Initiatives

Winter Term Pilot (Winter 2025)

Adding a winter session to our schedule of classes has the possibility to help us achieve three objectives.

First, a winter session could increase overall enrollment by providing a new opportunity for continuous students to take a course to make progress toward their degree, and to offer a new opportunity for graduates to return to TC to take a course in areas of keen interest.

Second, a winter session could be designed in such a way to allow us to offer courses on timely issues facing NYC and society, areas where faculty have expertise, students have interest, and there are compelling case studies of what is happening here in the city. Such courses couldprovide opportunities for faculty to collaborate, and examine current issues from the interdisciplinary lens that has always been a TC strength.

Third, a winter session pilot offers us an opportunity to experiment intentionally and carefully with different course structures and formats, and can be a space of innovation.

We can use a small pilot of 5 courses to see if we have faculty and current student interest, interest beyond current degree seeking students, the courses and models that seem to work best, and adjust accordingly.To that end, the Provost’s Office is issuing a call for faculty to submit course proposals for a Winter 2025 term. Five courses will be selected.

Some important parameters for the first 5 winter courses to be offered in the winter 2025 pilot program:

• Faculty may submit courses that are 1, 2 or 3 credit courses, and they can be online or in-person, study abroad, or tied to a signature experience for alumni.
• Faculty salaries for teaching in winter will follow the same guidelines for summer instruction (e.g. must have at least 8 students register or 24 credits taken to receive 1/12th salary or course is prorated).
• In addition, if faculty propose the development of a new course that has not been offered but for which there is likely significant interest and value, we will provide an incentive of $5,000 to support new curriculum development.
• All courses, including New Special Topics courses must meet all required APS criteria, including ensuring contact hours appropriate to a 3 credit graduate course (see attached NYSED guidelines).
• It is likely that the best models will involve some creativity with beginning and end times (meeting before the holiday break, asynchronous instruction over break, in-person classes the first two weeks of January, ending a week into spring classes) to make it fit within the required contact hours.

Preference will be given to Winter Session Course Proposals with the following characteristics:

• Timely, current issue relevant especially in the NYC context (e.g. issues of mental health, AI, sustainability, learning loss, language and literacy, multilingual learners).
• Collaborations between faculty team-teaching with different field or disciplinary approaches to same issue (e.g. neuroscience and literacy; policy and human development).
• A clear target audience has been identified of likely students—degree or non-degree seeking– with some evidence and prediction as to likely enrollment.
• Courses offered by tenure-track, tenured, lecturers, visiting, professors of practice, and adjuncts will be considered.
• Courses offered with 25 or more open seats.