In order to assist the provost’s office in making decisions about classroom curriculums, Ohio University’s Faculty Senate has a committee devoted to academic planning.
The University Curriculum Council, which meets separately from Faculty Senate, gives the provost’s office recommendations on curriculum policies.
Elizabeth Sayrs, Faculty Senate chair, said the council works alongside Faculty Senate on many matters because faculty deals directly with curriculum, but the council also works with colleges and departments.
“You see all the curriculum stuff from multiple perspectives, which is really helpful,” Sayrs said.
UCC meets monthly to discuss three parts of curriculum—individual course review, program review and new program development, said Howard Dewald, associate provost for faculty and academic planning.
The council can approve individual course reviews quickly during meetings. Following the quarter-to-semester transition, the council spent time fixing small curriculum changes, although most of the small problems have been worked out now, Dewald said.
Program reviews require additional action from OU’s Board of Trustees and the Ohio Board of Regents.
OU’s Board of Trustees reviewed two new programs, suggested by the UCC, for the Russ College of Engineering and Technology at their Thursday meeting.
Programs must be reviewed every seven years on a rotating basis, Dewald said, and he helps facilitate the external reviews required by the provost’s office.
“The provost’s office serves as that liaison in making sure the process is followed,” Dewald said.
Faculty Senate itself will also work directly with the council to hear the General Education Task Force’s results from its discussions on what needs to be changed in general education, Sayrs said.
Although it meets apart from Faculty Senate, UCC has many members that serve in the senate’s Educational Policy and Student Affairs committee, which considers student concerns, course catalog wording and curriculum.
At the last meeting, Faculty Senate passed a resolution dividing labor between UCC and the Educational Policy and Student Affairs committee, even though members were traditionally required to serve on both committees.
“The curriculum process is very detail oriented, very intense,” Dewald said. “It’d be very difficult to try to do it with the faculty as a whole and even Faculty Senate.”
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