Setting curriculum  is a joint responsibility of Curriculum Committees on campus with the Department Chair and instructors.  The process begins in early fall for the following year; the time-table is finalized and printed by late Feb/early March.  Do not expect changes to be acceptable after that date.  Continuing students begin enrolling for the fall in April; new freshmen in the summer.  Changing courses after enrollment has proceeded in to be avoided if at all possible.  

Normally full-time faculty have considerable influence not only on the curriculum but also on days/times of offering, and even the preferred classroom (all before finalizing the timetable).  As IAS, you can make suggestions to the Dept chair and to the campus curriculum committee (with prior approval by the  chair), especially if the position seems likely to continue.   Departments must approve the curriculum offering on each campus. 

If you wish to engage in Interdisciplinary Studies (IS) courses with other faculty,  tell us, participate, but let the collaborators  do the work involved—they know the procedures, and there is a lot of paperwork to gain permission in the UWC system.   

In a team-taught IS course tenured faculty get to “bank” credits for their participation and then receive released time in another semester.  IAS can’t “bank” credits because theirs is a semester-to-semester, or year-to-year contract.  That means the IAS may have to negotiate with the Dean for extra pay.  That is customary.  Good luck.  A lot depends on the campus budget. 

IS courses can be "learning communities" --students sign up for two separate courses, and attend an additional one-credit linking seminar.  This is easiest to do, because both courses are part-of-load, and only the one-credit section needs dual participation (and pay).  Not all students in the class are in the IS portion. 

IS courses can be situated in one department with guest lecturers providing at least 20% of the content.  No extra money or banked credits go to the guests. 

Political scientists are often invited to participate in IS courses with almost every discipline on campus.  If you have special interests (sports, for example), make contact with the instructors in that discipline and see if they are interested in developing an IS course. 

What if you want to develop a new course? 

 In our elaborate system, the new course proposal must have support of the department and the campus Curriculum committee, and,  most of the time, a  UWC Senate Curriculum Committee.  Forms needed are found on the MS Outlook e-mail site:  at the bottom is a Public Folder, click on that and then on “All Public Folders” then go to Curriculum Committee and find the appropriate sub-heading.  You'll be emailing and faxing scads of materials.

 It takes a lot of time to develop a course—the proposal need not contain a finished syllabus, but it must have substantial content as well as a bibliography and information on transferability to the four year campuses.   Check with your department chair and local curriculum committee before you start work. 

 If a course can't transfer, then that might hurt rather than help our students.  We exist as a transfer institution.