Curriculum Committee
Curricular Approval Process
The Charleston Southern Curricular Approval Process has two levels. Level One is designed to handle curricular maintenance issues. A report on these items will be made each meeting to the Curriculum Committee, who will review them. The second level is designed to handle major curricular changes and will be voted on by the Curriculum Committee, who will report all Level Two actions to the faculty for review prior to VPAA final approval.
Please note the following deadlines which apply to requests for Curriculum Committee Approval:
- Deadline for new spring classes: October meeting
- Deadline for new May/Summer classes: March meeting
- All significant Level Two programmatic changes for the following fall semester: February meeting
Please note that two copies of all curricular requests (signed by the required personnel, such as the chair, dean and registrar) must be submitted in advance per the deadlines published by email. Secondly, all Level Two actions must be submitted digitally (a minimum of one week in advance) as well.
Level One requires action by the following people:
- Faculty of an academic department (if submitted from a college) or an appropriate interdisciplinary unit (e.g., Honors)
- Dean of the respective school or college
- Curriculum Committee chair review
- VPAA
Curricular changes that are considered Level One include:
Course Changes (other than those affecting core requirements)
- Courses to be deleted from the catalog
- Course prerequisites
- Increase or decrease in the hours of a course
- Course title, level, number and/or designator
- From credit/no credit or pass/fail to letter grades or vice-versa
- New courses
- Major content revisions of existing courses
Program Changes
- Changes in the name of major, minor or special academic programs (emphasis, concentration)
- Requirements for an existing major which do not change the total number of credit hours in a major or do not substantially change the content of a major
- Requirements for an existing minor which do not change the total number of credit hours in a minor or do not substantially change the content of a minor
- Requirements for a special academic program which do not change the total number of credits in the special academic program or do not substantially change the content of the special academic program
Level Two requires action by the following people:
- Faculty of an academic department (if submitted from a college) or an appropriate interdisciplinary unit (e.g., Honors)
- Dean of the respective school or college
- Curriculum Committee
- Report to faculty and faculty review
- VPAA
Curricular changes that are considered Level Two include:
- Addition or deletion of a special academic program
- Modifications to a special academic program (e.g., concentration, emphasis, etc.) which change the total number of credit hours or which substantially change the content of a special academic program
- Addition or deletion of a minor
- Modifications to a minor which change the total number of credit hours or which substantially change the content of a minor
- Core Curriculum Requirements
- Degree Requirements
- Minimum requirements for a major or minor
- New Degrees
- Deletion of existing degrees
- Changes in majors
- New majors
- Deletion of existing majors
- Modifications to a major which change the total number of credit hours or which substantially change the content of a major
When the addition of a new course or new program (or revisions to previously existing ones) will have an impact on either Administrative Services (for example, a course will always be taught in a computer lab, or extensive amounts of computer resources will be required) or the Library (for example, a course might require the acquisition of an extensive series of texts and films, or a database), the Chair or Dean is required to notify the head of Administrative Services and the Director of the Library as part of the curricular process. This notification and the response to the department from Administrative Services and/or the Director of the Library should be submitted with the curriculum request to the Curriculum Committee.
