Department and Program Policies

This section contains academic policy and procedures relating to departments and programs.

Graduation Requirements for Majors and Minors

Department and program chairs should submit proposals for new majors and minors as well as proposed changes in existing majors and minors using the Curricular Revision Form found on-line. The signature of the chair on the proposal forms signifies that the department or program has approved the proposals. These proposals are first submitted to the appropriate Area(s) for approval. If approved by the Area(s), the proposals are then submitted to the Committee on Curriculum which evaluates these proposals and submit them to the Council on Academic Policy with one of three notations: recommended, not recommended, or submitted without recommendation. Proposals that span more than one Area must be approved separately by each of the Areas involved in order for the proposal to move forward. The Council on Academic Policy places proposals on the agenda for the forthcoming Faculty meeting and circulate them to the Faculty to be voted up or down. In Faculty meetings these proposals are presented by the Chair of the Committee on Curriculum, who may call on others to present supporting arguments.

New Course Proposals

Department and program chairs should submit proposals for new courses in their departments (or programs) using the Curricular Revision Form found on-line. The signature of the chair on the proposal forms signifies that the department or program has approved the proposals. These proposals are first submitted to the appropriate Area(s) for approval. If approved by the Area(s), the proposals are then submitted to the Committee on Curriculum which evaluates these proposals and submits them to the Council on Academic Policy with one of three notations: recommended, not recommended, or submitted without recommendation. Proposals that span more than one Area must be approved separately by each of the Areas involved in order for the proposal to move forward. The Council on Academic Policy places proposals on the agenda for the forthcoming Faculty meeting and circulates them to the Faculty to be voted up or down. In Faculty meetings the curriculum committee chair presents these proposals and may call on others to present supporting arguments.

Exempt Courses

In certain cases new courses needed to be added to the schedule at a time when the Curriculum Committee cannot review the course and send it on to the Faculty for approval. These courses are called exempt courses. Examples include courses taught because of hires that occur late in the academic year and courses attached to off-campus programs that change late in the academic year or during the summer.

Exempt courses are approved on a one-time basis using the following procedure. Department or program chairs should complete a course proposal form and obtain approval, if possible, from the appropriate Area Chair(s) and the Curriculum Committee chair. (In this case, the signature of the chair may not represent the decision of the department or program.) The signed form should be sent to the Provost for final approval with copies going to the Registrar and the Associate Provost. Exempt courses do not appear in the Catalog and cannot have Collegiate Center codes attached to them.. Exempt courses must follow the regular acceptance procedure before being offered in subsequent years as regular courses. In the case that an exempt course is later approved as a regular course with Collegiate Center codes, then those codes are added to the student records for those students who completed the original exempt course.

Changes in Existing Courses

Proposed changes in course titles, prerequisites, or catalog descriptions of existing courses must be submitted by the appropriate department or program chair using the Curricular Revision Form to the Curriculum Committee Chair, the Associate Provost, and the Registrar. If these persons believe the change is relatively minor, meaning that it would not significantly alter the course as it was originally approved, then the change is considered approved and will be listed on the Curriculum Committee Chair’s final report. If any one of these persons believes the changes are more significant, the Curriculum Committee Chair will take the proposal to the committee and follow the regular process. The same process should be followed to remove from the Catalog courses no longer being offered on a regular basis. Changes in course numbers must be submitted to the Registrar for approval.

General Education Codes

The Committee on Curriculum is responsible for assigning general education codes to proposed courses and for making changes to codes for existing courses with one exception: The Writing Across the Curriculum Committee is responsible for W2 codes. Exempt courses as described in an earlier section cannot have any Collegiate Center codes assigned to them.

Other than the exception, proposed codes and changes in codes must be submitted by the appropriate department or program chair for evaluation using the Curricular Revision Form found on-line. The signature of the chair on the proposal forms signifies that the department or program has approved the proposals. These proposals are evaluated in the same way as described in the earlier section on graduation requirements for majors and minors. No course may receive more than two Learning Domain codes.

