.
- Red
- current fall/spring semester enrollment reflects a decline of 10% or more from the prior year's fall/spring enrollment.
The two data sets show 5 years of fall or spring productivity (WSCH per FTEF: the enrollment activity for which we receive funding divided by the cost of instruction).
Note that ARC's data-on-demand tool will soon provide considerably more sophisticated ways of viewing and analyzing your planning unit's productivity trends.
- Green
- current fall/spring semester productivity is equal to or exceeds the prior year's fall/spring productivity.
- Yellow
- current fall/spring semester productivity reflects a decline of less than 10% from the prior year's fall/spring productivity.
- Red
- current fall/spring semester productivity reflects a decline of 10% or more from the prior year's fall/spring productivity.
Precision Campus Report Links
The disproportionate impact (DI) links now direct you to your unit’s DI data in ARC Data on Demand. The DI data will show which student groups are experiencing disproportionate impact for course success rates (A, B, C, Cr, P), A-B rates, and course completion rates (students who did not withdraw) at the course level.
In addition, a new report on intersectional DI (e.g., ethnicity/race by gender) is available for assessing intersectional Di for course success rates. The intersection DI report defaults to the subject code level (e.g., all ENGWR courses). Use the org tree in the side bar to filter to individual courses (click on the right arrow next to American River College, right arrow next to your division, right arrow next to your department/discipline, then select the specific course to view).
If prompted to log in, click on “Log in with ARC Portal” and enter your Los Rios single-sign on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
Shows course success rates (# of A, B, C, Cr, and P grades expressed as a % of total grade notations) compared to lower and upper thresholds.
Thresholds are derived using a 95% confidence interval (click the report link for details).
The lower threshold is referred to as the Department Set Standard. The upper threshold is referred to as the Stretch Goal.
- Green
- Most recent academic year exceeds the upper threshold
- Yellow
- Most recent academic year falls between the lower and upper threshold
- Red
- Most recent academic year falls below the lower threshold
Email Standard Data Set link
In addition to reflecting on the metrics shown above, it may prove useful to analyze other program-level data to assess the effectiveness of your unit.
For instructional units, ARC's Data on Demand system can be used to provide program and course
level information regarding equitable outcomes, such as program access or enrollment, successful course completion, and degree or certificate achievement
(up to 30+ demographic or course filters are available).
You might also consider pursuing other lines of inquiry appropriate to your unit type (instructional, student support, institutional/administrative support).
Refer to the Program Review Inquiry Guide under the resources tab for specific lines of inquiry.
2.2
What were the findings? Please identify program strengths, opportunities, challenges, equity gaps, influencing
factors (e.g., program environment), data limitations, areas for further research, and/or other items of interest.
Main findings:
-Fall 2017 enrollment was down from previous fall -2.8% (similar to college overall, -2.4%)
-Spr 2018 productivity was down from previous spring -14.5% although it jumped back up this spring (2019)
-African American students were within 3 percentage points of the group's DI threshold even though overall we are doing OK in this respect
-The only class not meeting dept set standards was 498 because we had failing grades due to students not meeting 60-hour requirement for intership
-Note: our summer class students are representative of regular year students and if this summer course student success data was included, numbers would be very different (in positive way)
Some challenges and opportunties:
-The Natural Resource department strives to provide exceptional field and lab research experience. This is difficult without dedicated classroom space, sufficient storage and prep areas, indoor space for lab activities, vehicles available for our field experiences, and appropriate support (classified staff and student help, along with other support for supplies, equipment, etc.)
-We have partnered with 4-year institutions to try to provide research opportunities
-We are hoping to strengthen partnerships with groups representing underserved student populations, and there are early signs of success
-We are in the process of completing our collaboration with U.C. to run The California Naturalist Certification Program, which we believe will provide a tremendous boost to our students that choose to participate
3
Reflection and Dialog
3.1
Discuss how the findings relate to the unit's effectiveness. What did your unit learn from the analysis and how
might the relevant findings inform future action?
We have a persistent problem in not having our program demographics being representative of the college as a whole. We have strengthened efforts in this area over the past year and plan to really make a big push, and are hoping to work closely with colleagues and students who have great ideas and best practives to share with us.
We feel very enthusiastic about new technology and methodologies and finding ways to maximize these and prepare our students in a way that is unique to the district (and I daresay beyond). Support to purchase enough materials for all students to have direct, hands-on experiences during all labs/field trips would be tremendously helpful.
Overall, we are successful in meeting the needs of many (most?) of our students and do a great deal of mentoring and thus are generally very connected to our students. They feel this and faculty also benefit greatly from meaningful ties to the amazing people we serve.
We are interested in seeing more and detailed data in the future and working in various areas, e.g., professional development, to further explore and improve in the areas outlined here and above.
3.2
What is the unit's ideal future and why is it desirable to ARC? How will the unit's aspirations support accomplishment of the mission, improve institutional effectiveness, and/or increase academic quality?
We are doing some great stuff. We are a small program and could use more support. We believe that ARC benefits from our unique program and course offerings and will do so even more in the future. Our ideal scenario includes:
-steady growth and more course offerings
-much enhanced connections to area high schools and establishment of dual enrollment program
-strong Cal Nat program
-continued focus on current and best use of technology and methodologies incorporated into our curriculum
-increased and enhanced opportunities (transfer, employment) for our students and graduates
-a department whose students reflect our amazing study body at large, and that supports every student to the greatest degree possible, considering what is equitable at every junction
4
Strategic Enhancement
4.1
Identify/define one or more program-level objectives which enhance the unit's effectiveness. What does your unit intend to do to work towards its ideal future? How will success be measured?
One objective that is so critical at this time is to improve student success--across the board, but especially among underserved populations. We need to examine student success, core barriers, and possible solutions. This will involve looking at a lot more data, for starters, but also getting as much feedback from the students we have now and going forward; this could take several forms, from standardized surveys to individual meetings/conversations.The outreach that we have already started needs to be greatly expanded, and all faculty need training and connectance to colleagues for support and ideas. We will measure success going forward by the experiences of our students, the make-up of our classes, and the demonstration of attention to barriers.
4.2
How will the unit's intended enhancements support ARC's commitment to social justice and equity?
The ideas presented above are clearly linked to ARC's commitment to social justice and equity; I don't think additional explanation is necessary!
