Editor’s note: The College of Education has gone through some structural and operational changes over the past few years, as a direct result of the Core Council recommendations and the response to those recommendations by the college. The complete Model for Student Recruitment and Retention and the Development and Coordination of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies can be found at this link. In an effort to more effectively communicate the details of that model, pieces of it will be shared regularly through Connections. As always, your feedback is welcomed at edrelations@psu.edu.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In an effort to streamline the curriculum review process, the College of Education created the Curricular Affairs Committee three years ago. The committee meets monthly throughout the academic year to review requests for course and program changes.

The committee is composed of six members: four directors of curriculum — one from each academic department within the college; Stephanie Knight, associate dean of undergraduate and graduate education; and a representative from the Faculty Council. It works directly with the Faculty Senate and Graduate Council to continually monitor the review process after it has left the college.

“One of the things we’ve improved is to make sure we have a very active involvement by our college on the University-wide committees that the process goes through,” Knight said. “These individuals also attend our college curriculum meetings so they can be our voice at the University level. In the past two years since we’ve done this, we have increased the number of course and program initiatives that we’ve put through.”

Ideally, the review process, which starts at the program level before moving on to the department level, then the college, and finally the University level, takes between six and 12 months depending upon the nature of the proposal. In order to improve efficiency within the review process, the committee monitors the timing of submissions in conjunction with the meeting dates of the Faculty Senate and Graduate Council.

“Faculty Senate committees don’t meet after April, so if we don’t get our proposals to them by that date, we have to wait until the following fall semester,” Knight said. “That is one of the things we have been tracking very carefully so we can avoid those delays.”

While the number of proposal requests vary from year to year, the Curricular Affairs Committee was successful in getting 36 program and course requests approved during the 2014-15 academic year. The committee currently has just as many requests this year and continues to review and process them on an ongoing basis. 

For more information, visit http://ed.psu.edu/internal/associate-dean-undergrad/curricular-affairs/curricular-affairs online.