Odyssey Codes for Courses and Modules

New Courses with Odyssey Codes. The course proposal with code requests is submitted to the Curriculum Committee. The signature of the chair on the proposal forms signifies that the department or program has approved the proposals. The Curriculum Committee forwards the code requests to the Engaged Learning Committee. The Engaged Learning Committee sends codes recommendations back to the Curriculum Committee. The Curriculum Committee forwards course and codes recommendations to Academic Policy for discussion and vote by the Faculty. Exempt courses cannot have any Collegiate Center codes assigned to them.

Odyssey Codes for Existing Courses. Code requests are submitted to the Engaged Learning Committee. The Engaged Learning Committee then sends codes recommendations to the Curriculum Committee. The Curriculum committee forwards codes recommendations to Academic Policy for discussion and vote by the Faculty. Exempt courses cannot have any Collegiate Center codes assigned to them.

One-Time Odyssey Credit Proposals based on Courses or Modules within Courses. Proposals are submitted to the Engaged Learning Committee. The Engaged Learning Committee notifies the Curriculum Committee of Odyssey credit decisions. The Engaged Learning Committee notifies persons submitting proposals of Odyssey credit decision.

The schedule of classes and the general division of the day were designed along principles of transparency, fairness, and respect. Faculty could view the schedule of classes as the clearest guideline for class meetings. The following policies are offered with a view to promoting fairness, safeguarding students, and encouraging respect among classroom teachers.

The expectation is that Faculty should plan to be on campus for some scheduled activities such as classes, labs, or office hours a minimum of four days a week unless permission to do so otherwise is received in advance from the Committee on Faculty. The expectation for adjunct teaching staff is that an appropriate schedule of availability be approved by the Department or Program Chair.

In constructing a schedule, it is important that class offerings are distributed across the daily schedule, thus minimizing the number of class conflicts students must contend with in building their class schedules, maximizing the opportunity for faculty/student contact outside the classroom, and increasing the likelihood that the most desired classroom is available.

The Registrar provides typical room allocations and times. Conflicts over rooms are adjudicated by the appropriate Area Chair. Chairs should keep the following guidelines in mind as they construct departmental schedules:

• Lecture classes should be scheduled during the twelve available MWF(A) and TTh(B) periods. Exceptions require the approval of Academic Policy. The faculty has approved the following courses for use of the four-day (C) lecture periods: first-year foreign language courses, MATH 130-14-, CSCI 150-151, and MUSI 201-202. Seminar (S) periods are reserved for seminars that function as components of the department’s Capstone Experience.
• Each department should assign 2/3 of its lecture offerings on MWF and 1/3 of its lecture offerings on TTh. (Ideally, individual faculty follow this guideline.)
• Each department should offer 1/3 of its lecture offerings during the five non-prime periods MWF/8:10-9:00; MWF/2:10-3:00; MWF/3:10-4:00; TTh/8:15-9:30; TTh/2:45-4:00. (Ideally, individual faculty follow this guideline.)
• The Engaged Citizen course will be scheduled for MWF during the A2 and A5 periods. Therefore, half of the lecture classrooms during these periods will be unavailable for departmental course offerings.
  

The following notes may aid in interpreting the above guidelines.

• Note that the phrase “lecture offerings” used above refers only to A and C periods for MWF and B periods for TTh. Lab, studio, and seminar periods are not included in this phrase but can be used to offset what would otherwise be an imbalance.
• Academic Support has often given the following rule of thumb to students: every hour spent in a typical lecture meeting of a Hendrix class corresponds to up to three hours of work outside the class. Classroom teachers should be mindful of this rough guideline in designing activities such as homework assignments and take-home tests.
• Section D of the Faculty Handbook contains the following language (under Examinations and Grading): “…requests by classroom teachers to change the time of final examinations must be approved by the Council on Academic Policy.”
• Remember that music ensembles, theatre rehearsals, athletic practices and physical activity classes are usually scheduled beginning at 4:00 p.m., after the final academic class period of the day.

The following notes describe the process for resolving room conflicts that occur during the schedule building process:

• When the course schedule has been entered the Registrar runs a room schedule report to identify any courses that have a room conflict so they can be corrected before the schedule is final.
• The Area Administrative Assistants, Department Chairs, and Classroom Teachers are notified that there is a room conflict.
• The two departments usually work out a resolution and notify the Registrar of the new rooms.
• If they are unable to find a resolution, then the Area Chair is notified and makes a decision on a room change or possibly even a time change. The Area Chair then notifies the Registrar's office of the changes that should be made to the schedule.
• The Engaged Citizen sections have room priority and are set up in the system before any other classes.
• Explorations are assigned openings like all the other lecture sections.
  

