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This course enrollment policy is meant to bring predictability and transparency to how NESA decides which low-enrolling course we let run and which we have to cancel. The idea is that you the instructor will anticipate these procedures and propose courses to teach that would likely avoid triggering cancellation. You have two main hedges against that: developing two large-enrolling GE courses in advantageous GE categories that you teach yearly, and helping to recruit new NESA majors and minors, who populate our upper level courses.

If a course enrolls fewer than 18 students one week after undergraduate course registration ends1 the Chair’s Advisory Committee (DUS, DGS, Vice-Chair, Chair, plus the Advisor and APC) will evaluate the case and recommend one of the following:

1. Offer the course as a Hybrid (HY) or fully online (DL, synchronous or asynchronous) course during that semester’s Second Session.

2. Cancel the course and require the instructor to teach a different course in a future semester.

3. Allow this course to run in the coming semester if one or more of the following applies:

a. Four or more NESA majors or minors need this course to graduate on time, and no substitutes by special permission are possible. Generally, low enrolling courses needed for NESA students should be offered no more frequently than once every two years, to give them a good range of electives.

b. This is the first offering of a course that is new, with a new GE category, with a new mode of instruction (HY, DL), or in a new session (I.e. summer). The expectation is that future offerings will meet the minimum of 18 students (presumably after the course in its new form becomes known among students).

c. The instructor commits to reviewing the course for an advantageous GE category to increase enrollment in the future. A revised syllabus and supporting GE application must be submitted by the end of the semester that the low enrolling course is taught.

Again, the goal of these guidelines is to allow each faculty member to anticipate the process and to avoid proposing to teach courses that will likely end up being cancelled.

 

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