Letters and Science College Courses are designed to embody the mission of the College of Letters and Science: these courses foster and support the ideals of a liberal arts education at the highest level of excellence. They are taught by the most outstanding teachers on the faculty, for students who are eager to take an intellectual risk, to explore a new area of interest at a deeper level than is required or offered by the usual introductory course. With the cooperation of the Senate, department chairs and faculty, the Letters and Science Deans hope to create a body of courses that will transform the intellectual lives of the students who take them.

• a College Course that focuses on a given moment, or place, or discovery, and then moves outward from that focal point to present not only a full picture of the historical (social, geographical, scientific...) backdrop, but also a sense of the methodology of your discipline;
• a College Course that focuses a historical period through two or more disciplinary lenses;
• a College Course that contrasts competing intellectual traditions, or compares two different cultures;
• a College Course that maps existing and potential fields of knowledge, and explores the ways in which different disciplines produce and test discoveries.

College Courses will differ from courses you design for students majoring in your field in two ways. First, you can't assume an academic grounding in the discipline. College Courses don't have prerequisites, so you'll want to convey whatever background knowledge your students will need yourself. Second, the ideal College Course will entice and engage students who are primarily studying other disciplines, without compromising intellectual rigor. For this reason, we especially encourage courses that present the course material from an interdisciplinary perspective. This can be accomplished by truly collaborative team teaching. It can also be accomplished by top-flight instructors who can see beyond the immediate limits of their material.

Why Teach a College Course?

• Funding will be made available to the faculty for course development, technological assistance, and guest speakers, as needed.
• The student FTE credit will be allocated to your department- a benefit for smaller departments in particular.
• An additional incentive, of particular relevance to underutilized departments, is the publicity that the College Courses will attract: the approval process is highly selective and the Deans ensure that the courses are showcased.
• Departments of any size will welcome the support for their graduate students: the Deans will provide funding for GSIs for these courses. (The enrollment limits range from sixty to two hundred students.)

What's the Procedure for Creating a College Course?
If you have an idea for a College Course, please talk to your Chair (to make sure it can be included in your teaching schedule for the proposed semester), and then send a course proposal to your Divisional Dean. The proposal need not be more than two to three pages long. It should include a course description, an account of the goals and intended audience for the course, and a syllabus. If you have any questions about the College Course proposal process, you may direct them either to your Divisional Dean or to Alix Schwartz (642-8378, alix@uclink4), who is coordinating the program for the Deans.

Your Dean will bring the proposal to the attention of the Divisional Deans as a group, and the five of them will make the final decisions. The deadlines for proposals for 2003-04 are as follow:

• Proposals for fall 2003 will be accepted through December 13, 2002.
• Proposals for spring 2004 will be accepted through July 18, 2003.

The Deans are of course always happy to entertain proposals that come in before the due dates.