Announcement on behalf of Prof. Sarah Gergel, Associate Dean Academic
As many changes are afoot in the faculty, we wanted to clarify the recommended procedures (and deadlines) for the creation of new courses. In short (TLDR): Don’t “surprise” Program Directors or Dept Heads. Plan ahead because Workday Student is coming.
If you’d like any advice or support in managing this maze of considerations while you “dream the future” of a new course, please reach out to either Sarah Gergel (sarah.gergel@ubc.ca) or Patrick Culbert (patrick.culbert@ubc.ca). We are very excited to learn what new courses may be in store.
Procedures for New Courses
The Faculty of Forestry now has a curriculum committee which essentially does a “pre-check” of courses prior to presentation to the larger Faculty Council. The curriculum committee (led by Patrick Culbert) includes program directors and a few AD’s.
When pondering development of a new course, be sure to connect with at least one relevant program director (or in the case of graduate courses, talk to Shannon Hagerman). They can help you figure out how this course meets the needs of our programs (or could be adapted to meet program needs). They can also help you decide if your idea is best suited for a brand new course, or instead a “revamp” of an existing course already on the books. Given our limited resources for TAs, and a desire to maintain reasonable teaching loads while covering our “core,” the curriculum committee needs to ensure that at least one program director can make a strong case for why any new course is needed. If not, your proposal may get slowed down or stall out at this stage, and miss the subsequent Faculty Council approval.
Another essential move is to discuss your new course idea with your Department Head. Because they are responsible for assigning teaching (and have many core courses to be filled), it is in your best interest to understand how any proposed new course might intersect with course assignments already envisioned for you by your Head.
Important Deadlines due to the Implementation of Workday Student
With the upcoming migration to Workday Student (the system to manage student records, course registration, and such), there will be a ~1 year freeze on curriculum changes while current courses are entered into the new system. During this time, we can propose and approve curriculum changes (including new courses), but those changes will not actually take effect until after the freeze. In order to beat the freeze:
- Category 1 proposals (major changes, including new courses) must be submitted to Patrick by 01/15/2023, so they can be considered at our March 2023 Faculty Council.
- Category 2 proposals (e.g., smaller changes, edits to course titles or descriptions, changes in prerequisites) should be submitted to Patrick by 02/05/2023 in order to be considered at our March 2023 Faculty Council. Cat 2 proposals considered at our May Faculty Council (submission deadline 03/15/23) should also beat the freeze, but submitting them for the March meeting is strongly preferred.
These same basic considerations also apply to graduate courses. If you are currently offering a course as a “trial” using a temporary Directed Studies course code, consider these issues as you transition to seeking approval for an official (more permanent) course title and course code which is much preferred on student transcripts.
A Note on Re-evaluation of Existing Courses
Lastly, the curriculum committee may also suggest certain classes are dropped. For example, an elective with low enrollment that is absorbing faculty time and expertise needed for delivering our core curricula. In such cases, the curriculum committee in consultation with a Department Head may recommend that certain courses are dropped temporarily or even permanently. This has been extremely rare in the past. However, as we work towards being as strategic as possible with the new One Degree program, some decisions like this may crop up.