Charge

This committee shall serve to consider and recommend policies and procedures regarding curriculum development, prerequisite, graduation requirements, general education requirements, program review, grading policies, and program discontinuance.
On curricular and grading issues of a daily operational nature, this committee will make recommendations to the Board of Trustees with College Council review.

December 19, 2012

Hello, fellow faculty,

As we near the end of the semester, I wanted to take a minute to thank the members of the curriculum committee for all of their hard work and professionalism this semester. Curriculum is a tough – but rewarding – committee, and my job has been made easier these past few years because of the able work of all involved.

I also want to thank those of you who brought classes through curriculum these past cycles as you adapted to the changes made to the process particularly in light of the reduced staffing in the curriculum office and the changes being required by the state (repeatability and TMC degrees) with which we are having to comply without a clear sense from the Chancellor’s Office of how we are to meet these requirements.

For those who are planning to submit curriculum in the spring semester, including those whose courses did not get through the cycle this past fall as well as those with courses that are out of compliance and need to be revised so that they may be offered next academic year, let me remind you of a few important things:

TMC TRAINING:

There will be a flex activity at the @MSJC Academy regarding what the TMC degrees are and how to develop them. It will be held on Wednesday, January 16, from 9-12; please see the Academy schedule for further details. If you have been receiving emails from Janet McCurdy about developing a degree, we encourage you to attend. We will be providing hands-on assistance after an overview of the degrees and the approval process.

CURRICUNET:

Although the CurricUNET approval process is turned off until January 14, CurricUNET will be available should you wish to continue working on courses or begin revisions to submit courses in the spring. Information in the revised Best Practices Handbook, including the Frequently Asked Questions, can assist you during this period when the curriculum office is closed.

CURRICULUM WORKSHOPS:

Due to the lack of attendance at curriculum workshops, we will be discontinuing them as of the spring. For those of you who wish to have one-on-one assistance, please send an email to the curriculum email (curriculum@msjc.edu), indicating what kind of curriculum you are working on (course revision, DE addendum, award revision, etc) and the dates and times that work best for you, and we will arrange for a member of the curriculum committee to meet with you for assistance. Please put “One-on-one assistance” in the subject line. If there are several members of your department or several faculty members who wish to have group assistance, we can arrange that as well.

SUNSET POLICY:

As communicated a number of times, courses that are on the sunset policy list that do not complete the approval process by the end of spring semester will be inactive as of Fall 2013 and cannot be offered. They will be deactivated as of November 2013 if the approval process is not completed by then. Note the deadline for getting courses on an agenda for spring semester below:

March cycle suggested submission/launch date is 12/07/12; however, meeting this date DOES NOT guarantee inclusion on the March agenda.	Monday	Friday	Courses that have received FINAL Department Chair and Dean approvals by this date and time will be placed on the agenda for first read.
	March 4, 2013	February 22, 2013
	3:30 PM	11:59 PM
	SJC / 305
	Monday	Wednesday	Course authors make all required changes for second read.
	March 18, 2013	March 6, 2013
	3:30 PM	11:59 PM
	CCCConfer
NOTE: If your submission does not receive the required FINAL approvals for the March Agenda Cycle, it will then be considered for the April Cycle.

April cycle suggested submission/launch date is 2/08/13; however, meeting this date DOES NOT guarantee inclusion on the April agenda.	Monday	Friday	Courses that have received FINAL Department Chair and Dean approvals by this date and time will be placed on the agenda for first read.
	April 8, 2013	March 22, 2013
	3:30 PM	11:59 PM
	MVC / 814
	Monday	Wednesday	Course authors make all required changes for second read.
	April 22, 2013	April 10, 2013
	3:30 PM	11:59 PM
	CCCConfer
NOTE: If your submission does not receive the required FINAL approvals for the April Agenda Cycle, it will then be considered for the May Cycle.

May cycle suggested submission/launch date is 3/08/13; however, meeting this date DOES NOT guarantee inclusion on the May agenda.	Monday	Friday	Courses that have received FINAL Department Chair and Dean approvals by this date and time will be placed on the agenda for first read.
	May 6, 2013	April 26, 2013
	3:30 PM	11:59 PM
	SJC / 305
	Monday	Wednesday	Course authors make all required changes for second read.
	May 20, 2013	May 8, 2013
	3:30 PM	11:59 PM
	CCCConfer
NOTE: If your submission does not receive the required FINAL approvals for the May Agenda Cycle, it will then need to be considered in the 2013-14 Schedule.

KEEPING TRACK OF WHERE COURSES STAND IN THE APPROVAL PROCESS:

With so many courses and awards at varying places in the approval process, we in the curriculum office cannot keep track of where your courses stand. A number of classes have been stuck at the course author’s level since September or October, waiting for the course author to make the suggested changes. If you have made those changes but have not taken action on the course, the course will not proceed to the next level of the approval process or go back into the process for re-review.

It is your responsibility to keep track of your own courses and what needs to be done to complete the approval process. If your course is getting hung up at the tech review level (the level that takes the longest time to complete as we want the bulk of changes to be made PRIOR to the course coming before the committee), I suggest you contact someone for clarification or review the Best Practices handbook. Each reviewer who disapproves your class will indicate what needs to be done to get approval; please read the comments and/or attachments.

At any point, you can check your own course to see where it stands and what needs to be done to get it to first read. To do so, go to My Proposals (or All Proposals) and click on the “Check Status” button. Look for the red that indicates where the course is in the approval process. If you do not see the course in either place, you most likely have not launched it into the approval process by hitting “Submit.”

* * ** * ** * *

Remember, curriculum is a faculty-driven process, and it is our responsibility as faculty to write and revise curriculum, which means we review what was submitted in previous course outlines and consider whether it reflects currency in the field and the kinds of information we expect students to gain through the coursework.

Please let me or one of the faculty members on the committee know if you have questions about the process or arrange to meet with one of us in person. We look forward to working with you!

Michelle

Michelle Stewart, Curriculum Faculty Co-Chair

Mt. San Jacinto College

28237 La Piedra Rd

Menifee, CA 92584

951-639-5645

mstewart@msjc.edu