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Introduction: Roles and Responsibilities of the
Chair
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Faculty
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Curriculum
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Students
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Administration
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College Policies
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Disclaimer and Referral
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Appendices
Department Chairs'
Timeline
Forms - Quick links to forms
III. Curriculum
Proposals for new courses or changes in requirements
should be submitted to the COI by mid-February for
the following academic year. When unavoidable last
minute changes occur, these should be presented to
the COI no later than September for the spring
semester, and no later than March for the fall
semester. Chairs are encouraged to assign new
faculty to existing courses rather than to new ones
of their own design in their first year at Barnard,
particularly when they are here as short-term
visitors or leave replacements.
B. Teaching Assignments and Staffing the Curriculum
The Chair, in consultation with other members of the
department, makes teaching assignments, with
attention to balancing each faculty member's
teaching program so that large lecture courses and
smaller classes are equitably distributed. The
annual teaching program is normally five courses for
on-ladder faculty outside the sciences, four courses
in the sciences and mathematics. Off-ladder faculty
normally teach six courses or the equivalent.
In planning teaching
assignments, the Chair includes normal departmental
expectations for contributions to graduate teaching,
first-year seminars, and to interdisciplinary
programs like Women's
Studies, Comparative Literature, Africana Studies,
etc.
In order to
enhance the tenure prospects for tenure-eligible
Assistant Professors, Chairs are urged to limit the
number of new course preparations assigned each year
to a bare minimum. When
possible, they should be assigned well established
basic courses with existing syllabi, or courses
closely related to their prior research or
teaching. Whenever practicable, Assistant
Professors should be encouraged to repeat courses
they have already taught instead of creating new
courses. However, by the time of tenure, Assistant
Professors should have taught a sufficient variety
of courses as to level and structure to demonstrate
teaching effectiveness in different formats. The
Chair, in consultation with the Provost, should
insure the right balance of course assignments over
the pre-tenure period.
When the need for
Teaching Assistants or Graders is anticipated for
predictably large courses, the Chair should include
funding for these in the annual budget request and
remember to submit appointment forms to the Provost's
Office by September 10 for the fall semester and
January 10 for the spring semester. For more
information regarding hiring Teaching Assistants and
Graders see
Section V. Administration.
C. Course Listing
Online
Catalogue
Once every
semester, in October and February, the Chair is
requested to update the course listings online,
usually with the assistance of the department
assistant or administrator, for the following
semester. You can access the online system at:
https://www.college.columbia.edu/unify/. For
permission to access or training on the system
contact the Coordinator for Academic Affairs and
Publications, x42297. Each February, the Chair is
requested to provide updated departmental
information for the coming year. Some chairs,
especially those in Architecture, Dance, Theatre,
and Urban Studies, which also serve the Columbia
major, are also requested to submit catalogue copy
directly to Columbia College for the Columbia
College catalogue, and to
General Studies for the GS catalogue.
Other chairs exchange updated staffing and course
information with their counterpart Columbia
departments for inclusion in their respective
catalogues.
Providing updated
departmental information usually involves updating
the current catalogue copy by noting personnel
changes and anticipated leaves and approved changes
in requirements. Updating the course listings
involves adding approved new courses; publishing
courses that are not being offered currently, but
will be offered again; and un-publishing or deleting
courses which will not be offered in the foreseeable
future. Chairs should submit all new courses and
changes in requirements to the Barnard COI. When
new Columbia courses are added to the Barnard
catalogue, these also must be submitted to the
Barnard COI. Conversely, new Barnard staffed V3000
or W4000 courses must be submitted to the Columbia
College COI via the counterpart Columbia
department. New Barnard courses or changes in
requirements in majors which also serve as the
Columbia major, like Architecture, Dance, Theatre,
and Urban Studies, must be submitted directly to the
Columbia College COI.
The Online Catalogue can
be updated throughout the year, contact the
Coordinator for Academic Affairs, x42297, if there
are any changes needed.
Directory of
Classes
Columbia generates the
University-wide Directory of Classes. The online
catalogue links directly to the Directory of Classes
for all courses currently being offered. Chairs
receive from the Registrar printouts of listings
from previous semesters, and are asked to return the
printouts with corrections. The lists should
include all courses taught by Barnard faculty, both
graduate and undergraduate, as the Columbia
Registrar's Office relies
on the Barnard Registrar to supply complete and
accurate information about all Barnard-taught
courses. Once the list is returned, the Registrar
enters changes and corrections in the database and
transmits a file electronically to Columbia.
