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Standing Committee on the Loyola Core (SCLC) Course Approval Process

Standing Committee for the Loyola Core Mission Statement

The mission of the Standing Committee on the Loyola Core (SCLC) is to preserve the quality and integrity of the Loyola Core, Loyola’s general education requirements for undergraduate degrees, which is at the heart of our Jesuit Education. In support of this mission, the SCLC responsible for:

  1. Facilitating assessment plans and methods for departments/programs within the Loyola Core.
  2. Reviewing the structure of the Loyola Core.
  3. Evaluating the appropriateness of the courses that can be used to satisfy each area of the Loyola Core.

Faculty Information

Review and approval from SCLC is the first step for a course being eligible to satisfy Loyola Core requirements and for its inclusion as such in the Bulletin. Considering applying for Loyola Core course approval? Please review the criteria and submission process below.

Criteria for Loyola Core Courses

Please review the criteria for your selected Loyola Core category before submitting your course for approval. You must be logged into your @loyno.edu email address in order to view the rubrics linked here.  

Not seeing the rubric you're looking for? Contact Karen Rosenbecker at krosenbe@loyno.edu.

Loyola Core Frequently Asked Questions

Some background on experimental courses: these are courses that are being offered for the first time. Here it might be helpful for you to check in with your chairperson/program director to make sure that the course you would like to teach has not been taught before. 

How to get an experimental course approved: Experimental approval involved the instructor writing a one page document with two paragraphs.

  • The first paragraph gives the title for the course, the semester/year it's being taught, and describes the nature and content of the course
  • The second paragraph discusses, in a general way, how the proposed experimental course meets the criteria for the Loyola Core rubric involved. 
  • If the experimental course being approved will be taught in J Term/M Term, please include a brief third paragraph that discusses how a typical class day will be structured in terms of instructional time.

Email this write up to Karen Rosenbecker at krosenbe@loyno.edu.

Once you have received confirmation of experimental approval, please be sure to add a description of your experimental course to LORA for the term it is being offered.

Examples of Experimental Proposals:

Submitting courses for permanent approval requires three documents to be sent to the chair of SCLC (current chair-- Karen Rosenbecker krosenbe@loyno.edu):

  • a Term Syllabus for the course
  • a Proposal based on the current criteria for the Loyola Core category
  • a Credit Hour Calculator for the course (see links below)"

Credit Hour Calculator

Tutorial for Credit Hour Calculator

Examples of Proposals:

 

For more information about Loyola Core Microcredentials, please see this page (https://academicaffairs.loyno.edu/microcredentials) or contact: 

Erin Foster, Ph.D.
Vice Provost 
Email: erin.foster@loyno.edu

 

 

Any new courses that will be offered as part of the Loyola Core need to receive approval from SCLC.

As soon as you can! It is very helpful to get proposals submitted in the term *before* they are to be taught. You can even submit proposals several terms in advance (i.e. submitting approval for a Summer Session '25 class in Fall '24).

That depends. Experimental approvals may only take a matter of days. Permanent approvals must be voted on by the membership of SCLC and then move on to UCCC to receive their permanent numbers for the Bulletin.

Associate Registrar Daniel McBride's Office assigns permanent course numbers and sees that the course descriptions appears in the Bulletin as well.

SCLC meets every other Friday during Fall/Spring terms.

That information can be found on the Academic Affairs Intranet. 

Study Abroad Courses in the Loyola Core need to be approved in cooperation with the Center for International Education, as well as SCLC. Please contact Dr. Mariette Thomas, Director of the Center for International Education (mlthoma1@loyno.edu) and check out their website for more information.