Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

New Degree Requirements

New degree requirements for the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences are to go into effect for students matriculating after Spring Quarter 2023. Other students will continue to follow the B.A. degree requirements that were in effect their quarter/year of matriculation.

For an overview you can see the new requirements:

• under post-spring 2023 degree requirements or,
• as approved by the faculty Spring 2019.

Review of courses

Existing courses need to be assessed relative to the newly defined foundational disciplines, overlays, or advanced expression requirements. Courses will be reviewed by the Curriculum Policies Committee or Curriculum Review Committee with respect to the descriptions and learning objectives. You can find this information summarized on the Learning Goals and Objectives handout, or refer to Approval Guidelines.

What to submit (preparing for submission)

Minimum required:

• Sample syllabus with learning objectives.
• Requirement category or categories the course should be reviewed for.
• For a course that is repeatable for credit, a learning objectives document that explains the course-level objectives that are stable across class offerings.

You can submit individual courses one at a time, or batches of courses up to 10 at a time to be reviewed together as long as they are to match the same degree requirement(s).

For guidance in developing or improving learning objectives see Weinberg College learning objectives information and also the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, Developing Learning Objectives. 

Optional additional documents:

• If a course is repeatable for credit you may want to submit more than one sample syllabus.
• If you are submitting a group of courses together, you may want to also submit a learning objectives document that describes the objectives the group has in common. 
• You may find it helpful to submit a narrative explanation document that explains the relationship between the course objectives and the requirement-area objectives.
• Other supplemental materials that you think will be helpful, for example a sample CAESAR description.

Reminder: Departments and programs have internal governance structures in regards to undergraduate curriculum; please be sure your internal deliberations are complete before uploading information to the form.

Submission of information

Submission is via the New Requirements Form. Form tips:

• You will have to use your NU password to access the form (unless your browser already recognizes you as logged in); the identifying information of the submitter will be automatically associated with the information submitted. 
• This is an adaptive form that will change what it displays after you make certain selections.
• On a drop-down menu if you do not see the course you are looking for, scroll down to "other or multiple."
• You will not be able to save partial work and return later.
• If you are resubmitting for the same course, resubmit all information and not just the new information.
• If you are submitting a group of up to 10 courses to be reviewed together, note you will be asked to create a name for that group.
• You will not be able to review content after it is submitted. If you need to check what was submitted please contact Claire Winkleblack (see Who to Contact sidebar).
• Be sure you click the "submit" button when you are done.

Visit the NEW REQUIREMENTS FORM

After submission

You can expect follow-up within a week if there is a failure in the document-upload process or if there seems to be a missing component such that the materials are not ready for review. Otherwise, note that courses will not necessarily be reviewed in the order received so please be patient. It will be more efficient for the curriculum committees to review courses with similar characteristics in batches and establishing a batch (especially at first) may take some time.

Approvals will be summarized quarterly under Curriculum Committee Actions and approvals will be updated more frequently on a website to be published starting Fall 2022. For proposals that are not approved or only partially approved you will receive an email follow-up so you can evaluate if you want to resubmit (for example after revising the course).

For this first, intense phase you will NOT need to submit a Changes to Existing Courses Form to the Office of the Registrar. The RO staff will be receiving information from the Assistant Dean for Curriculum and Assessment while they also set up the new programming required to record this new information. Those individuals responsible for Catalog update next cycle will want to check course information carefully in the draft 2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog when the time comes.