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[jimislew]

Hi All, I'm just looking for a few quick replies about who makes curriculum decisions at your institution. I'm aware that a lot depends on your institutional culture and mission (so feel free to include that info if you want) but if not just fire away.

1.Is your curriculum affected by by your local community (locale, demography, etc.)?

2. Who makes curriculum decisions at your institution (committee, administrators, edict from the chair, etc.) and what role do you play in that process?

3. How much autonomy would you say you have in the classroom (Dead Poet Society? Tape recorder? Somewhere in the middle? etc.)?

4. How do curriculum decisions affect the "climate" of your institution? (i.e. do you get ticked off at a lack of input or ticked off because you have to attend so many meetings? etc.)

5. Lastly, do you have time, funds, meetings, workshops, etc. set aside for curriculum development?

Thanks for any info (no this will not be published anywhere, etc. it is mostly for my own background knowledge).

-Jim

[tuxedo_cat]

Mine has a pretty good mix of oversight + trusting faculty to know what we're doing.  

I teach within a conventional College of Arts and Sciences, teaching-centered (3/3 load) that is part of a larger private university that is much more interested in the science fields and pretty wishy-washy about the ideals of a traditional liberal arts education -- ie, a lot of lip service to our college (to put some of this in context).  I teach in a humanities field, and I'm on the tenure-track.

(1) Not in my dept. -- others may be affected in other areas of the university, not sure

(2) All curriculum decisions go through a Curriculum Committee approval process (with reps from every dept), which again, is pretty trusting of faculty, but definitely does not just rubber stamp new courses.  All new majors / programs / online degrees go through a rigorous, multi-year process of . . . approval to investigate, feasibility study, a series of fistfights on the CC, and then up or down vote.  However . . . plenty of other major decisions are made top-down without much consultation with faculty.  My voice as someone junior and relatively new is always welcome and treated with respect.

(3) Plenty of autonomy -- I can teach a course before submitting for approval.  But we also don't have any history of looney tunes behavior by faculty.

(4) General good will within the College -- plenty of frustration with how the College is treated by high-ups directing the larger goals of the University . . . although for the most part we continue to carry on as we have in the past.

(5) Very little, but we have some new administrators who are clearly interested in strengthening this aspect of our college.  I was one of just a handful of faculty who was awarded a *very* modest grant recently to develop an innovative course, after which that particular grant sort of "went away."  I hope it's revived.

Interesting questions -- I'll be interested to see what others have to say.

[sinenomine]

1. We're a small college, so yes, that does affect some of the curriculum, in that we have quite a number of courses focused on our specific population.

2. There are a number of players making decisions -- core curriculum committees, chairs, departments, and faculty as a whole, who have to vote on any new courses.

3. We get plenty of autonomy, and are encouraged to teach to our strengths (as long as outcomes are met).

4. The annoyance level over decision-making varies, depending on the individual's level of disappointment and people's (dis)liking of meetings.  The main gripe is how long it takes to get each semester's schedule set.

5. Each department, and the college as a whole, sets aside money for curriculum development activities, including support for faculty who are developing new courses.

[brixton]

1.  No
2.  Departments make the proposal.  An educational policy or academic policy committee makes the final decision.  They're mostly interested in budgetary matters.  Is this a play by a department to get another line?
3.  Complete autonomy.  No one has ever even asked for a syllabus at two of the three colleges that I've worked at.  (The first was graduate school.)
4.  No not really.  It's important if faculty want governance, and finally if you're not interested and have tenure, don't show up.
5.  College offers summer money for curricular development.  It's not a lot, and appropriately usually goes to Junior faculty.

[glowdart]

1.Is your curriculum affected by by your local community (locale, demography, etc.)?
A bit.

2. Who makes curriculum decisions at your institution (committee, administrators, edict from the chair, etc.) and what role do you play in that process?
Within-the-course level - individual faculty or department
Adding a new course - department & school & institutional committee
Major curricular revisions - department & school & institution faculty, with Deans weighing in, too

3. How much autonomy would you say you have in the classroom (Dead Poet Society? Tape recorder? Somewhere in the middle? etc.)?
Complete, so long as my students leave my classes with the knowledge they need in other classes and so long as I'm meeting the course description in the catalog.

