Mini-Courses

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.

Mini-courses are short format, one to three week courses. The condensed format allows faculty and students to explore a topic without the commitment of a full quarter course. This format also allows faculty to provide intensive learning experiences that cannot feasibly be sustained over a full quarter.

2023-2024 ACADEMIC YEAR
April 2024	Call for Mini Course proposals opens for Fall & Winter Quarters
May 31, 2024	2024-25 Fall & Winter Proposals Due Deadline for mini-course directors to confirm all course details (e.g. title, descriptions, grading basis, units, preferred course schedule, room needs/special requests) New Mini-Course Form due to oge-helpme@stanford.edu. The form will be signed by the Senior Associate Dean and submitted to School of Medicine Registrar.
Mid-late June 2024	Mini-course directors notified of award decisions
June 30, 2024	Priority scheduling deadline: Office of Graduate Education will submit all scheduling requests for Biosciences Mini Courses.
July – September, 2024	Course directors notified of classroom assignments
August 2024	Call for Mini Course proposals opens for Spring & Summer 2025
September 2024	Mini-courses announced to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars; registration opens in Axess.
September 2024	2024-25 Spring & Summer Proposals Due Deadline for mini-course directors to confirm all course details (e.g. title, descriptions, grading basis, units, preferred course schedule, room needs/special requests) New Mini-Course Form due to oge-helpme@stanford.edu. The form will be signed by the Senior Associate Dean and submitted to School of Medicine Registrar.
October 18, 2024	Priority scheduling deadline: Office of Graduate Education will submit all scheduling requests for Biosciences Mini Courses.
November 11, 2024	First day of autumn quarter mini-courses
February 24, 2025	First day of winter quarter mini-courses
May 12, 2025	First day of spring quarter mini-courses
July 21, 2025	First day of summer quarter mini-courses

Mini-courses are offered during the last three weeks of autumn, winter, and spring quarters, and at any time during summer quarter. Mini-courses do not meet on University Holidays. Regular add/drop deadlines apply.

Mini-courses should adhere to the University class meeting time pattern.

Mini-courses must adhere to University unit of credit rules. All mini-courses should meet for a minimum of 10 hours (1 unit).

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
• Diversity and Inclusion and Belonging: gender in science, microaggressions, implicit bias, inclusive practices
• 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
• 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.

To encourage and support the development of mini-courses, course directors may be awarded up to $5K for teaching assistants (TAs). For new mini-courses, an additional $5K in course development funds may be requested. Funds are limited and award amounts may vary based on the number and types of proposals received. Departments receive TRS-based funding for mini-courses just as they do for regular courses. Please be as clear and as detailed as possible in your funding request.

Funding decisions will be provided a few months after the application status notification. 

We invite proposals from faculty members or faculty-postdoc, faculty-student, and faculty-staff teams. A faculty member must serve as the lead instructor. If awarded, funds will be allocated to the faculty course director’s PTA account.

Primary instructors must have a faculty appointment in the UTL, NTL, MCL, or CE lines. Adjunct or affiliate faculty are not eligible. Other titles may be listed as a secondary instructor and must list an additional, eligible primary instructor.

We encourage mixed teaching teams of faculty and students and/or postdocs to apply. 

Mini-course proposals should utilize the online form linked above, and must include:

• Name(s) and email address(es) of course director(s)
• 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
• Course learning goals
• Detailed funding request
• Classroom needs and preference
• Course capacity for graduate students and postdocs

Postdocs will be invited to express interest in mini-courses each quarter and may be admitted at the course directors’ discretion, as space permits.

• School of Medicine classroom scheduling is completed by MedScheduler and is completed based on class schedule, capacity and instructional needs.
• LKSC rooms are in highest demand; if requesting an LKSC seminar classroom please be aware that mini-courses are unlikely to be scheduled in the same classroom for each class meeting, especially during peak times of day (10:30am-12:20pm is the most popular class time).
• MedScheduler uses the following priority order for classroom scheduling:
  • Required courses in the MD/PhD/Masters curriculum, including placement exams and finals
  • Required courses in the scholarly concentration curriculum
  • Elective course in the MD/PhD/Masters curriculum, including final exams and seminars (mini-courses = 3rd priority)
  • If you have a department meeting/conference room you can schedule for your mini-course, this is preferred and is very helpful! Please indicate this on your course proposal if you plan to reserve your own meeting space for your course.

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

• Liaise with the School of Medicine Registrar and MedScheduler team to administer course creation, scheduling, and room reservations.
• Provide Project, Task, Award (PTA) accounts for funded mini-courses
• Create and distribute a poster advertising all mini-courses
• