Overview Form

College And Department

Proposal For a Change in a Program

Proposal For a Change in a Program

Type of Change:

• Prerequisites
From
To
• Number of Credits
From
To
• Required Courses
From
To
• Removal of Courses from Program
Course prefix and number
• Addition of Courses to Program
Course prefix and number
• Remove entire program from catalog
• Other
Explain

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Catalog Description:

Justification For Request

What research has led to this request?

Justification: There are seven required core courses for the CMSS Ph.D. program, including seminar. The small number of Ph.D. students are typically focused on specific subdisciplinary areas. The overall learning goal of the Ph.D. program (systems science) can be met by requiring the same core courses as the CMWS M.S. program. With the present Ph.D. core, there are often only one or two students needing the course at a time. Some students may not need such detailed information in all of the core areas and the “overview” style CMWS (601 and 602) courses can provide sufficient background. Finally, it is increasingly difficult to find the faculty resources to staff such low enrollment classes.

What impact will this request have on existing academic programs?

This will improve the experience for Ph.D. students in Marine Science by requiring participation in courses with larger enrollment of graduate students. This will also improve the ability of the department to offer a more consistent curriculum for the graduate programs. With a small number of Ph.D. students, it is increasingly difficult to offer lots of courses that only have enrollment of 1 or 2 students.

What financial costs are associated with this request?

none

If NO change in cost is anticipated, how is this possible?

The proposal is to combine the M.S. and Ph.D. program cores, thus requiring fewer classes to be offered.

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Any additional information