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Adding 1, 2, or 4 SCH Courses to Registered Programs

Guidance: Adding 1, 2, or 4 SCH Courses to a Registered Program

1. Introduction

Academic units that wish to change or adapt a registered program are advised to follow the procedures described in the Changing or Adapting a Registered Program page of the Academic Program & Curriculum Management website. 

If the change includes adding 1 or 2 semester credit hour courses, please follow the process outlined below.

All RIT programs must follow the RIT Undergraduate and Graduate Degree Requirements Framework.  This framework includes expectations regarding 1 and 2 SCH courses.  These are the same guidelines that were issued by the Calendar Conversion Office on October 1, 2010.  

During the Calendar Conversion process, exceptions to the Requirements Framework were submitted by the interested academic units to the Calendar Conversion Cross-Disciplinary Committee for consideration.  The committee submitted its recommendation to the Calendar Conversion Office, which in turn submitted its recommendation to the Provost for final evaluation and approval.

Since the Cross-Disciplinary Committee is no longer in existence, this document provides guidance to those academic units that wish to modify a registered program by including 1 or 2 SCH courses to it registered curricula. 

Inclusion of 1 and 2 SCH courses to existing programs may be classified in three broad categories:

  1. Replacement.  Existing 3 credit or higher courses are replaced by a combination of 1 and 2 SCH courses. In this case the overall SCH in a program does not change.
  2. Addition. New 1 and/or 2 SCH courses are added to an existing program.  In this case the program’s overall SCH in a program does change.
  3. Consolidation.  1 SCH courses are consolidated as 2 SCH courses or vice versa. In this case the program’s overall SCH does not change.

These categories are not mutually exclusive and programs may use combinations of these strategies to maintain a program’s overall SCH count.

2. Considerations

When evaluating the inclusion of 1 or 2 SCH courses, academic units are expected to assess proposed program changes that may affect student degree completion as follows:

  1. Current and future student time to graduation
  • Could current students’ time to graduation be increased by the inclusion of 1 and/or 2 SCH courses?  If so, what strategies will the academic unit implement to assist students who may be affected by the change?
  • Could future studentstime to graduation be increased by the inclusion of 1 and 2 SCH courses? How? What strategies is the unit implementing to address this issue?
  1. Scheduling of courses by students
  • Could the addition of 1 and/or 2 SCH courses result in possible scheduling issues for current and future students? If so, what strategies would the unit implement to address them?
  • Could the addition of 1 and/or 2 SCH courses result in possible course overload for students who as a result may have an additional number of courses to take in one or more terms? If so, what strategies would the unit implement to address this matter?
  1. Scheduling of facilities
  • Could the addition of 1 and 2 SCH courses result in possible issues with the availability and scheduling of facilities (labs, classrooms, etc.)?
  • Has the Registrar’s Office been consulted about possible scheduling issues? What was the response?
  1. Financial aid eligibility
  • Could the addition of 1 and/or 2 SCH courses result in financial aid disqualification for some students? Programs should consider scenarios in which students may fall below the minimum required load to retain full-status and, consequently, lose financial aid eligibility.  Graduate and undergraduate full-time loads are 9 and 12 SCHs, respectively.
  • Consider, for example, an undergraduate student who is registered for four 3 SCH courses and one 2 SCH course, 14 SCHs total, in one term.  If the student drops one 3 SCH course he/she will lose full-time status and his/her financial aid.

3.  Process

Programs interested in the addition of 1 and/or 2 SCH courses as described here, must develop a document that address each of the considerations described above in Section 2.  The document should consist of the following:

  1. Rationale for the inclusion of 1 and/or 2 SCH courses.
  2. Summary of any 1 and 2 SCH exceptions, if any, granted to the program during the Calendar Conversion Process.  Please include a brief statement that explains the reason for the exceptions.  If no exceptions were granted for inclusion of 1 and/or 2 SCH courses during the Calendar Conversion, please state it so.
  3. Documented Response to each of the four considerations listed in Section 2.
  4. Evidence that the department and college curriculum review procedures have been followed.
  5. Preparation of a new Table 1a or 1b that reflects the proposed changes.  In preparing the new Table 1, please follow the procedures for adding or deleting courses described in the Changing or Adapting a Registered Program page of the Academic Program & Curriculum Management site.
  6. The document must include a letter from the dean supporting the changes.

Send the document, including the dean’s letter of support, in electronic form to the Office of the Provost for review and approval.

4.  4 Credit Hour Courses

  1. Addition of 4-credit hour courses requires Department Head concurrence and submission of rationale to the Office of the Provost for approval.
  2. There is a limit of 8, 4-credit hour courses for undergraduate programs

 

 

 

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