On the lists,
departments are also asked to supply information
about classroom needs: anticipated class size; the
need for audio/visual equipment; and whether
graduate courses should be scheduled for Barnard or
Columbia classrooms. The Registrar's
Office attempts to assign appropriate classrooms,
but is constrained by the limited number of
classrooms and by the preponderance of classes
offered at the same time. Departments are asked to
spread out their course offerings over the day and
week; some courses offered at popular time slots may
have to be scheduled at Columbia or Teachers
College, e.g, those offered on MWF at 10:00, 11:00,
and 1:10; and on TuTh at 10:35-11:50 and 1:10-2:25.
Listings for the
Directory of Classes must be returned when requested
so that classrooms can be assigned and entered in
the database and the file transmitted to Columbia.
All Directory of
Classes information is available on the Columbia web
site and is updated overnight each day. Current
courses listed in the Barnard online catalogue have
links to the Directory of Classes. (Contact: for
course listings, Registrar, x42011; for classroom
assignments, Academic Information Manager, x48846.)
Limited Enrollment Courses
During the advance program filing period each
semester, students sign up for Columbia
limited-enrollment courses online at the Barnard
Registrar's Office. They
sign up for Barnard-taught limited-enrollment
courses according to procedures specified by each
department. Some departments post sign-up sheets;
some require the submission of appropriate samples
of work; some require auditions. The Chair must
notify the Registrar's
Office, on the requested form, of such procedures so
that they can be publicized and so that fairness to
all students is insured. (Contact: Registrar,
x42011.)
Courses for First Year Students
Entering students plan their programs
over the summer by using the Guide to Your First Semester at Barnard College and by consulting the First-Year Class Dean. In
January, the Coordinator for Academic Affairs and
Publications asks Chairs to review and edit listings
of courses determined to be especially suitable for
first-year students; these courses will then be
included in the
Guide.
(This is done at the same time as catalogue copy
and the Directory of Classes updates). To
facilitate the summer placement process, she also
asks for an estimate of the number of spaces that
will be available for first-year students in each of
those specified courses. If a useful estimate will
not be possible until after upper-class students
have pre-registered in April, Chairs may submit
estimates by the end of May. Comprehensive,
accurate, and timely information will help prevent
bad placements and excessive "shopping," and should help departments attract prospective
majors. (Contact: First-Year Class Dean, x42024.)
Department Web Pages
The
Academic Technologies department supports the
development and publishing of faculty and department
webpages. Training and support are available on web
development tools including FrontPage 2003,
PhotoShop, and Acrobat. You can work with a team of
trained student "websters" from the AT department.
If you prefer to hire your own students, AT will
assist you in evaluating their qualifications. We
can also provide training and troubleshooting of
their work on your website. In either scenairo,
should the student who is working on your website be
unavailable, another trained student or full-time
staff person can step in to ensure that your
information is updated in a timely manner.
(Contact: Academic
Technologies Help Desk x47172)
D. Student
Course Evaluations
Course evaluation forms must be provided to all
enrolled students in all undergraduate courses
taught by Barnard faculty. The College-wide
scannable course evaluation forms created by the ATP
are preferred. Departments may develop their own
course evaluation forms, including online
evaluations, as long as the data meet the
expectations of the ATP stated in
Appendix E. Consult the Provost if planning to
use an alternate format. When the College-wide
forms are used, both the forms themselves and their
summary statistical data are returned to each
department. The procedure for using the forms is
described below:
1. Department
provides the Registrar (by e-mail or memo) a
list of courses for which the department will be
needing forms by mid-November for the fall term and
mid-April for the spring term.
2. The
Registrar will then put the correct number of forms
for each course in an envelope labeled with the
course name, number, ID call number, and complete
instructions. The
completed forms are to be returned in the same
envelope.
3. The
department administrator/assistant should pick up
the prepackaged course evaluation forms from the
Registrar’s Office, 107 Milbank.
4. After
collecting the envelopes with completed forms from
student volunteers, and checking that they all have
accurate course ID numbers, the department
administrator/assistant should deliver them in
person to the Institutional Research and Budget
Analyst, in 101 Milbank for scanning, along with any
unused blank forms. PLEASE
TURN IN ONLY THE "COLLEGE" SCANNABLE FORMS. FORMS WITHOUT COURSE ID AND CALL
NUMBERS BUBBLED IN WILL BE RETURNED.
5. The
Institutional Research Analyst will contact the
department administrator/assistant to pick up the
forms and analysis after they have been scanned.
The evaluations are then
made available for review by the faculty member and
the department chair. If the faculty member is a
tenured full professor, the forms may be turned over
to the faculty member to keep or discard. For all
other faculty, the forms should be maintained in the
department office until the next mandatory review or
promotion, so they can be used in that assessment.
Once the review or promotion has passed, the forms
should be turned over to the faculty member to keep
or discard. The department then starts accumulating
evaluations in preparation for the next mandatory
review or promotion.
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