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Curriculum Committee Resources

Below you will find links to HCDE curriculum related resources.

Curriculum Committee Mission Statement

Purpose: The main purpose of the HCDE curriculum committee is to advise the faculty on significant curricular issues such that instructional quality, curricular innovation, and stakeholder fairness are achieved.

Example Activities: Significant curricular issues include (but are not limited to) scheduling of courses, staffing of instructor positions, classroom selection, vetting of proposed courses, and implementation and revision of policies for students in all HCDE programs.

Perspectives: Broadly speaking, the committee provides recommendations to the faculty after thoroughly discussing potential implications of any issue/proposed decisions from a curricular coherence perspective, a stakeholder perspective, and a historical perspective.

  • In order to address curricular coherence, the committee frequently turns to documentation on the purpose of each course in each of our programs (i.e., the learning objectives), the overall objectives of each program (e.g., our undergraduate core competencies, competencies associated with thematic areas for graduate students), and the mission of each program (e.g., the goal of our PhD program, the goal of the UCD certificate). As part of curricular coherence, we also consider the ramifications of decisions for the assessment and evaluation and also policy.
  • Because curricular decisions may affect one or more stakeholders in the department, the committee aims to consider each issue/decision from multiple stakeholder perspectives. To do this, the committee includes members representing the different stakeholder groups (see below). This membership permits us to consider issues/decisions from the student perspective, a faculty member perspective, a financial perspective, and a logistics perspective.
  • Because curricular decisions are rarely without historical precedent, the committee also aims to take into account the relevant historical precedent associated with any issue/decision. To address this, the committee has also had a representative with a distinctly historical perspective (someone this person also occupies one of the other roles, something this perspective is distinct).

Membership: The curriculum committee includes members representing the different stakeholder groups—Academic Services Manager, PhD director, departmental faculty undergraduate advisor, and the administrator.

Articulation with other departmental units: The curriculum committee operates in conjunction with other units/processes in the department. For example, some teaching-related decisions are made between a faculty member and the department chair, and the curriculum committee recognizes that it cannot override agreements made between chair and individuals. Also, the curriculum committee operates in conjunction with the course committees which are responsible for staffing specific courses.