Proposal:  Special Topics Courses

A&S Curriculum Committee

May 7, 2002

The A&S dean and your A&S Curriculum Committee have spent the last year discussing alternatives to the traditional "dean's approval" for courses being taught for the first time. We recommend that "dean's approval" continue for such courses for newly hired professors whose specialty course is not listed in the current catalog. But the dean and curriculum committee feel the dean should not be approving courses if the courses have not first been approved by the affected department.

We looked at the varied uses of Special Topics courses, both here and at other schools, as a way to allow professors to seek one-time approval to teach a new and/or experimental course. We found the term Special Topics has been used for:

a. "Test driving" a course being taught for the first time

b.  One-time only courses (e.g., The '60s Project)

c.  Independent Studies (in Applied Ethics and Biology)

d.  A rotating series of advanced seminars (in Psychology)

We discussed different options for empowering professors to test a new course without the course automatically going into the catalog. We recommend the following:

a. Departments are encouraged to create a Special Topics course that would allow professors to "test drive" a course being taught for the first time. Departments would fill out a New Course Proposal Form, discuss it briefly at a department meeting, and submit it to the A&S Curriculum Committee. The proposal would explain this ST course is a shell, a placeholder for future courses that would be tried on an experimental basis.  Departments could have multiple ST courses if they so desired. ST slots also could be used for one-time only courses such as The Ô60s Project.

b. Once this Special Topics course is approved, individual professors who wanted to try out a course for a first time would fill out a regular New Course Proposal Form and seek departmental approval. If approved, the chair will attach relevant minutes to the form and submit it to the A&S Curriculum Committee chair.

c. The chair has 30 days to ensure the procedural steps have been followed. If the chair is concerned about the appropriateness of a proposal, the chair can send it

back to the department for reconsideration of missing information or submit it to the full Curriculum Committee for consideration

If no such action is taken, the proposal is automatically approved.

d. After teaching a course for the first time, a professor could seek permanent approval of the course by taking the original New Course Proposal Form back to the department and discussing the outcome of the course. If the department approves the course for permanent status, the chair will attach the new minutes to the original new course proposal form and submit it to the A&S curriculum committee for final approval and inclusion in the catalog.

Professors who feel they have a well-developed course still have the option of bypassing the entire Special Topics approach, completing a New Course proposal Form, and seeking departmental and committee approval.

This approach is designed, in part, to emphasize that individual departments should play a major role because they are best equipped to evaluate a new course in their subject area.

This approach also creates several steps before a ST course is added to the university catalog. We took this approach, in part, because we became concerned that students might see a tempting array of courses listed in the catalog, fail to realize that some courses might be taught as infrequently as once every five years,  then feel misled or victimized by unrealistic expectations. We do not want to create a new procedure where an unintended consequence is the listing of many new courses in the catalog, some of which may be taught very infrequently.

Toward this end, we also urge departments to address the issue of student expectations on when particular courses will be taught. During advising periods, departments are encouraged to generate three-year projections on when courses will be taught. The projections could be distributed to faculty advisers so students can do a better job of planning their courses.

We recommend that departments adhere to uniform definitions of Independent Studies (student working 1:1 with faculty sponsor). Applied Ethics and Biology offer such courses under the title Special Topics.

If a department wishes to offer a revolving series of courses under the title of Special Topics, we recommend that any such new courses follow the procedure as outlined above. (Psychology uses Special Topics in this manner.)

Revised version, based on A&S CC meeting May 7, and submitted by James Simon,

5-14-02