Curriculum Planning: General Information

Departments should maintain an ongoing review of their General Catalog course offerings. 

The University and College have adopted a class size policy that should be the basis for long-term quarterly Time Schedule planning as well as short-term adjustments that involve deletions or additions.  Courses that routinely fall below minimum enrollment quotas should be evaluated for less frequent offering, deletion, or other adjustive action.  The minimum class sizes are shown below as a function of class type and level.

Individual class sections that are taught by regular faculty and that reach an enrollment of 40 or more may be assigned readers according to this formula:  2 reader hours per quarter per student in a 5-credit-hour class (e.g., 100 students, 5-hour class = 200 reader hours).  The formula is adjusted for courses of less than 5 credit hours (e.g., 40 students, 3-hour class = 48 reader hours, which is 3/5 of 80 hours).  Departmental hourly funds may be used to pay for reader hours.  Courses with quiz sections or labs normally are not assigned readers.  Classes under 100 enrollment usually are not divided into quiz sections.

Departments propose permanent course changes, additions, and deletions on University forms designed for this purpose.  These are submitted to the College Curriculum, Practices, and Standards Committee through Kevin Mihata in the Dean’s Office.  After approval, new courses and course changes are acted on by the University Curriculum Review Committee.

Proposed changes in undergraduate admission or in program requirements are also submitted to the College curriculum committee on the appropriate University form (UW 1503).  Changes cannot be implemented until they have been approved by the Divisional Dean; the College Curriculum, Practices, and Standards Committee; the Faculty Council on Academic Standards; and the President.  .

Chairs are responsible for overseeing the curricula of their units.  They should ensure that the courses taught are those listed in the catalog, that courses no longer taught are deleted from the catalog, that classes are meeting the specified number of hours per week, that a reasonable minimum enrollment is maintained, etc.