By Dec. 15, faculty and staff at Missouri Southern will be turning in program evaluation information that will be compiled by a committee for evaluation.

“Program prioritization will examine every individual program that utilizes resources at the University,” said Darren Fullerton, vice president of student affairs.

“Anything that has a budget that we have to expend money on will be evaluated.”

The idea for the project came from a textbook based on program prioritization that the Board of Governors presented to the President’s Council.

The Council then drafted templates to be completed by all academic and non-academic programs on campus.

“We will examine every academic and non-academic program in an attempt to find capacity, efficiencies and other resource data in an attempt to make the University more efficient,” Fullerton said.

“We are being as strategic as possible, putting those dollars where they benefit the students in the best ways.”

The templates were drafted from prioritization text and other comparable university’s prioritizations but conformed to Southern.

The academic template is different from the non-academic template in terms of capacity and efficiencies but will be comprised of the same data needed for the project.

“It’s not necessarily a comparison, we won’t be comparing financial aid to admissions or English to history, but it’s looking into that individual unit and seeing the needs and efficiencies of that program,” Fullerton said.

 “We want to know, can we be doing more for our students? Are we meeting their needs?”

This project is being driven by budget, as state appropriations have decreased and continue to do so. Missouri is ranked 47 out of the 50 states in state appropriations for higher education.

“The state funds have been decreasing,” Fullerton said.

“We are capped on how much tuition can go up and we are very cautious of trying to keep the cost for providing an education as affordable a possible for our students.

“This project is an effort to clean up the budget and get a clearer picture of efficiencies on campus,” Fullerton said.

The task of the committee is expected to be completed by March of 2013.