SUS Course Request Form

Please complete this form to request a NEW Course for the School of Urban Studies.  Prior to completing this form, please make sure to have the following completed:

  • Discussed New Course with Dean and Associate Dean
  • New Course has Been Discussed and Voted Upon by SUS Faculty
  • Syllabus Created

For more information on this process, please visit the Registrar's Curriculum Guide.

Once your New Course Request is Received, it will be reviewed by the SUS Director and entered into Kuali.  The Director will reach out to you with next steps.

COURSE INFORMATION
Which SUS Degree Will This Course be Associated With?
Course Prefix
Example: 316

Course Title cannot be more than 120 characters. Do NOT use the '&' symbol or any other symbols.

Example: Cities and Belongings

Must be in ALL CAPS. Maximum number of characters is 20. You CAN use the '&' symbol in the Transcript Title.

Example: CITIES & BELONGINGS

Example: Autumn 2026

This will appear in the UWT Course Catalog. The course description and course titles should align. A course description should be written in an active tense, explaining what the student can expect to learn in the course. 

Do NOT start with "This Course" or "Students will". Start with action verbs like Studies, Explores, etc.  Expand all acronyms.  Maximum characters is 450.

Optional Field. Publishes in the Course Catalog if the field is completed. Intended as courses or subject areas recommended, but not required, for students prior to taking the course.

Avoid wording that cannot be enforced when registering and instead use the format examples:

  • If requesting only 1 prerequisite: T URB 101
  • If requesting 2 or more prerequisites:
    • T URB 101; T URB 103 (Translation: Student must take T URB 103 and T URB 103 before Taking This Course)
    • Either T URB 101 and T URB 103, or T URB 110 (Translation: Student must take one of the following before taking this course: 1. T URB 101 and T URB 103, 2, T URB 110)

If instructor permission is how it is enforced, this must be stated in the Course Description. If you would like a 'Co-Requisite', please reach out to the SUS Director for more information on how to request this.

Prerequisite Enforcement (choose one if applicable)

Enforce cancellation of registration if prerequisites not met: If this box is checked, students who were allowed to register for the course because they were in the process of completing the prerequisite course(s) will be automatically dropped after grades are posted for those prerequisite courses.

Enforce prerequisites for undergraduate students only (classes 1-4). Checking this box will limit prerequisite checking to only undergraduate students. Any non-undergraduate student (classes 5 and above) registering for the course will not have prerequisites checked.

General Education Requirements (select all that apply)

If requesting a General Education Requirement, it must be approved by the University Committee on General Education (UCGE) as part of the course application approval process. 

NOTE: Diversity (DIV) is approved at the college/school/campus level; however, course applications requesting DIV must follow the UCGE workflow. If requesting DIV, follow the APCC process which must be completed prior to the submission of this form.

W, R, and S courses will ALWAYS be taught as indicated. At LEAST 50% of the learning objective should address course designation. These designations need to be discussed and voted on by the SUS Faculty prior to the submission of this form.

APCC looks for Student Learning Outcomes that meet the areas that you are requesting and at least 50% of the objectives must meet each area of inquiry.

For more information on what these designations include, please visit UW Undergraduate Advising General Education Website.

If this course is to be added to an elective list for a program or credential, list the program(s) or credential(s) in the above field.
Anticipated Student Type (select all that apply)
Required field, may select more than one option.
Include the anticipated number of students expected to register for this course each quarter.
Proposal Information
Approval Workflow (select one)
If you are creating a new undergraduate course with a general education designation, you MUST select 'Undergraduate New with General Education Designation(s)'.
Provide an explanation of, and rationale for, the proposed new course. Spell out abbreviations when first used.  Example: The School of Urban Studies (SUS). You do NOT need to spell out course prefixes (Example: T URB).
Check this box if this new course request is related to other program, credential, or course proposals. If you check this box, you MUST include information about the related proposals in the Justification field.

Please include the faculty vote information.

Example: This Course Proposal was voted on by the School of Urban Studies faculty at the School Meeting on 5/23/2025. 10 eligible voting faculty, 9 eligible faculty present, 1 eligible faculty absent, 9 in-favor, 0 against, 0 abstain.

Credits

The number of credits for a course is determined by the amount of weekly contact the student will have with the material during the quarter. An approximate guideline for determining the number of credits is a follows:

Typically, 1 credit represents an approximate time commitment of 3 hours per week.  At UWT, courses are typically 5 credit hours, 4 hours of lecture with 11 hours of Non-Instructional hours.

Credits
Check this box if the course may be repeated for an additional credit amount.
If Multiple, Range, or 0 Credits was selected, how will the number of credits be related to the amount of student effort?
Activiteis and Hours

Complete the Activities & Hours section based on info provided in the Credits section of this application. Below is an example of a standard 5 credit course.

