On this website, HSS faculty and Department Chairs will find helpful documents related to the work of the School Curriculum Committee. We meet the second Wednesday of each month and so all required paperwork must be submitted by the first Wednesday of the month (one week prior to the committee’s meeting). General curricular changes are covered by the Curricular Change Policy.
Submitting new courses or course modifications
All paperwork needs to be uploaded into the the HSS Curriculum Committee Google Form for new or modified courses:
HSS Curriculum Committee Course Submissions – 2024 Fall – 2025 Spring
After submission, the Assistant to the Dean, will confirm receipt.
To prepare your submission, please review the Course approval process in the TCNJ Policy Manual: Course Approval (if needed). You will need to prepare several documents in advance:
All submissions require:
- PDF of Records & Registration Course Approval/Change Form, with Faculty signature [If the form does not open in your browser window, please download the file and then open it]
- The HSS Curriculum Committee Cover Sheet
If you are submitting a new course or a modification that involves changes to the syllabus, you also need to submit:
- Course syllabus. Please note that syllabi must include numbered Middle States Learning Outcomes
*Note: If you are proposing a Special Topics course, here is an additional template to include as a Cover Document for the Special Topics Course
We also use specific numbers for independent study, research, thesis, and internships, and class-based internships. Please see below to select the appropriate number for your department as applicable:
Submitting changes to an existing program (major, minor, or certificate) or submitting a new program of study (major, minor, or certificate):
All paperwork needs to be uploaded into the the HSS Curriculum Committee Google Form for new or modified majors, minors or certificates:
After submission, the Assistant to the Dean, will confirm receipt.
To prepare your submission, please review the Major approval process (Degree Program Approval Process), the Minor approval process (Minors -Approval Process) , or the Certificate Program information (Undergraduate or Graduate) (as needed). You will need to prepare a narrative in advance that:
- -highlights the change with a comparison of current and proposed elements
- -discusses impacted parties (i.e., majors, minors, College Core) and how any negative impact will be managed
- -discusses the resource implications for the proposed change
You can upload additional supporting documents if needed.
Curriculum Committee Meeting
- The Curriculum Committee will review the documents and schedule our discussion for an upcoming monthly meeting. The Curriculum Committee will notify the applicant and arrange for the applicant to attend part of the meeting to answer any potential questions.
- At the meeting, the committee will communicate any modifications for the applicant to make.
- Within one week of receiving committee feedback, applicant emails to Curriculum Committee Chair all required documents (with revisions).
- Once approved by the committee, Dean Grimm will review, sign, and send to Records & Registration.
TCNJ School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Curriculum Committee Charge
August 30, 2011; revised January 13, 2015; revised November 17, 2017; revised June 29, 2022
The charge of the Curriculum Committee of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences is to review and approve proposals for new courses and programs to be offered in our School and, when necessary and appropriate, to return to departments proposals that are not ready for review or cannot be approved in their present form. The HSS Curriculum Committee also considers proposals to substantially revise existing courses and programs offered in our School. The HSS Curriculum Committee does not review College Core Designations; this is the purview of the Liberal Learning Program Council.
The Chair of the HSS Curriculum Committee and the Dean (or Dean’s representative) may approve insignificant revisions to existing courses and programs without full committee review. Faculty unsure of the nature of the proposed change to a course or program should consult with the Dean, Assistant Dean, and the Chair of the HSS Curriculum Committee to ascertain whether the revision is deemed sufficiently substantive to warrant committee review.
The HSS Curriculum Committee is asked to consider these proposals with recognition of the faculty expertise of the department that has submitted them for the Committee’s consideration. The Committee has one hour per month to review all proposals and will focus its attention on how the proposed course or program fits into the School’s curriculum and fulfills some aspect of the School’s mission, trusting the judgment of colleagues in the respective department to verify that the proposed course or program fits into the Department’s curriculum and fulfills the Department’s mission. The committee will also ensure that any submitted course syllabus adheres to current syllabus policies (e.g., documenting use of the fourth hour, including departmental and/or school-wide learning outcomes) and that the workload is commensurate with level and type of the course. After reviewing each course or program proposal, the Committee will render one of the following decisions:
- Approve (as is)
- Approve with recommendations (in which case the department is encouraged to consider these recommendations but is not required to implement them)
- Approve contingent on changes as indicated (changes must be made and documented before course can be entered into course inventory or before the Dean will submit the proposal to the College-wide Committee on Academic Programs)
- Not approved, with indication of the nature of the Committee’s concerns
- Returned as incomplete or lacking one or more departmental sponsorship(s); proposal cannot be considered until completed
The Committee meets on the second Wednesday of every month of the academic year, from September through April, from 1:30 to 3:00 pm. Additional meetings may be scheduled for early December and early May if deemed necessary by the Committee’s chair.
All electronic proposals must be received by the Dean’s Office at least one week prior to the meeting at which they will be discussed. Course and program proposals will be added to the agenda in the order in which they are received in the Dean’s Office; given the short length of the Committee’s meeting, it is possible that not every proposal submitted two weeks before the deadline will be on the agenda for that given meeting. The HSS Curriculum Committee will consider only those proposals that have been approved by the relevant sponsoring department(s); proposals lacking departmental sponsorship cannot be considered. Incomplete proposals, similarly, cannot be considered.
The committee consists of six faculty members, elected to staggered 3-year terms, with 3 from the Humanities (defined as English, History, Philosophy/Religion/Classical Studies, World Languages, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) and 3 from the Social Sciences (defined as African-American Studies, Criminology, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology), as well as two students, if appointed by the Student Government, one majoring in the Humanities and one majoring in the Social Sciences, for 1-year terms, and one staff member from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. All these members of the Curriculum Committee have voting rights. In addition, the Assistant Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences sits on the committee ex officio, without a vote.
In any given year if one of the elected faculty members is unable to serve for a semester or for the year due to sabbatical or leave of any kind, the Department that constitutes the academic home of the given faculty member is expected to send a substitute faculty member for the duration of the sabbatical or leave.
Elections for the Curriculum Committee are held annually in the Spring semester for a 3-year term that begins the following fall semester. Candidates are asked to self-nominate in response to the call for such nominations issued by the Dean’s Office. The Council of Chairs reviews all the nominations and assembles a ballot for election by the full-time members of the faculty in April.
The Chair of the Curriculum Committee is elected from among the faculty on the committee who have served on the Committee for at least one year, and preferably two years. Whenever possible the Chair will serve in that capacity for an entire academic year. The Chair is responsible to:
Work with the Dean’s Office to establish the agenda for each meeting
- Lead the review (discussion) of proposals
- Orient new committee members to the charge and activities of the committee
- Work with the Dean’s Office to maintain HSS Curriculum Committee Information (records)
- Consult with the Dean and Assistant Dean as necessary
- Communicate with those sponsoring proposals about the Committee’s decision
- Announce the approval of new courses to the HSS faculty listserv
- Create a summary of the committee’s activities (e.g., courses/programs approved, revisions pending) at the end of each semester, to be posted on the HSS website.
- Work with the Dean’s Office to set up the listserv of committee members and support the recruiting of new members of the Committee and a Committee Chair for the coming year.