Engineering
2024-2025 Program Review

1 ) In 3-5 sentences, describe your unit to an audience of potential students. Many units take this information from their website. If it has been awhile since your unit has updated its website, take this opportunity to design a brief description of your unit for today’s students.

The Engineering program offers courses necessary to transfer to a four-year university where students can complete a bachelor’s degree in various branches of engineering. Most lower division engineering programs require the following ARC courses: Mathematics 400, 401, 402, and 420; Physics 410, 421, and 431; Chemistry 400; and Engineering 401, 412, and 420. Students should consult the institution to which they wish to transfer for specific lower-division requirements. ARC's program provides the foundation in mathematics, physics, and engineering necessary to transfer to a four-year institution and complete a bachelor's degree in engineering.

2 ) Who is disproportionately impacted in your unit?

For A-B rates for the highest level engineering course offered, ENGR 401 (Introduction to Electrical Circuits and Devices), African American students 33% vs. 80% for comparison group, or -46%.

For course completion, African American students 58% vs. 89% for comparison group, or -31%. For below-poverty-level students, 55% vs. 74%, or -20%.

For course success, ENGR 300 (Introduction to Engineering) is flagged as 46% vs. 74%, or -28% for African American students.

Finally, for disproportionate impact, African American and Native American student comparison success rates were -25% and -18%, respectively, compared to Hispanic/Latino and below poverty students at -3% and -7%, respectively.

Use the Disproportionate Impact* reports below to answer question #2. These reports show 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. These reports are integrated with ARC's Data on Demand system to provide users with more sophisticated and nuanced ways of exploring their unit's data. To access the 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).

*This link provides the California Community College Chancellor's Office's definition of disproportionate impact.

Disproportionate Impact

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).

Email Standard Data Set link

3 ) What equity advancing actions have your programs already taken?

Starting in fall 2025, a 0.5-unit parallel support course is being offered for ENGR 401. And, another similar course will be offered beginning in fall 2026 for ENGR 420. These support courses are designed to give additional instruction in problem-solving strategies and exam preparation which should increase course success rates, especially for historically under-served students. In addition, both full-time and adjunct Engineering instructors have taken on mentoring roles for student engineering clubs.

4 ) What will be your unit’s strategies for eliminating disproportionate impact (DI)?

We have been short-staffed in Engineering since one of the full-time faculty members retired during the pandemic, leaving only one full-time instructor in the department. As a result, we had to move a number of classes to an asynchronous online modality that does not work well for Engineering courses. We have been approved to hire a second full-time Engineering instructor, which will allow us to move all of our classes back to an in-person modality that had a higher success rate prior to the pandemic, especially for our disproportionately impacted students.

5 ) What support do you need to eliminate disproportionate impact (DI)?

At this point, we don't need any additional support. With the creation of two new parallel support courses and the upcoming hiring of a second full-time faculty member, we hope to see the data improve significantly over the next few years.

6 ) What other issues or concerns have affected your unit and are important for you to bring up?

We feel that the data reflect the stress that the department has been under the past five years, with only one full-time faculty member trying to do everything, as well as having many classes moved online.

The Enrollment, Department Set Standards, and SLO Data Set may be additional considerations and helpful for answering this optional question, but not required. To access the 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).

Enrollment

The enrollment links now direct you to your unit’s enrollment data in ARC Data on Demand (5 years of duplicated enrollment for Fall or Spring terms). Using the filters available along the left side navigation in ARC Data on Demand, enrollment data can now be disaggregated or filtered on a number of course or student characteristics to provide more fine-tuned exploration and analysis of enrollment data. Examples include disaggregating by course, ethnicity/race, gender, and age.

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).

Department Set Standards

Most Recent Academic Year

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

SLO Data Set

Engineering AARR Summary Engineering AARR Results by SLO

The faculty's continuous review of student achievement of course SLOs is documented using the Authentic Assessment Review Record (AARR), which involves a review of student work demonstrating achievement of the course SLO. Faculty record student achievement for a randomly assigned course SLO based on one or more authentic assessments that they regularly perform in their classes. The aggregated results are then reviewed annually as part of Annual Unit Planning, in which the results may serve as the basis for actions and, if applicable, resource allocation, and are aligned with college goals and objectives.

The AARR summary link provides an aggregate of the results of the most recent AARR implementation. The AARR results by SLO link provides a more detailed view, including the specific ratings assigned by faculty to each randomly assigned course SLO, and what, if any, actions were taken.

Note: Established thresholds (i.e., green/yellow/red indicators) have yet to be developed for SLO data.