New Course Proposals

Proposing a new course

Instructors proposing a new undergraduate course should follow this procedure:

  • Develop a syllabus that includes credit number, prerequisites, course objectives, required and recommended materials, and a general description of assignments and assessments. The syllabus should be aimed at the student audience, and sufficiently detailed so that the committee and consulted units can judge whether there is significant content overlap and can discern differences in pedagogical approach or disciplinary perspective. (Note: For the effective term, enter the next future term and not the term the course will first be taught.)
  • Submit the proposal to your departmental and collegiate level curriculum committees for review and approval.
  • Consult with appropriate units outside the home college regarding potential duplication/overlap with existing courses by sharing the proposed syllabus.  (See "Consultation" below).
  • Create a new course proposal in Coursedog that includes a complete student-facing syllabus and a description of the consultation with other units.
  • The Course Proposal Guide provides a framework to help ensure necessary information is present when entering course proposals in Coursedog. Make a copy of the template to use as you develop course proposals.

New Course Review

Once the proposal has been approved at the departmental and collegiate levels, it will be sent to the Provost queue in Coursedog, which will trigger review with the campus Curriculum Committee.


Course Consultation Process:

Graduate

Prior to fully approving courses, the collegiate reviewer should determine if there is potential overlap between the new course and existing coursework in other units. If there is any concern regarding the content of the new course, the collegiate approver should send the new course proposal to all applicable graduate associate deans on the Twin Cities Campus for review. 

Undergraduate

Once a new course has been approved within the collegiate curriculum committee, the next step is to obtain consultation from other colleges across campus. Cross- college consultation should occur for the majority of new courses, even when a course is narrow in scope, for example, serving only one major (see the FAQ information below). In addition to identifying potential course duplication, a goal of consultation is curricular transparency. See Campus Curriculum Committee for sample communications and information.