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UC Guidance on Non-Graded Academic Effort by Graduate Students

UC Academic Planning Council’s Joint Senate-Administration Workgroup Memo on Non-Graded Academic Effort

Senate Updates to the Policy on Syllabi for Courses

At its November 13, 2023 meeting, the Educational Policy Committee, in consultation with the Graduate Council, approved amendments to the Policy on Syllabi for Courses.  The amended policy will now require all graduate directed research and teaching apprenticeship courses (typically numbered 296, 297, 298, 299, and 500) to have a syllabus. The changes take effect in Fall 2024.

Resources for developing syllabi for directed research and teaching apprenticeship courses:

• Graduate Council: Syllabus Guidelines for Directed Research and Teaching Apprenticeship Courses

• Systemwide Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs: Guidelines for Directed Studies Courses

• Systemwide Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs: Example Syllabi for Directed Studies Courses

The revised Policy on Syllabi for courses is posted on the Senate’s website.  Questions related to the policy revisions may be directed to Ashley (Welch) Hill, Senate Associate Director, at awelch@ucsd.edu. 

Senate Guidelines on Syllabus for Directed Research and Teaching Apprenticeship Courses 

Links to Documents:

• UCSD Graduate Council: Memo & Syllabus Guidelines for Directed Research and Teaching Apprenticeship Courses

• UC Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs (CCGA): CCGA Guidance on Directed Studies Courses

UCOP: Example Syllabi for Directed Studies Courses — CCGA has collected representative examples of syllabi for research (299) and teaching apprentice (500) related courses that faculty may wish to consider when constructing their own syllabi that make the educational goals and content of their graduate-level directed studies courses clear:

• Research Unit Class PDF

• PSYC 296/299 Syllabus PDF

• MIST 295: Graduate Research PDF

• PHD Research Syllabus Template (with expectations) PDF

Senate Rules on Remote Participation for Master's and Doctoral Examinations

Beginning in Fall 2022, Graduate Council updated the rules for conducting master's and doctoral exams. The default method for the doctoral and master’s committee to conduct graduate examinations (doctoral qualifying examination and final dissertation/thesis defense) is when the student and all members of the committee are physically present in the same room. The Graduate Council recognizes, however, that practical exigencies do not always make this possible. Therefore, the Graduate Council will defer to the graduate programs (Department Chair or Program Director) to review requests for exceptions and to make decisions to allow remote participation. The graduate program must ensure that when an exam is approved to be held entirely remote or in a hybrid format (i.e., some members are physically present and some are remote) that the student has agreed to this format. It is expected that there will be synchronous participation by all committee members in the scheduled exam. 

Please review the announcement from Graduate Council: 2022-03-14 GRAD -- Telepresence Rules for Exams.pdf 

Spring 2021: Senate Approved Delegation of Signature Authority for Master’s Forms

The Graduate Council (in March 2021) approved department/program faculty leadership to delegate signature authority to staff designates for approval of academic master’s comprehensive exams (Plan II) and professional master's capstone reports. View Notice

Fall 2021: Senate Regulation 715 Update, Doctoral Committees

Please review the Division of Graduate Education website for the updated Senate Regulation and doctoral (and master's) committee membership table. (Updated regulation applies only to UC San Diego PhD and DMA (SD 717) Committees, and Master's Thesis Committees.)

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