Kingsborough English
Resources for Faculty at Kingsborough's Department of English
Kingsborough English
Resources for Faculty at Kingsborough's Department of English

The Curriculum Committee

COURSE MATERIALS

Official course materials for KCC’s English Department

ABOUT THE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE

This committee was approved on 10/17/23.

Purpose & Duties | Curricular work is an essential function of any academic department, and course- and program-level decisions should be made in a transparent and collective way. Our department has much curricular work to do in order to update our current offerings, propose new offerings, and design new programs of study (Liberal Arts concentrations and, perhaps, a major with different specializations). While no CUNY or KCC governance document requires departments to have a curriculum committee, such a committee is a valuable asset and could play several important roles:

  • Initiating, guiding, supporting, and reviewing curricular work within the department
  • Providing a structured, transparent process for how curricular decisions are made in the department
  • Enhancing shared governance processes around curriculum by communicating regularly with and being accountable to the department
  • Assisting the department chair in making decisions regarding courses and programs proposed by members of the department
  • Providing learning opportunities and leadership training for faculty members regarding curricular processes and considerations
  • Assisting the department chairperson in overseeing the proper and timely completion of all forms and documentation required to propose curricular changes to the college curriculum committee: transmittal forms, new course proposal forms, new program proposal forms, etc.

Composition | Four full-time faculty members elected from the department who hold the titles of lecturer, doctoral lecturer, assistant professor, associate professor, or professor. The department chair is a voting member of the curriculum committee. Ideally, the four faculty members elected to the committee would specialize in different areas of English studies – Literary Studies, Writing Studies, Creative Writing, ESL, etc – in order to bring broad and inclusive representation and perspective to the important curricular work ahead. While I do not think we need to control who runs for this committee in order to ensure this representation, it’s something I hope we would all keep in mind as we elect our curricular representatives.

Term Limits | Faculty elected to the department curriculum committee would serve a maximum of two sequential staggered two-year terms (initially in fall 2023, two members would be elected to three-year terms to start this cyclical process). Faculty are eligible to serve on the curriculum committee again after a two-year break in service. This will allow expertise in curricular matters to accumulate within the committee while also allowing for regular opportunities for turnover in committee membership.

Each academic year, the committee will elect its own chairperson (cannot be the department chairperson) via ballot during the committee’s first meeting of the fall term (in late October or early November). The curriculum committee chairperson will receive 1 credit of released time per term (2 per academic year) to manage the committee’s work, schedule and maintain regular meetings, and ensure the healthy and timely functioning of the committee. The committee chairperson will, at minimum, keep careful and appropriate minutes of each meeting of the committee. These minutes will be stored on the English department’s site on the CUNY commons.

Procedures | In order to help organize and lead this work, the department curriculum committee should expect to meet roughly three times per semester. Sometimes the committee will meet on its own without other faculty members present. Other times the committee will meet with other faculty members or department committees – i.e., the Literature committee, or Creative Writing committee – to work on certain areas or initiatives. The curriculum committee should expect to liaise with all facets of the English department that are considering curricular changes or additions.

Once submissions to the committee are complete and ready for formal review, the committee will vote on each proposal individually and will record its votes in the minutes of each meeting. Only submissions receiving 80% support from the committee (4 out of 5 votes) will proceed to the college curriculum committee. If the proposal involves any composition courses that are part of our core curriculum offerings, then the proposal will be reviewed by the department curriculum committee for completeness but will be voted on by the entire department at a department faculty meeting. For those proposals to pass, there must be a majority quorum present in order to vote, and the proposal must receive 65% approval from those present. These approval processes are not intended to limit access to the college curriculum committee; instead, they are intended to ensure that the department has adequately vetted and prepared its curricular submissions and they are ready for prime time, so to speak. While the committee should make regular reports to the department as a whole – during department meetings – and can request feedback and guidance from the department on curricular priorities and pathways, curricular changes other than changes to the required core (new courses, revisions of courses, new programs, revisions to programs) will be voted on by the curriculum committee and not by the entire department.