Each academic department, academic program, and special program of the College has developed a plan for the academic assessment of students. Quasi-departmental agencies responsible for Collegiate Center and Learning Domain requirements and the library also participate. The assessment of student academic achievement by departments is an integral part of a larger system of departmental and program evaluations. Student assessment is an annual activity in each department [oriented toward gathering outcomes data to be used with other information in the department’s self-evaluation that is to occur once in every seven-year cycle]. Each plan is available online in Faculty Resources. Each is structured in accord with the principles stated below.

Assessment instruments

Every academic department assesses the academic achievements of students through some combination of the following means:

• graded course examinations;
• required papers or research projects;
• juried recitals or performances;
• Odyssey projects;
• Senior Seminars;
• presentation of papers or projects at state, regional, or national meetings;
• Capstone Experiences;
• laboratory and fieldwork experiences;
• internships;
• student feedback.

The use and weighting of each of these elements vary from department to department according to the nature of the disciplines. However, the Committee on Faculty monitors every department plan for consistency with campus-wide practices and for the assurance of multiple measures of student performance. Solitary reliance upon graded course examinations or projects and upon internally generated comprehensive examinations is not acceptable. External review of examinations, assignments, syllabi, and overall curricular structure and offerings by consultants from similar institutions are typical components of departmental assessment plans. Every department also has available to it the GRE scores of its majors and the record, as compiled by the Office of Career Development, of its majors in securing placement in graduate school and employment.

The Vision for Student Learning

The assessment of student academic achievement reflects and is governed by this statement, and it is cited here as the basis for the assessment of the College’s success in educating students. To the degree that the graduate has realized this statement, the College has attained success. Measurements of the degree of such success are used, through systematic procedures and policies stated below, in the continual improvement of the College’s programs.

Report on Self-Evaluation

Each department and program conducts a self-evaluation approximately once every seven years. The Provost, in consultation with the Committee on Faculty, sets the schedule for self-evaluation and initiate the process annually with the selected departments and programs. The report has three parts: an initial self-evaluation narrative, a consultant’s report and response, and a departmental final response. The final full report comprising all three parts is given to the Committee on Faculty and is kept on file in the Office of Academic Affairs.

Narrative

The initial self-evaluation narrative should describe the following:

• The character of the discipline and the place of its content and methodology in liberal arts study;
  
• The character of the department and its approach to the presentation of the discipline at Hendrix;
  
• The learning goals of the department for the general student and the major;
  
• Offerings and the typical path or paths of study for the general student and the major, and the connection between departmental aims and offerings;
• Typical teaching and learning activities in and out of the classroom, and the connection between learning goals and these activities;
• The connection between the program, and the mission of the College with respect to liberal learning;
• A commentary on the role of the department in implementing the Vision for Student Learning;
• The outcomes of the program, together with supporting documentation specifying the methods used to reach conclusions about these outcomes;
• A description of and commentary on the human, budgetary, and other resources available to the department;
• The results of the department's self-evaluation and the plans for addressing problems or needs that have been identified.

A subsequent self-evaluation narrative should describe the following:

• Updated information from the previous self-evaluation narrative highlighting any changes in the goals, character, approach, staffing, funding, and offerings of the department or program.
• Discussion of the resolution or continuance of any issues raised in the previous evaluation.
• Evaluation of and recommended revisions to the student learning assessment plan including plans for integrating assessment into the planning process.

Consultant’s Report

The report of the department’s external consultant should contain an evaluation of the material included in the self-evaluation narrative and a verification of the narrative in light of the site visit, together with recommendations and suggestions for improvement. The report should also contain a specific evaluation of the student learning assessment plan.

Departmental Response

The response by the department to the consultant’s report should address the consultant’s recommendations and suggestions. The department should state the results of the department’s self-evaluation and the plans for addressing problems or needs that have been identified. This should include an articulation of the goals for program enhancements and strategies to achieve them over the next seven years. The response should also contain a copy of the final version of the student learning assessment plan.