Approval of New Courses Meeting the General Education Requirements

New UW-Madison courses that meet one of the General Education requirements follow the same track that all new course proposals follow.  After courses are approved by the Divisional Executive Committee, they may be reviewed to determine if they are eligible to carry a General Education designation. The Secretary of the Faculty's Office posts information and a link to the online proposal system on their website.

Consideration of course eligibility for General Education designations occurs after all department, college, and divisional executive committee approvals are granted.  The criteria, process, and contact information for obtaining course approval for General Education are provided below.


Communication

The criteria for courses meeting the communications requirements are available at:

The Communication liaison, Professor David Zimmerman (dazimmerman@wisc.edu), is the first point of contact on the University General Education Committee regarding new courses proposed to carry Communication designations. For Comm-A, an ad hoc committee may be convened to study the proposal. The liaison is authorized to review and approve assignment of the Comm-B attribute, which may be added to existing courses or to courses at the time of creation. Comm-B is the only General Education Requirement for which "section-level" approvals are allowed.

Requests to review transfer courses to meet the Communication A requirement should be directed to Professor Morris Young (English Department, msyoung4@wisc.edu), who fields questions related to the Comm-A requirement; for reviews of courses to meet the Communication B requirement and requests for extraordinary exceptions to either requirement, contact David Zimmerman (dazimmerman@wisc.edu).


Ethnic Studies

The Ethnic Studies Requirement has been the subject of an extensive process of review and revision (ca 1999-2004). As a result, responsibility for evaluating courses and exceptions are - for the time being - vested in a subcommittee of the University General Education Committee. For information about the requirement and procedures for adding courses to the course array, please refer to the following documents:

Departments and members of the faculty may ask to have courses reviewed by the Ethnic Studies Subcommittee of the University General Education Committee. Assistant Dean Elaine M. Klein (emklein@ls.wisc.edu) coordinates questions referred to the committee. Students who wish to have a course that is not on the list reviewed should first approach the instructor and discuss whether or not adding the designation is appropriate, and if so, the professor should contact Assistant Dean Klein.


Quantititative Reasoning

The criteria for courses meeting the Quantitative Reasoning requirements are available at:

Professor Shirin Malekpour (Mathematics) serves as the Quantitative Reasoning liaison to the University General Education Committee. Proposals for Quantitative Reasoning courses should be submitted to Professor Shirin Malekpour (malekpou@math.wisc.edu); proposals to develop new QR-A courses may require consideration by an ad hoc subcommittee. Professor Mari-Beffa also evaluates requests to grant extraordinary exceptions for students.


General Breadth (Humanities/Literature/Arts, Social and Natural Sciences)

Each school and college can determine, for purposes of its own degree requirements, which courses satisfy various breadth areas. In general, breadth indicators align with the Divisional Executive Committee that is responsible for approving courses in each of the four curricular areas. The L&S Curriculum Committee assigns L&S breadth and level indicators used in the Course Guide descriptions; assignment of breadth indicators is conducted through the normal process for adding or changing courses, as outlined by the Office of the Secretary of the Faculty.


Non-UW-Madison Courses

From time to time, institutions of higher education outside UW-Madison wish to have their courses approved to meet UW-Madison requirements.  All discussions about transfer of courses should start with the Office of Admissions, by sending a message to transfer@admissions.wisc.edu.