Departmental Curricular Planning

The College encourages departments to sequence courses clearly, to establish reasonable prerequisites for advanced courses, and to offer course experiences that vary in size and format in both the lower division and upper division of course numbering. The College also encourages flexibly defined "Topics" courses at various levels. Topics courses can be used for special opportunities (e.g., visiting faculty) and avert the need to have new courses approved frequently or at the last minute. Since two courses offered under the same "Topics" number will differ substantially in content, a "Topics" course should be designated "repeatable for credit."

The Associate Dean for Academic Programs & Services reviews and approves departments' requests to add or drop courses or modify existing courses. All requests must be made on a Course Approval Request form. Each year the Board of Regents receives a summary of course changes in the College.

Adding Courses

The annual mid-February (usually February 15) deadline for adding courses for the following fall, spring, and summer sessions was established in order to meet deadlines for the publication of course information in the General Catalog (which is updated once a year) and in the report to the Regents on curricular change.

At the time a course is created (or after) departments may cross-list (cross-reference) the course with another department or departments. The department or program that will be the "administrative home" is responsible for creating the course. All elements of a cross-listed courses must be the same -- identical titles, the same number of semester hours, the same grading instructions (letter-graded or S/F or S/U for undergraduates), and so on.

"Co-existing" courses are not permitted. In order for two courses to meet in the same room at the same time with the same instructor, the two courses must be cross-listed.

Permission to add courses after the deadline is granted to accommodate changes that occurred too late to be included in earlier departmental planning.

Modifying Courses

Changes to existing courses may also be made; the annual mid-February deadline applied. Changes to cross-listed (cross-referenced) courses must be made by the administrative home department or program.

Discontinuing Courses

Courses may be dropped from the curriculum in two ways. Before the mid-February deadline, courses can be discontinued with a course approval form. Each year, the Registrar also prepares a list of courses for each unit that have not been taught (that is, have not had any enrollments) in the last four years. The College asks departments to either agree to discontinue these courses or justify their continuance in the departmental curriculum. When departments agree to discontinue courses via the "Inactive courses" list, no course approval form is needed.