4. How do curriculum decisions affect the "climate" of your institution? (i.e. do you get ticked off at a lack of input or ticked off because you have to attend so many meetings? etc.)
No - we do this well. 

5. Lastly, do you have time, funds, meetings, workshops, etc. set aside for curriculum development?
Hahahahahaha.  Ahem.  Sorry.  No.

[punchnpie]

What is support for curriculum development? A bunch of us came in at the same time and we've all had to develop new courses. I guess we thought it was just part of the job because no one gets money for doing this. If there is a way to get money - do you guys mean a course buyout? - I want to know about it! 

[glowdart]

What is support for curriculum development? A bunch of us came in at the same time and we've all had to develop new courses. I guess we thought it was just part of the job because no one gets money for doing this. If there is a way to get money - do you guys mean a course buyout? - I want to know about it! 

Some people get course buyouts, grants for personal teaching materials, grants to work on the new courses over the summer or during the year, grants to order materials for campus, student assistants to do research, technology people to set up online materials, etc.

[tuxedo_cat]

What is support for curriculum development? A bunch of us came in at the same time and we've all had to develop new courses. I guess we thought it was just part of the job because no one gets money for doing this. If there is a way to get money - do you guys mean a course buyout? - I want to know about it! 

I've worked at a few different institutions, and generally course development is, as you say, just part of the job.  My current institution is the one place where the Provost's office offered some development money for curriculum development, but it was a very competitive process, not a ton of money, and you really had to demonstrate that you were doing something innovative with technology. 

[totoro]

There is a difference between individual courses and degree programs. The curriculum for degree programs seems to be decided by the group of faculty teaching in the program, though new programs have to get approval from a faculty level committee (our university has 7 faculties) committee (we are not in the US and so state approval is not needed). For individual courses the content is set by the instructor and again approval is needed from the faculty level committee. We mainly serve foreign students so input from local community is not relevant But we also serve government departments and their input is canvassed. We don't teach undergrads in my department. This is a graduate school at a research university. There is no extra support for this though we have a lot of support staff to handle all kinds of teaching related stuff (academic skills, program administration, marketing etc.). All lectures are recorded for the students' use and there is student evaluation. But this has no effect on autonomy. I don't think these decisions affect morale or climate or anything.

[systeme_d_]

1.Is your curriculum affected by by your local community (locale, demography, etc.)?
Only insofar as that professors who create and propose classes often like to include local issues / history in the readings and discussions.

2. Who makes curriculum decisions at your institution (committee, administrators, edict from the chair, etc.) and what role do you play in that process?
Professors propose classes, department chairs and/or department-level curriculum committees okay them, then they go to either the college-level curriculum committee, or make a stop at Liberal Ed for content approval first, if the class counts toward any kind of college-wide requirement.  If the college-level curriculum committee sees no reason to object to the class, it publicizes the proposed new class to all college faculty via email, and then any professor from any department can object to it.  The curriculum committee then rules on whether the objection is sufficient to refrain from approving the class.  If there are no objections, the class is approved.

3. How much autonomy would you say you have in the classroom (Dead Poet Society? Tape recorder? Somewhere in the middle? etc.)?
I have great autonomy.  I create my own syllabi, choose my own texts, design my own assignments and rubrics, etc.  I am accountable in that my teaching is observed and critiqued annually.

4. How do curriculum decisions affect the "climate" of your institution? (i.e. do you get ticked off at a lack of input or ticked off because you have to attend so many meetings? etc.)
I don't have to attend any meetings.  I approve of the way the system works.  There's plenty of room for creativity, and enough checks and balances for accountability.

5. Lastly, do you have time, funds, meetings, workshops, etc. set aside for curriculum development?
There are funds available if the project is a huge one (a department's entire curriculum needs an overhaul, for instance). There are also tons of workshops one can volunteer to attend, and one can get a little bit of money for doing so (usually an extra few hundred for travel funds or for pedagogical needs).