The Course of Study Committee (CSC), a standing committee of the Yale College Dean's Office, meets throughout the academic year and twice during the summer (as needed) to review new Yale College course proposals and changes to existing Yale College course proposals. The Committee is composed of faculty members from an array of disciplines, students, and Yale College Dean's Office administrators. Committee members rely on the review of the DUS to ensure that the new course proposals fit within their curriculum and are in line with their existing inventory in course rigor and appropriateness.

Course of Study Meeting Schedule

A meeting schedule is sent out at the beginning of each term by the University Registrar's Office. That schedule includes the meeting dates as well as associated dates indicating when course proposals need to be submitted to be included for review. The submission dates are almost always on the Friday (by 5:00 p.m.) before the CSC meeting.

How to Determine where your Course is in the Review Workflow

It is a good idea to keep track of new course proposals. Sometimes proposals sit in the DUS queue and you might need to remind the DUS to approve or return them to the instructor (for changes) in a timely fashion. If the DUS does wish the instructor to make changes to the course proposal, the DUS should rollback the course proposal and send an email to the instructor letting them know that changes are needed.

To see where your course is in the workflow process, see Course Proposal Workflow.

New Course Notifications from CSC

Shortly after the CSC meeting, the DUS, Instructor, and Academic Administrator receive an email message from the Secretary of CSC. This message indicates whether the course proposal has been approved, approved with suggested changes, or tabled with a request for more information. Based on the volume of new courses, this message could take 2-5 days to reach you.

Approved course proposals should be available for offering within two days after receipt of the approval message. Course proposals that are missing a course number, including cross-listed numbers, are held until the course proposal is complete.

For those course proposals with suggested changes, it is hoped that unless the instructor has questions or other ideas, the suggested changes will appear in an updated syllabus on Canvas (once Canvas opens). A new syllabus does not need to be resubmitted to the Committee.

If a course proposal is tabled because more information is requested by the Committee, it will be added to the next agenda assuming the extra information is provided in time. The new information can be sent to the CSC Secretary to update the course proposal.

Course Revision Requests

Some changes require review by the Course of Study Committee; specifically, a format change (ex. seminar to lecture), a credit value change, or the addition of a graduate number or distributional designation. The Committee also reviews non-standard meeting time requests, with an email request stating the pedagogical reason for the request, sent to courseleaf@yale.edu.

Title and course description changes do not require CSC approval but they do go through workflow.

For more information, see Revising Existing Course Proposals.