Course Review

Each course in the Crossings curriculum can be reviewed and approved for only one student learning outcome area – Communication, Arts and Humanities, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, or Global Challenges.

FALL 2023 MEETING DATES FOR GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 

• Friday, August 25^th
• Friday, September 15^th
• Friday, October 20^th
• Friday, November 17^th
• December 8^th (date adjusted for winter holiday)

Curriculog item deadline for meetings above: 9:00 AM the Friday before the posted committee meeting date. Please make sure you approve your own proposal on the "Gen Ed Course Review" form as a final step before it will move forward in Curriculog! 

To be included in the 24-25 course catalog, all General Education course submissions should be submitted for review by the December 2023 committee meeting.

All program changes, degree maps, or coding/changing of undergraduate courses will be reviewed by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) in February 2023 for inclusion in the 24-25 course catalog.

Please note that this means that the earliest that a course will appear in the catalog under a new Crossings category is the 24-25 catalog. 

Course approvals and changes can continue to be reviewed on a rolling basis after December 2023, and courses will be moved to UCC the next year for the 25-26 catalog.

In addition to reviewing courses via the "Gen Ed Course Review" form to receive attribution in one of our general education/Crossings student learning outcome areas, the General Education Committee is also the curriculum committee for the interdisciplinary courses using the GLCH course code. To date, faculty have created three variable credit, variable title courses (GLCH 1990, 2990, or 3990) and we have three broad, interdisciplinary courses (GLCH 1550: Debunking Pseudoscience, GLCH 3510: Marginality and Health Outcomes, and GLCH 3520: The Health Impact of Abuse). 

Any faculty who wish to teach a course using these codes should read the course descriptions in the undergraduate catalog (or Curriculog if not yet published) and then contact the General Education Committee chair for next steps. The faculty proposer does not have to use Curriculog, but rather, will provide a syllabus,  signature assignment, and rationale to the General Education Committee for review. For some courses, this may be the most expedient and flexible way to teach a Global Challenges course. 

Prior to the fall 2022 catalog, a number of courses “double counted” for two general education areas.  This is problematic for two reasons: a.) SACSCOC standards require that students complete at least 30 hours of coursework in general education, and extensive use of double dipping cuts down on the depth and breadth of an undergraduate education, and b.) our institutional assessment data show that students in courses that are coded to meet more than one student learning outcome are not demonstrating appropriate achievement in those areas.

To remedy this, courses can have attribution for one general education student learning outcome area effective fall 2022. Courses that were approved for Global Challenges in the fall 2022 will not also fulfill another general education requirement. 

*Once reviewed, the General Education Committee will not request another full review of the courses in this block for a period of 6 years. However, faculty and departments can submit courses for review (for inclusion or removal) at any time.

We are devoting 6 credit hours of the Crossings curriculum to Global Challenges courses, thus moving beyond a general education curriculum heavily reliant on sets of foundational courses alone. Some of the Global Challenges courses are expected to also fulfill requirements for major or minor courses of study. A consensus among Clemson faculty engaged in advances in general education curricula is that integrating general education skills/competencies with a student’s major skills/competencies is the optimal way to enrich student development. In fact, the very model of ‘Crossings’ reinforces the enrichment.

Through guidance from our SACSCOC leaders, we do not anticipate any problem with overlaps between Global Challenges courses in the general education curriculum and courses in majors or minors, as long as the following are met:

• We have clear criteria for what a Global Challenges course entails. (See guidance document above.)
• We have ongoing teaching development participation from faculty that helps to ensure that courses are by design meeting the student learning outcomes. (Provided with OTEI, a Global Challenges Course Design Institute, and consultations with a Teaching Fellow)
• We have clear criteria for assessment of the Global Challenges student learning outcomes and seek improvements based upon assessment results. (See Assessment page.)
• Courses with a Global Challenges attribution are not restricted to students in certain majors. Appropriate pre-requisites are allowable, but major restrictions indicate that a course is not a general education course in spirit. 

Overlap between courses in the majors/minors and the courses in the Communication and Ways of Knowing Areas of Crossings is also allowed and advantageous to student development.