School of Medicine Mini-Courses

Who can Propose: We invite proposals from faculty members or mixed teams of faculty with student, postdoc, and staff. Postdocs should review these teaching guidelines and follow appropriate approval process. A faculty member must serve as the lead instructor.

Faculty Eligibility: Primary instructors for School of Medicine classes must be a faculty member with an appointment in the University Tenure Line (UTL), Non-Tenure Line (NTL),  University Medical Line (UML), or Clinician Educator (CE) lines. Note this does not include adjunct or affiliate faculty. In terms of rank within those lines, instructor and above are eligible. Other titles may be listed as a secondary instructor, in addition to an eligible primary instructor.

Audience: Current graduate students are the primary intended audience for Bioscience’s mini-courses. Course directors are also encouraged to open their course to postdoc participation, though postdocs cannot officially enroll for credit. Postdocs will be invited to express interest in mini-courses each quarter and may be admitted at the course directors’ discretion.

We are particularly interested in courses that are interdisciplinary in nature and/or address the following high-priority areas in graduate and postdoctoral training:

• Topical/subject areas of interest, targeted to an interdisciplinary audience
• Inclusive and Supportive Scientific Research Environments
• Research rigor, reproducibility, and transparency: statistics, statistical analysis, data and image processing, materials and data availability, experimental design
• Responsible conduct of research: conflict of interest, data sharing, responsible authorship and publication, policies for handling misconduct, human/animal subjects, data management, peer review, mentor/trainee responsibilities, collaborative science
• Graduate Student, Postdoc, and/or Faculty Wellness: emotional, environmental, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and/or spiritual well-being
• Career, personal, and/or professional development
• Scientific Communication (written, verbal, interpersonal)

Interdisciplinary mini-courses are those that combine areas that are of significant interest to a broad audience of graduate students and postdocs in the biosciences, and do not overlap with existing courses, programs, or workshops.

For new mini-courses, up to $5K in course development funds may be requested. Funds are limited and award amounts may vary. Departments receive TRS-based funding for mini-courses just as they do for regular courses. Please provide clear and detailed information in your funding request– vague requests are less likely to be funded. Teaching support funds may be provided for trainees instructing courses.

Funding decisions will be provided a few months after the application status notification. If awarded, funds will be allocated to the faculty course director’s PTA account.

Mini-course proposals should utilize the online form linked here to prepare all the course details, which will include:

• Names and email addresses of all course directors
• Quarter(s) in which you want to teach the course
• Proposed schedule (following University class meeting time pattern)
• Proposed unit value and grading basis
• Course description and learning goals
• Detailed funding request
• Classroom needs and preferences

School of Medicine classroom assignments are completed by MedScheduler, based on class schedule, capacity and instructional needs. MedScheduler uses the following priority order for classroom scheduling:

1. Required MD/PhD/Masters courses, including placement exams and finals
2. Required courses in the scholarly concentration curriculum
3. Elective MD/PhD/Masters courses, including final exams and seminars (i.e. mini-courses)

SOM rooms are high in demand; if requesting an SOM classroom please be aware that mini-courses may not always be scheduled in the same classroom for each class meeting, especially during peak hours (10:30am-12:20pm is the most popular class time).

For approved School of Medicine mini-courses, the Office of Graduate Education (OGE) will:

• Liaise with the School of Medicine Registrar and MedScheduler team to handle course creation, scheduling, and room reservations.
• Provide PTA accounts for funded mini-courses
• Create and distribute quarterly mini-course advertisement
• Collect postdoc interest lists each quarter

The mini-course Director and teaching team is responsible for all other course administration responsibilities, including course evaluations, recruiting and hiring TAs/CAs, purchasing supplies, A/V support, and all communication with students and postdocs.

View our mini-course FAQ page here