Multidisciplinary Curriculum Sandbox within the Innovation Academy

 

Purpose:

Provide a path for new multidisciplinary certificates and/or courses to be developed, vetted, and approved. The Associate Provost for Academic Innovation will help facilitate these new certificates and courses.

Criteria for Multidisciplinary Courses

The course must contain content from at least 2 departments. The course could be taught by a faculty member from any of the departments or be co-taught by faculty from multiple departments. These multidisciplinary courses will be given a new “UVU” prefix.

Criteria for Multidisciplinary Certificates

The certificate must include mandatory courses from at least two departments or include a multidisciplinary course with the UVU prefix.

Miscellaneous Information

Courses and Certificates within the sandbox will be built by faculty.

Approval processes are proposed that align closely with existing processes and require approvals from faculty, deans, advisors, UCC, AAC, Grad Council, and any other external groups depending on the course or certificate.

If during the vetting process, additional departments would like to contribute to the core curriculum of a certificate, an assessment will be made regarding the value of the certificate as proposed. If it is valuable to students and employers, the certificate can continue through the approval process and additional programs can work to be integrated into the certificate in the future. If the certificate does not have sufficient value to students and employers, approval will be denied, and additional departments could participate before resubmitting a revised certificate proposal.

The Innovation Academy will work with relevant employers to provide feedback regarding the value of proposed certificates and courses.

Resources for UVU prefix courses will be provided by the Innovation Academy. Departments will receive adjunct-based release pay for faculty teaching UVU prefix courses. Relevant department chairs will approve these agreements each semester.

Examples of multidisciplinary certificates include:

  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Certificate of Proficiency
  • Social Impact Certificate of Proficiency
  • Geospatial Intelligence Certificate of Proficiency

Example of multidisciplinary course (with new UVU prefix):

  • Social Impact Seminar

Photo of faculty members having a conversation

Proposed Approval Process
For Multidisciplinary/Interdisciplinary Certificates

PHASE 1 (steps 1-4) Department/Peer Collaboration

  • Define working group (step 2): the faculty developing and vetting curriculum – this must include faculty from more than one department.
  • *Define faculty group for peer review (replacing department Level Approval in step 3): Require majority approval of each department that provides corecourses for the certificate (mandatory courses, or select electives as defined by the working group). If the certificate has UVU prefix courses, then the working group will also be considered a voting block at this checkpoint.
  • *Department Advisors may include Directors of Advising if specific departments are not aligned closely with the certificate (as determined by the working group)

PHASE 2 (steps 5-8) Institutional Collaboration

  • Create a new approving and prioritizing group for programs within the Innovation Academy in step 5. Since the Innovation Academy does not have chairs, UCC will be responsible for approving certificates. Once certificates are approved, UCC will work with the AP for Academic Innovation to prioritize for the next step.
  • The remaining steps are unchanged EXCEPT:
    • The working group replaces “faculty”.
    • Step 8a will also require submission of an assessment plan.
    Proposed workflow of certificate approval process

Current Certificate Approval Process

Current workflow of certificate approval processCurrent workflow of certificate approval process

Proposed Approval Process
For Multidisciplinary/Interdisciplinary Courses

PHASE 1 (steps 1-7)

  • Define working group (step 2): the faculty developing and vetting curriculum – this must include faculty from more than one department.
  • Step 2 includes a generalized course syllabus with a core template to be used by all instructors who will teach the course.
  • *Define faculty group for peer review (replacing department Level Approval in step 3): Require majority approval of each department that provides core content for the UVU prefix course.
  • In lieu of department advisors, the directors of advising will be used for approval.
Proposed workflow of course approval process

Current Process for Course Approval (steps 1-7)

Current workflow of course approval process