Hours per Week

 
If the course is less than 10 weeks, complete this field to provide details about how the course is offered, including the number of weeks.
Evaluation Details

How will the student be evaluated for credit or grades? Provide specific information on assignments, projects, exams, etc. and relative % for each area. What you enter in this filed must match what is on the syllabus. 

Example: Participation (10%); Quizzes (20%); Paper (30%); Final Exam (40%).” If listing points, a total amount of points must be provided.

  • If proposing to add a Distance Learning designation: If proposing both an in-classroom version and a distance learning (DL) version of the course, grading details for both versions of the course must be provided. If the grading details are the same, this should be stated, such as, “Evaluation details are the same for both the in-classroom and DL versions of this course.” If the grading details are different, they should be labeled for the appropriate version of the course (in-classroom and DL).
  • If proposing as a parallel course: Grading details for each course in the parallel course set must be provided. Note, parallel courses must demonstrate a distinguishable difference between undergraduate and graduate components of the courses (such as grading assessment and/or expectations).
  • If proposing a variable credit course (multiple credit course or range of credits): Grading details for each credit version of the course must be provided, labeled accordingly. If the grading details are the same, this should be stated, such as, “Evaluation details are the same for all credit versions of this course.”
Distance Learning

Distance learning on the UW Tacoma campus is automatic for a course.  Only instructors that are iTech fellows can teach a course in DL formal.

The office of Digital Learning (ODL) keeps track of the list and published the names on their website. 

Grading System
Type of Grading System

If Applicable: A sequenced course is one in which the same course, or series of courses, do not receive a final grade until the series has been completed. If this is a Sequenced Course:

  • Please indicate position in sequence (example: 1 out of 3)
  • Please list the prefix of the course that comes prior (if this is the first course in the sequence, type FIRST).
Learning Objectives

Describe what the student will demonstrate the ability to do by the end of the course.

NOTE: Learning Objectives describe what the student will learn or skill used. Learning Outcomes describe what the student will create or do.  APCC often requests revisions to change the Learning Outcomes provided to Learning Objectives required in course proposals. 

Please enter in bullet format with a max of 2,000 characters.
Curricular Relationships

It is the responsibility of the unit to do a good-faith review of existing courses to identify affected units. This application will automatically route to the identified units for review and comment. Failure to identify the affected departments here will delay action on this application.

NOTE: If any fields below include an interdisciplinary department or interdisciplinary college/school, refer to the Course Applications for Interdisciplinary Programs Quick Guide for information on how to ensure the correct workflow for course application acknowledge requests.

Is this course jointly offered with another unit (jointly offered courses are offered under the sponsorship of two or more University units. One of the units is considered to be the primary unit and the other unit is considered the secondary unit)?  If yes, please list the joint Course Code and related department name.

Example: TMATH 110; School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

Is this course offered Parallel with another course within SUS?  Parallel courses are two courses offered by a single unit that have identical or very similar content offered at different levels, such as graduate and undergraduate. If yes, please:

  • Indicate the type of course your course request will be parallel with (undergraduate or graduate).
  • Which course is your course request parallel with (example: TCMP 501).
Overlapping is when significant content overlaps with an existing UW course between all UW campuses. Students will only receive credit for one course.  If this is an overlapping course, please list the campus, department name, and course name.

An equivalent course is the same course across two or more UW campuses. If this course request is for an equivalent course, please list the campus, department name, and course name.

If no equivalencies are known, use potentially affected to list the schools from other campuses.  For example, a new Urban Design course should add the College of Built Environments in Seattle.  

Only complete if proposing a new limiting rule to be encoded and enforced in DARS.  For example, "Maximum 5 credits allowed between T URB 102, T URB 103, and T URB 110" or "Cannot be taken for credit if student received a minimum grade of 2.0 or above in T URB 102".
Supporting Documents

You are required to upload a PDF copy of the course syllabus.  Before uploading, please ensure that your syllabus has all of the required University Policies.

Please click HERE for the required text that needs to be on your syllabus.

Please click HERE for a blank template syllabus if needed (that already has all of the required UW Policies)

Important Syllabus Guidelines

  • The syllabus needs to be clear from the student's perspective.
  • Do you have all of the UW Required Policies stated?
  • Does your syllabus match what you have entered here on this course request?
  • Is your course description actually longer than what you included on your new course proposal?  On the syllabus, you can provide a longer description in addition to the catalog course description to accommodate this.
  • Are the Course Learning Objectives measurable?
  • Did you list the textbooks and/or reading materials?
  • Did you include a tentative list of topics and/or a schedule is provided?
  • Grading criteria is clear and objective:
    • No more than 15% is used for participation or a rubric is provided
    • If grading on participation, is it clear to the student how they can get the participation points without asking for attendance and expectation of certain conduct?
One file only.
15 MB limit.
Allowed types: pdf.