A Guide for Arts & Sciences Chairs

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Proposing New Courses,
Revising Existing Courses

Your department should review its courses at the end of each semester or, at least, at the end of each academic year. The faculty should discuss problems encountered, comments from students, and consistency between the Bulletin description and actual practice. Check whether there is duplication of material taught in a course offered by another department; if so, contact that department to determine whether one of the courses can be eliminated. If a revision to a course’s Bulletin description, title, number, list of prerequisite courses, etc. is needed, you must do so by filling out and submitting a Course Approval Form to the Dean’s Office. Make sure that you have solicited cognate letters of approval (there is a form for doing so) from any other departments that have an interest in the course, and that these letters are included with the form. Changes to existing courses require approval only of the relevant College curriculum committee. New courses (including the revival of previously existing courses that have not been taught for a number of years) require the approval of the College faculty. In addition, changes to courses that satisfy the general education requirement (Divisional Studies or Core Curriculum) will be reviewed by the Academic Policy Committee of the College.

Individual faculty members or departmental curriculum committees will propose new courses from time to time. The steps required to gain approval of a new course are as follows:

  1. Determine the level ( introductory 100-level, advanced 400-level, etc.).
  2. Create an outline of the course content, a reading list/list of suggested texts, and a set of course requirements (e.g., weekly homework plus a midterm and final exam; one term paper plus a midterm and final exam; series of short papers; etc.).
  3. Discuss the proposed course with your faculty. Do they wish to move forward with the course proposal? Obtaining the approval of the department may require several iterations.
  4. Determine a number and title for the course. The number should reflect the level of the course in comparison with other courses offered by your department. Otherwise, there is no restriction (i.e., you may use your own judgment whether to call the course ZZ 431 or ZZ 488, for example).
  5. Compose a syllabus that contains an expanded description of the course, goals of the course, requirements, and a detailed week-by-week outline of the classes, including matching readings with weekly lessons. See the checklist below for guidance.
  6. Determine the frequency at which you intend to offer the course (once per semester? once per year? less frequently?).
  7. Determine the time when you will offer the course. Your AA needs to fill out a Course Scheduling Form as well as a Course Inventory Form.
  8. Determine the impact of the course on the department’s budget and staffing. Unless your department has a surplus of faculty, you will need to discontinue or reduce the frequency of offering of one or more courses. In general, you should not propose courses that have a substantial impact on either your budget or your staffing requirements unless the new course is part of a previously approved plan for departmental development.
  9. Solicit cognate letters of approval from the chairs of any other departments that have an interest in the course (e.g., it is a required course for one of their majors).
  10. Have your AA fill out and, after you sign it, submit to the Dean’s Office the Course Approval Form, Course Scheduling Form, and Course Inventory Form along with a syllabus and any cognate letters. The Course Approval Form requires a description for the Bulletin that is limited to a maximum of 40 words; present tense is used and extraneous words (e.g., “This course attempts to teach students about...”) should be omitted.

The proposed new course will be considered by the relevant College curriculum committee (Humanities, Social Science, or Natural Science, the latter of which includes Mathematics and Computer Science), by the APC if the course is to satisfy a College requirement (Divisional Studies, foreign language, writing), by the College faculty, and by the Dean. After final approval, your AA needs to make sure that the new course is entered into the appropriate Bulletin.

In order to meet the schedule for including listings of new courses in the Bulletin, you should submit Course Approval Forms and supporting material to Peter Law, CAS Academic Administrator, very early in the Fall semester. However, if special circumstances (e.g., the hiring of a new professor who has a great idea for a new course to be taught as soon as possible) occur, it is possible to submit the material after the early Fall. In this case, it is up to your department to announce the course, once approved, to all students who should take it, since it will appear neither in the first edition of the schedule booklet nor in the Bulletin. If there is a need to teach the course prior to final approval, the Dean may, at his discretion, grant authorization to teach the course on a one-time, provisional basis, in anticipation that the faculty will approve the course at the next College faculty meeting.