Freshman Seminar Guidelines
New Courses
To receive liberal education credit, all proposed Freshman Seminars will have to comply with the Guidelines for Liberal Education Courses. Proposals for Freshman Seminars should state which goals of the Liberal Education Program and which objectives of the selected Category are going to be met by the proposed course. The course proposal should clearly explain what features in the proposed course make it qualify for being considered to be a seminar (e.g., frequent student discussion of assigned materials, frequent student writing, frequent student presentation, lab experiences).
- All Freshman Seminars will be restricted to students with fewer than 30 semester credits.
- The course titles should begin with the words "Freshman Seminar:" and then include a specific course title.
- When departments want to propose an umbrella course, its title should be "Freshman Seminar: Topics"; the individual topics courses should be proposed through the usual channels: department, collegiate Academic Affairs Committee, Dean, EPC Subcommittee on Liberal Education, and the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
- When departments propose an umbrella course, they are committing themselves to offering at least one course under that umbrella title each year.
- When departments do not propose an umbrella course, then they are committing themselves to offering each proposed course at least once a year.
- RecurringTopic Courses: A topic title that has been approved for liberal education credit does not have to be reapproved for liberal education credit if the title, topic and instructor remain the same. The approval will remain with the VCAA.
- All new topic titles that are proposed under an umbrella course must retain the same title and category designation as the umbrella course and be approved by the Liberal Education Subcommittee.
- The control size for Freshman Seminars should not exceed 20. Courses that follow a format in which there is a large lecture and then small recitation groups or labs will not qualify as Freshman Seminars.
- This does not rule out lab courses taught by the primary instructor.
- It is suggested that instructors of Freshman Seminars be experienced faculty.
- Departments will have override authority to admit students to Freshman Seminars.
Existing Liberal-Education Courses
Courses that have been approved for liberal-education credit previously may be converted to Freshman Seminars with a control size of 20, but the departments should have to propose these conversions through the established channels for applying for liberal-education credit. In short, no automatic approval. The proposed Freshman Seminars should have course numbers distinct from the already approved courses, because the Freshman Seminars are going to have distinct course titles. The proposals for the Freshman Seminars should indicate how the courses are going to be different when they are taught as seminars, as distinct from regular courses. For example, will there be more opportunities for the students to discuss assigned material? Will there be more writing assignments or more quizzes, or will other features of the course be different somehow? The course proposal should clearly delineate what features the Freshman Seminar will have that will qualify it to be a seminar that is different from the regularly scheduled liberal-education course. A freshman seminar that is a duplicate of an existing course must have, "Credit will not be granted if credit has been received for xxxx," added to both courses' parenthetical information.
In addition, when such conversions are proposed, the proposing departments should indicate in the application form how often the proposed Freshman Seminars are going to be offered and demonstrate that they will be offered often enough to accommodate at least as many students as would have been accommodated under the old format. In other words, the Liberal Education Program as a whole must still accommodate a certain number of students each year to be viable. The Freshman Seminars should not be used to reduce the overall capacity of the Liberal Education Program to deliver courses for students to take. The Freshman Seminars should provide a more intense instructional experience for the students who take them, but the Seminars should not be used to reduce substantially the number of courses available for all students to take to complete the Liberal Education Program. Unique, handcrafted courses should be developed rather than smaller versions of existing courses.
Approved EPC: 10/10/01