Policies

At the start of Fall Quarter each year, the Associate Vice President of Instruction shall obtain a list of active courses from the Curriculum Office. Using this, they will work with the Office of Institutional Research to identify courses that have either not been offered or have been offered unsuccessfully (canceled prior to running) in three consecutive academic years. This list will be provided to the Curriculum Committee Co-Chairs and Vice Chair. The Chairs will then communicate with the relevant Curriculum Division Representatives, Department Chairs, and Deans to solicit one of two responses.

The Division Representative, working with the Department Chair and Dean, will have 45 days to submit to the Curriculum Committee either:

1. A letter justifying the retention of the course in the College catalog along with detailed plans to offer the course within the next three years, or
2. A course deletion request.

If no response is received within 45 days, the course will be put on the Curriculum Committee agenda for deletion.

The Curriculum Committee will consider either the justification letter or the deletion request for approval as part of its action calendar. As part of its deliberation, the Curriculum Committee will consider justification letters from previous cycles and programs impacted by the lack of availability of the course under consideration.  

- CC approved 12/5/23
- Academic Senate approved 1/29/24

Guideline for exceptions to the yearly June deadline. The deadline exception will be the first Wednesday of December for inclusion in the next catalog year. (These are not the same as extensions.) As an exception to the annual June deadline for new/revised course revisions, an initiator may submit a new/revised courses for curriculum review in the current fall quarter to be effective the following fall quarter.

June deadline exceptions include:

1. New software versions
2. Curriculum to meet newly acquired grant requirements
3. Curriculum to meet State requirements
4. Curriculum to meet outside accreditation
5. Curriculum to meet a newly emerging industrial need

Please notify the Curriculum Office via your division dean at curriculum@fhda.edu in order to apply for this exception.

Course outlines that are NOT revised after 5 years will be deleted from the college catalog. (Note: Divisions/departments may NOT offer a course if deleted from the catalog). Under extenuating circumstances, divisions/departments may request up to a one-year extension to the 5-year review cycle. In order to request an extension, a memo must be submitted to the curriculum committee from your division dean with the request and indicate the reason the request is being made. Upon approval of the request, the division will be granted an extension and will be expected to submit the revised course outline by the new given deadline date, or have the course deleted from the catalog.

Once a course is deleted from the catalog, it may NOT be offered during the following academic year. Every department/division has the opportunity to reinstate any deleted course by revising and updating the course outline and submitting it as a "new course" to the curriculum committee for review and inclusion in a subsequent catalog year. (Policy voted on and approved by Academic Senate, spring 2006).

Deadline extension:
If your course is due for 5-year revision, but you do not have time to revise it for a particular reason, then please seek a deadline extension. Request for an extension must come from the division dean and submitted to the Curriculum Committee. The extension request must be submitted on or before the 5-year revision deadline date, not after the deadline date has passed. The Curriculum Committee reviews request for extension on a case-by-case situation and will issue a new deadline date if the request is approved.

Non-honors/honors and credit/noncredit courses must have the same modality.

- CC approved 10/3/23