Types of graduate courses offered in Forest Science and how to schedule them

Notes:

1. Instructors for all graduate courses MUST be members of the graduate faculty. This generally excludes graduate students as instructors. But graduate students can offer instruction under the guidance of a faculty member who is the official instructor of a course.

2. The courses that will be listed in the printed Schedule of Courses each year need to be approved and submitted to the scheduling office by EARLY FEBRUARY of the previous year! It is often possible to have courses added later, but this is the "official" deadline. Courses that are added later (but generally not less than 4 to 6 weeks before the beginning of each term) can be added to the web-based schedule of classes but they will not appear in the printed copy.

Blanket courses. Usually taught on a one-time only basis as "505a" or "699b" for any number of credits. The courses can have specific titles, which are listed both on the students' transcripts and in the Schedule of Courses. These courses do not need to be approved by the University's Curriculum Council. To offer a course like this in Forest Science, it first must be approved by the department head (Tom Adams) and the chair of the curriculum committee (Barbara Bond). Then, Cheryll Alex should be notified of the course. She'll need the following information: Title, number of credits, P/NP or grade, instructor's name and social security number, time/date/place.

505 - Reading and Conference (entry-level graduate course)

605 - Reading and Conference (advanced graduate course)

506 - Projects

507 - Seminar

599 - Selected Topics (entry-level graduate course)

699 - Selected Topics (advanced graduate course)

Experimental ("X") courses (for example, "629X"). These courses can be taught for a maximum of two years (or twice, if they're taught more than once in one year). The curriculum plans must be approved first by the department head and chair of the curriculum committee, and then by the head of the University's Curriculum Council (currently, this is Madge Patterson). There are forms that must be used (available on the web or as hard copies through Cheryll Alex) to submit the course for approval by Madge Patterson -- it is good to allow 6 to 8 weeks for this review, but in a clinch it can be done very quickly.

Permanent "regular" courses. Most of the courses offered on campus fall into this category. These courses require a "category II" proposal. As with X courses, forms for this are available on the web or as hard copies (see Cheryll Alex) Again, these courses must first be approved by the department head and the chair of the curriculum committee in the department. Then they must be sent to faculty and department heads across campus who either offer similar courses or who have students who might take the proposed course -- this is called "liaison review", and it can sometime be quite contentious and slow. It is best to allow a couple of months for the liaison review. Following liaison review, the category II proposal is sent to the University's Curriculum Council for their review and, hopefully, approval.