New Culture and Difference Proposals

Proposal Process

A faculty subcommittee of the COCS reviews proposals for new courses to carry the Culture and Difference (CD) designation for general education, along with requests to add the CD designation to existing courses. These requests are submitted through the regular new course approval (CAP) or course update (CUP) process. Submissions should include: 

• A course syllabus 
• A departmental memo explaining the rationale for the designation.

Requirements for CD Designation

The COCS typically requires that at least 50% of a course’s content resonate with the proposed general education designation. Within this general framework, courses that carry the CD designation do at least some of the following things:

• Acknowledge distinctive cultural traditions, creations, or practices in a comparative manner that seeks to illuminate larger dynamics of human meaning and experience. This might involve explicit comparison (for instance, between different social, political, religious, or ethnic groups), or implicit comparison (as in courses that focus primarily on groups whose experiences have largely been excluded from dominant cultural narratives).
• Explore how various forms of social difference (especially involving categories of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, and class) are constructed and contested through literature, art, and language, and through social, economic, and political institutions and practices.
• Reference the role of power in society, particularly by focusing on differences that are salient to understanding persistent sources of conflict, inequality, oppression, or violence.
• Pay significant attention to the experiences of historically marginalized or oppressed social groups, and incorporate contributions from authors and texts whose background or identification is with such groups.

New Science and Engineering (SEN/SEL) General Education Proposals

The Council on Science and Technology (CST) grants the SEN (science and engineering non-laboratory) and the SEL (science and engineering with laboratory) general education designation. To request SEN or SEL, or a dual general education designation (with SEN or SEL) please visit CST’s website. 

New One-Time-Only (OTO) and New Term Topic Course Proposals

Proposals for new courses, new term topics, and updates to existing courses are submitted through the CAP (course approval process) or CUP (course update process) tool in PeopleSoft’s Curriculum Workcenter. Course submissions deadlines are set by the Registrar’s Office. Step-by-by step instructions for CAP/CUP processes are found on the Registrar’s curriculum documentation page.