From: Alan Childs, Faculty Liaison for the First-Year Seminar
Program
Dept. of Psychology / ext. 5292 / childsa@lafayette.edu
RE: CEP Requirements
for Your New Course
Requirements for Spring Submissions of Course Proposals
The Curriculum and Educational Policy (CEP) Committee must review a proposal for any new course that is to be taught at Lafayette College. Because the standard proposal assumes that one has already developed the new course, this process is not appropriate for you, since you will most likely do most of the planning for your FYS during the summer. Therefore, in place of the usual procedure, CEP requests that you provide the following information this semester. Because the FYS is likely to differ from the other courses you have taught, the aim of what follows, in addition to providing some general information about your course, is to ascertain that you understand the First-Year Seminar Guidelines and have considered how you might apply them.
The information should be provided to me in early to mid March. I will recommend revisions as needed and may ask for additional information. A final version should then be submitted to me, so that I can get it to CEP by its deadline.
1. Please provide a brief description of the new course you envision at this point. Include your central purpose or aims for the course.
2. Using a maximum of 75 words, include the course description you would like sent to new first-year students during the summer. (This description may be revised later, if you like, for inclusion in the college catalog, but something has to go to the students in April.)
3. Without being specific about individual assignments (the College Writing Program will help you formulate these next fall), discuss generally how you intend to integrate writing into your course, including how you plan to make use of the writing associate.
4. Select TWO of the guidelines from the document FYS Guidelines (other than #4, which pertains to writing and has been addressed above). Discuss how you envision fulfilling these guidelines in your course. In the process, please include comments on some of the points noted on the second half of page two (ideas and rationale for co-curricular activities, classroom approach/es, quantity and type of reading assignments, etc.).
Additional Requirements
At the beginning of the fall semester, please mail a copy of your syllabus to me.
Early in the following spring semester, you will be asked to submit the standard new course proposal to CEP, based on what you have done during your first semester teaching the course. It is at that time that your course can receive approval to be offered in the future.
Remember that I am available to assist your course development in any way I can.