Proposed Policy:

Courses proposed for General Education Liberal Arts Core credit must be submitted to the curriculum committee designated to monitor the relevant area of the Core for that committee's approval. Specifically, courses proposed for G1 credit must be approved by the Humanities Curriculum Committee, courses proposed for G2 credit must be approved by the Mathematics and Science Curriculum Committee, and courses proposed for G3 credit must be approved by the Social Sciences Curriculum Committee.

Explanation:

If adopted, this policy would establish the following course approval process:

1. approval by the originating department.
2. in the case of an interdisciplinary course approval by the relevant other department(s).
3. approval by the curriculum committee on which the originating department is represented (Humanities, Science and Math, Social Sciences, TEC).
4. in the case of a course proposed for Liberal Arts Core credit, approval by the curriculum committee that oversees that area of the Core if it is different from the curriculum committee in #3.
5. approval by UCPRC.
6. approval by Faculty Senate.
7. resource analysis by Dean's Council.
8. approval by Provost

Appeal:

If a course is disapproved twice in steps 3, 4, or 5 the initiating department shall have the right to appeal to the Faculty Senate for course approval.

Rationale:

This proposed policy is designed to formalize the procedures that have been the practice since the current General Education system was created, and to which there have been a few recent exceptions.

The proposed policy is designed to safeguard the integrity of the Liberal Arts Core curriculum. No one department or school has a monopoly on conveying the specific learning objectives of the Liberal Arts core. However, in an age when we rightly encourage interdisciplinary efforts, it is essential that the ability of a course to achieve the objectives of a core block be properly evaluated by a curriculum committee that consists primarily of faculty whose primary training is in the content and methodology of that curriculum area.