Our Mission
The Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Research, and Grants serves the Arizona Western College community by providing the most accurate information possible for decision-making, overseeing research, and pursuing external funding to support institution-wide initiatives.
Data/Research Request
Make an ad hoc data/research request. Please note that ad hoc requests are completed as time permits.
Seeking a grant? Visit the Grants Office.
Our Goal
The Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Research aims to maintain a systematic and sustainable institutional effectiveness system that demonstrates the ability of the College to match performance to its stated mission.
Our Function
The function of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Research is to:
- Identify and define stakeholder data and information needs across the college district for decision-making;
- Collect, analyze, interpret, and report district-wide data and information including the longitudinal measure of institutional effectiveness;
- Ensure compliance with state, federal, and other reporting requirements;
- Educate information producers, users, and customers on the use of data, analysis, and information to inform independent and collaborative decision-making;
- Collaborate and evaluate strategic planning efforts, assessment of learning outcomes, program reviews, accreditation, student enrollment, and retention, and marketing campaigns across the district;
- Oversee AWC’s Institutional Review Board to ensure the protection of human subjects in research.
Institutional Effectiveness
Institutional effectiveness is a systematic, explicit, and documented process of measuring performance against the mission in all aspects of an institution. Thus, providing an intentional process of determining the level of achievement of the institution's mission and its educational goals and objectives (SACS, 2005).
AWC's ongoing evaluation and assessment processes provide reliable evidence of institutional effectiveness that clearly informs strategies for continuous improvement, is an important part of addressing criterion two of the institution's Higher Learning Commission accreditation and preparing for the future (HLC, 2010).