Home > Offices > Provost/Dean of the Faculty > Faculty Code > Table of Contents

74.		(a)		A department or program may initiate the formation of a major or minor by submitting a proposal to that effect to the Committee on Academic Priorities. The Committee shall consider the academic and curricular merits of the proposal and report its recommendation to the faculty. The faculty shall decide whether to approve the establishment of the major or minor.
(b)				If a department or program wishes to withdraw a major or minor, it will consult first with the Committee on Academic Priorities, which shall consider the academic and curricular implications of the proposal. The Committee will then bring the department/program's proposal to the faculty and also report its own recommendation. The faculty shall decide whether to approve the withdrawal of the major or minor.
(c)				Each department, or organized interdepartmental major, will specify the purposes that majoring in that department is intended to achieve. It may be that some departments will specify alternative purposes among which students may choose. The purposes will be stated in a document to be made available by the department to prospective majors. A copy of this document will be sent to the Committee on Academic Priorities.
(d)				The major program of each student will consist of a number of courses established in accordance with Article 72 (a). To assure that the student's program in the major achieves substantial depth and coherence, the department will set such other requirements as it considers appropriate. Such requirements might include, but are not limited to, one or more of the following: certain required courses, a required distribution of courses among the field in the department, a required sequence of courses, participation in a course or seminar designed to assist in the integration of the major, an independent piece of work or research project permitting pursuit in depth of some aspect of the subject, a departmental examination in the senior year. If any element of the requirements for the major will require time beyond that spent in ordinary courses, the department will so construct the major that this element will be met in special courses, seminars, or independent study, for any of which course credit will be given. If a departmental examination in the major is required, it shall be part of a special course, seminar, project, or semester of independent reading, for any of which course credit will be given. The total number of credits required for the major, including any established in accordance with this Article, shall not exceed 48.
(e)				Departments may, with the approval of the Committee on Academic Priorities use Distinction/Pass/Fail grades for special courses, seminars, or independent projects that are established to fulfill requirements for the major, including any of which a departmental examination is a part. Whether Distinction/Pass/Fail grades or regular grades are used, they shall count in determining a student's academic standing in the same manner as grades in any other course.
(f)				Before preparing its statement of purpose as prescribed above in section (a) and determining the requirements for the major as prescribed in section (c), the department will consult its majors, either as a group, or through the existing student liaison committee (see sections 50 (g) and 54 (g)). Later revisions of purposes or requirements will be preceded by similar consultation.
(g)				Each department shall report changes in its major requirements to the Committee on Academic Priorities. The Committee will report to departments any inconsistencies between their requirements and this legislation and will request that the inconsistencies be corrected.

75.		(a)		A minor program shall consist of 20 to 24 credits as specified by the departments or organized interdepartmental programs that choose to offer a minor.
(b)				In addition to minors in departments and programs offering majors, interdisciplinary minors may be proposed to the Committee on Academic Priorities by groups of faculty members who believe that the courses listed, drawn from several departments, constitute a coherent or usefully interrelated field of study. The faculty members may also propose new courses to serve as the basis for, or as an integrating course in, the interdisciplinary minor. The Committee on Academic Priorities shall publicize and invite participation in and comments on a proposed interdisciplinary minor; it shall aid in the merger or revision of proposals for similar minors; and it shall attempt to assure that the number of interdisciplinary minors is reasonable and well distributed. Interdisciplinary minors approved by the Committee and the faculty-at-large shall be listed in the Catalogue.
(c)				Students may also design their own interdepartmental minors following the procedures outlined in section 72 (e). Student-designed minors must differ substantially from existing minors. Next