The School of the Arts and Communication at The College of New Jersey is committed to an ongoing and continuous cycle of planning and assessment that is mission driven and appropriate to the needs of each program in the school.
Read the mission statements for the School and each of our departments.
In accordance with TCNJ policy, every five to seven years each department conducts a rigorous self-study followed by an external review. Following the self-study and the external review, departments revise their strategic plans or create new strategic plans. Each department’s strategic plan is approved first by the department and then by the dean of the School of the Arts and Communication. The strategic plan outlines the department’s aspirations and enduring goals and discusses how these are realized in each of the following areas: curriculum, students, faculty, and resources. For complete guidelines, please see the College’s Academic Department Planning and Review Procedures.
Following the approval of the department’s strategic plan, the department revises or creates a new plan for the assessment of learning outcomes. This plan includes enumerative, quantitative, and qualitative analyses of learning outcomes for the department’s major program(s) of study. The assessment plan is approved is approved first by the department and then by the dean of the School of the Arts and Communication, often in consultation with the director for Institutional Effectiveness. A list of the principles for assessment in the School of the Arts and Communication can be found here.
Once approved, the learning outcomes assessment plan is posted to the ArtsComm Planning and Assessment website and shared with the Center for Institutional Effectiveness. The learning outcomes assessment plan becomes the blueprint for the annual collection of data related to learning outcomes until a new plan is established in the following review cycle. Each department creates annual reports based on the approved assessment plan; these reports include a summary of the data collected and the analysis of those data by the faculty in the given department, as well as an enumeration of any steps considered or taken in response to the analysis of the data. These assessment reports are submitted to and approved by the dean of the School of the Arts and Communication and filed with the Center for Institutional Effectiveness.
The schedule of planning and assessment for each department in the school can be found in the table below.
ArtsComm Planning and Assessment Cycle
| Department | Self-Study | External Review | Strategic Plan | Learning Outcomes Assessment Plan |
| Art & Art Education [1] | Fall 2022 (Fall 2027) | Spring 2023 (NASAD) (Spring 2028) | Fall 2020 (Fall 2027) | Fall 2022 (Fall 2027) |
| Communication Studies | Fall 2018 | Fall 2018 | Spring 2014 | Fall 2016 |
| Design and Creative Technology | Spring 2017 | Fall 2017 | Spring 2019 | Fall 2016 |
| Journalism and Professional Writing | Fall 2022 | Spring 2023 | Summer 2016 | Summer 2019 |
| Music[2] | Fall 2009 | Spring 2010 (NASM) | Spring 2014
| Spring 2017 |
[1] The College of New Jersey became an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) in Fall 2015.
[2] The College of New Jersey was reaccredited as an institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) in Fall 2010.