The purpose of Student Facilitated Courses is to give undergraduate students the ability to design and teach courses on subjects of their own choosing to their fellow undergraduates. In contrast to the now defunct Student Led Education (SLED), this program was explicitly approved by the Academic Senate in 2014. Unfortunately, although the Senate approved the program, they did not see fit to publicise it nor give interested undergraduates information to guide them through the process of proposing and subsequently teaching. The hope of this page is provide a centralized resource for students interested in teaching their own courses to learn what the process consists of and who they can reach out to for help.

Carolyn Thomas is listed as the point of contact, but this may be out of date. Please update as appropriate.

You can read the specific policy on the Academic Senate webpage.

Approval Process

There are fundamentally three steps to being able to teaching your course.

1. Find a professor. Formally, this professor will be the "instructor of record," meaning that they will be responsible for assigning grades. This professor will help you design your course and will vouch for the academic rigorousness of your course.
2. Find a department. Your course will need to be offered by a department as a 98F/198F, and the department will need to approve this. Usually, departments have internal subcommittees composed of professors (e.g. the Computer Science Undergraduate Affairs Committee) that will be responsible for approving a course that you (and your supervisor) propose. Although courses are usually offered by the supervising professor's department, there's no restriction requiring this to be the case. 
3. Take a quarter-long course to prepare your course and prepare to teach. This course is a 199FA (see above policy). The details of this course will be worked out by you, your professor and your department.

After that, you enroll in a 199FB (see above policy), which means you're formally teaching your course!

Tips & Advice

• Many professors care about what academic contributions your course will bring to the department and campus. Even if your course is extremely practical e.g. interview practice, if it lacks some sort of theoretical aspect, your course may not be approved.
• Before approaching a professor, prepare a tentative syllabus for the course. Be prepared to demonstrate that you've considered the specific course content and the manner in which students will be assessed.
• Before meeting with the relevant committee of your department, try to meet with professors on the committee individually first. Ask what concerns they have and what you can bring to the committee meeting that will ameliorate or resolve their concerns.

Previous Student Facilitated Courses

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can I receive GE credit for teaching? No.
• Can I co-teach? Yes.