Education Committee.
The SPH Education Committee is charged with overseeing the School’s educational strategy, policies, and programming. It reviews proposals for new educational programs; oversees the school’s approach to evaluating teaching; regularly reviews previously approved courses and curricula; and recognizes faculty who have enriched the educational experience for students through the Excellence in Teaching Awards. The Education Committee evaluates the School’s educational offerings both as individual pieces, and as a whole, ensuring that the individual learning components result in cohesive educational programs.
Committee Membership
- Alexa Beiser, Professor of Biostatistics
- Trish Elliott, Clinical Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences
- Sophie Godley, Clinical Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences
- Megan Healey, Clinical Assistant Professor of Epidemiology
- Kevin Lane, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health
- Nikki Longe, Registrar
- Chris Louis, Clinical Associate Professor of Health Law, Policy and Management
- Lora Sabin, Associate Professor of Global Health
- Andrew Stokes, Assistant Professor of Global Health
- Lisa Sullivan, Chair, Associate Dean for Education, Professor of Biostatistics
- Amanda Velez, Executive Director of Educational Initiatives
Meeting Minutes
Committee Guidelines & Deadlines
Online Teaching Strategy
As we look to the future, the Education Committee proposes a strategic, but incremental, approach to adding online courses into existing masters programs. This approach is based on the following principles:
- Promoting flexibility for faculty and students
- Reducing pressure points on courses that are consistently over-enrolled
- Ensuring that course offerings are aligned with faculty capacity for teaching
- Ensuring equity of access to different course modalities
- Ensuring programmatic coherence (e.g., developing online options that create pathways to complete specific certificates rather than isolated options across multiple certificates)
- Ensuring that course offerings meet the needs of students, faculty, employers, and accreditors
- Ensuring that online and in-person sections of the same course have the same learning objectives and offer similar topic coverage and depth
The Governing Council approved this strategy and suggested proceeding with developing online pathways for our most popular MPH certificates (epidemiology and biostatistics; community assessment, program design, implementation, and evaluation [CAPDIE]; and health policy and law). We reviewed requirements and course options for each of these certificates and have identified courses that might work well as online offerings. We applied the principles above and also aimed to select courses that were offered multiple times per year to allow for in-person and online options to increase flexibility and to accommodate different audiences. Faculty teaching these priority courses are being invited to develop online offerings. If they prefer not to teach online, we will explore other options.
The Committee reviewed requirements and course options for each of these certificates and have identified courses that might work well as online offerings. The Education Committee applied the principles above and also aimed to select courses that were offered multiple times per year to allow for in-person and online options to increase flexibility and to accommodate different audiences.
Phase I Course Proposals
Phase I
Courses at phase I of the review process must submit a phase 1 course proposal. It must be approved by the relevant department chairs and program directors.
The following situations require the submission of a phase 1 proposal:
- All new courses. New courses are defined as courses in a novel content area or at a different level in an existing content area.
- Courses that have been formally removed from the SPH offerings. These courses may have been offered in the past but were officially removed from the SPH inventory, as listed in the Bulletin.
- Courses that have not been offered in three academic years. Public health is an ever-changing field. If a course has not been offered in three academic years, it must start the approval process at Phase I so the Committee may assess its relevance in the current curriculum.
Phase I proposals have a six month window to move on to the Phase II process. After six months, faculty must resubmit a Phase I proposal before proceeding to Phase II, unless the reason for the delay was a procedural reason related to the Education Committee meeting schedule.
The course instructor (or a proxy) is required to attend the Education Committee meeting when their phase 1 proposal is being reviewed. If the initial course proposal is accepted, the recommendations of the Education Committee should be included in the phase II proposal.
Course Proposal Deadlines
- September 1, 2023 – Summer 2024, Fall 2024, and Spring 2025 Phase I proposals due
- November 1, 2023 – Summer 2024, Fall 2024, and Spring 2025 Phase II proposals due
- December 15, 2023 – All proposals must be fully approved by this date to make it into the Bulletin and on to the course schedule for 2024/2025
Phase II Course Proposals
Phase II
Phase II proposals require a full course syllabus, using the approved syllabus template, with a cover memo summarizing the phase I details and responding to Committee feedback. It must be approved by the relevant department chair and program directors. Courses that may begin the approval process with a Phase II proposal:
- Existing courses that are proposing substantive revisions. A substantive revision includes significant changes to at least 1/3 of the course content or a substantial change in the teaching methods used. The primary objectives for reviewing these courses is to ensure that they still work as part of a cohesive educational program, so that faculty may discuss new teaching methods with their colleagues, and so that any relevant modifications to other courses may be made.
- Existing courses that are changing the number of credits (2 credits to 4 credits, for example). While the Committee will review these courses at the Phase II process, faculty may want to consider starting the process at Phase I since the Phase II approval process is much more in depth. Starting at Phase II is not a guarantee for approval, especially those where the course, in its current iteration, fills a need in concentrations other than the proposing concentration.
