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
- Candice Belanoff, Clinical Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences
- Caitlin Brand, Assistant Director of Educational Programs
- Sophie Godley, Clinical Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences
- Megan Healey, Clinical Assistant Professor of Epidemiology
- Jessica Leibler, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health
- Nikki Longe, Registrar
- Gina Peloso, Associate Professor of Biostatistics
- Lora Sabin, Associate Professor of Global Health
- Andrew Stokes, Assistant Professor of Global Health
- Kiersten Strombotne, Assistant Professor of Health Law, Policy and Management
- Lisa Sullivan, Chair, Associate Dean for Education, Professor of Biostatistics
- Amanda Velez, Executive Director of Educational Initiatives
Meeting Minutes
Committee Procedures and Deadlines
Degree Modification Proposal, including any changes to BU MPH functional and context certificates, are subject to the following review deadlines and milestones. All deadlines are for the academic year preceding the proposed change. For example, approved fall 2023 submissions will go in to effect in the 2024-2025 (summer, fall, and spring) academic year. Please note, the SOPHAS application is finalized in June. Title changes or the addition of new specializations cannot be listed on SOPHAS until the following year. 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: 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: 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: 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 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: Course Proposal Deadlines 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 Courses proposed for the summer semesters Courses proposed for the fall semester 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 for each semester (spring, summer, and fall). This is one per department, not per course department code. Special topics courses can be 2 or 4 credits and may be offered in an intensive format. An enrollment of at least 7 is expected for special topics courses. 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. A course may be offered once under the special topics designation. If a special topics course is well received and a department wants to make it a regular course offering, the instructor needs to submit a cover letter detailing the rationale for the change, a course syllabus, and letters of support from the relevant program directors and department chairs. The proposal must adhere to the following deadlines: Courses proposed for the spring semester Courses proposed for the summer semester Courses proposed for the fall semesterDegree Modifications
New Educational Programs (Certificates and New Degree Proposals)
Phase I Course Proposals
Phase I
Phase II Course Proposals
Phase II
Proposing a Special Topics Course
Moving a Special Topics Course to a Regular Course
Committee Guidelines
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.
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.
Recording Class Sessions
All courses, except those specifically designed for online learning and designated with the “OL” suffix, are residential courses. Faculty should record and post residential class sessions or make recordings available upon request as a valuable tool for learning. AV equipment is available in classrooms to record class sessions using Zoom, and some of the larger classrooms are outfitted with recording software, in which case, audio or video recordings can be requested in advance.
Faculty can use their discretion to determine if some content is not appropriate for recording (e.g., a class discussion on a sensitive topic). Students needing to miss a class session due to illness or a conflict (e.g., attending a conference) may review the class recording in addition to making up missed work.
Attendance & Participation Policies
As a result of a series of conversations regarding attendance policies and class participation grades with Governing Council, program directors, faculty and staff, the Education Committee approved the following guidelines:
- If faculty have a specific attendance policy, its purpose and process for implementation should be clearly articulated to students in the syllabus. In the event that a student needs to miss a class session, they are expected to communicate with faculty, teaching assistants, and peers (e.g., if teams were to work together during that class session) to let them know, and to make up any missed work within existing structures of the course. Students should not be pressed for specific reasons or documentation for absences. That said, if a student misses two or more sessions in a 14-week course (prorated accordingly), then the instructor or a teaching assistant should reach out to ensure that the student has the support they need to engage in the course.
- If faculty assess class participation, its purpose and process of assessment should be clearly articulated. There should be a specific rubric for grading participation in the course that is either included in the syllabus or made available to the students upon request. Faculty should also expand the ways in which students can engage/participate in the course to ensure inclusivity (e.g., viewing a recording of the class session and completing an assessment).
As always, we will also continue to support all students to ensure equitable access to educational and co-curricular activities, and students needing specific accommodations may secure those accommodations through the Office of Disability and Access Services.