Established in the summer of 2021, the Office of Academic Quality and Enhancement (OAQE) has been tasked with the further enhancement of all protocols in relation to Western’s Institutional Quality Assurance Process (IQAP). More broadly, to ensure that Western meets all expectations of the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance.

While the terms “quality assurance” and “program review” often bring to mind notions of evaluation and accountability, fundamentally the accountability is to the members of the program community itself – students, faculty and staff. This is central to the ethos of the OAQE – leveraging program development and review opportunities as a scaffolded and supported catalyst to listen, collect data, analyse, interpret, reflect, discuss, vision and plan toward well-designed, innovative and inclusive academic programs.  Recognizing that it is not possible to effectively achieve this in isolation, the OAQE aims to foster and support a collaborative process that benefits from a multiplicity of perspectives. Be they the varied voices within a program, the myriad campus partners who work to support Western’s academic programs, faculty and students, or the community of expert peers who serve as external reviewers.

For greater detail on the focus of the OAQE’s work, please see the following summary of the Office’s Strategy Map (click on the image to enlarge).

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