- Courses approved by the Governing Council. Though rare, some courses essentially proceed through the Phase I approval process at the Governing Council. These courses may begin the Education Committee approval process at Phase II.
Course Proposal Deadlines
- September 1, 2023 – Summer 2024, Fall 2024, and Spring 2025 Phase I proposals due
- November 1, 2023 – Summer 2024, Fall 2024, and Spring 2025 Phase II proposals due
- December 15, 2023 – All proposals must be fully approved by this date to make it into the Bulletin and on to the course schedule for 2024/2025
Special Topics Course Proposals
Faculty proposing a special topics course need to submit a cover letter explaining the need for the course, a course syllabus, and letters of support from the relevant program directors and department chairs. All proposals must adhere to the following deadlines:
Courses proposed for the spring semester
- Syllabus submitted for committee review by August 1 of previous year
- Final approval secured by September 1 of previous year
Courses proposed for the summer semesters
- Syllabus submitted for committee review by December 1
- Final approval secured by January 1
Courses proposed for the fall semester
- Syllabus submitted for committee review by January 1
- Final approval secured by February 1
If approved, special topics courses need to follow the established course scheduling framework—it is recommended that departments plan for special topics sections while doing their initial scheduling for the year. Departments will receive one special topics course each for each semester (spring, summer, and fall). This is one per department, not per course department code.
A course may be offered once under the special topics designation. Special topics courses can be 2 or 4 credits and may be offered in an intensive format.
Special topics courses cannot be part of the curriculum for any SPH program, but may be counted towards a program or certificate requirement with an approved course substitution form. An enrollment of at least 7 is expected for special topics courses.
If a special topics course is well received and a department wants to make it a course, they can start the course proposal process at the Phase 2 stage. Phase 2 deadlines will apply.
Modifications to Degree Requirements
- September 1: Proposals for degree modifications due to Education Committee
- November 1: Deadline to submit any requested revisions
- December 1: Committee decisions are due
New Educational Programs (Certificates and New Degree Proposals)
It is very important to plan ahead with this multi-step approval process, as some steps may take unpredictably long, and recruiting students into the new educational program cannot begin until after formal eCAP approval. Although a new educational program may be proposed at any time, the following timeline is suggested:
- October – submission to the Education Committee
- November/December– submission to the Governing Council
- end of January – submission to eCAP
- June – addition of new educational program to SOPHAS for following academic year
Though a variety of proposal formats will be accepted by the Education Committee, it is recommended that proposals for new educational programs use the eCAP proposal form.
Contacts for new educational program approvals:
- Education Committee approval process: Amanda Velez, aavelez@bu.edu
- Governing Council approval process: Dean Sandro Galea, sgalea@bu.edu
- eCAP approval process: Amanda Velez, aavelez@bu.edu
Course Review Process
As part of the Education Committee’s charge to oversee educational programs and to ensure that faculty maintain currency in their areas of instructional responsibility, the Committee oversees systematic reviews of all courses. At least once per year, each department reviews a subset of syllabi for courses offered by their faculty. All courses are formally reviewed at least once every four years. Departments conduct the reviews differently. Some departments discuss the course with the instructor and review the current syllabus, Blackboard site, related teaching materials, online course evaluations, and student work products (e-portfolios, papers, policy briefs, proposals, videos, etc.) while others review syllabi and provide written reviews for updates and suggested modifications.
Review teams may consider the following questions and dimensions, as well as others they find useful:
- Course content and design: Does the syllabus give clear direction to students regarding the course, session objectives, assignments, methods for student assessment, readings, and other requirements? An example of a syllabus that does not do this would be one that merely lists the topic of a given lecture, but provides no description of the content of that class session nor any learning objectives for the session. Similarly, it should be clear from this summary what the purpose of linked assigned readings are.
- Teaching experience: What has been the instructor’s experience teaching the course? What changes has the instructor made or want to make based on this experience?
- Student learning: What are the student work products and how do they demonstrate competency and achievement of the course learning objectives? An example of a syllabus that does not achieve this goal would be one where the goals of the overall course, or of individual course sessions, do not clearly align with or support the objectives for the course or for that session.
- Feedback: At what points do students receive feedback, and how is this provided? To be useful, feedback needs to occur soon after an assignment was due, and occur early enough in the course sequence so that students can adjust their work strategies in response to the feedback. An example of a syllabus plan that does not achieve this would be to have most of the graded work occur late in the course leaving insufficient time for the feedback to be actionable. Similarly, feedback often needs to go beyond mere grade or percentile ranks, which provide an overall assessment of performance, but may be unhelpful as a guide to how students should improve.
Departmental course reviews are documented and describe the process, findings, and recommendations. Reports are reviewed by the instructor and relevant Department Chair. A summary of the final report is shared with the Education Committee.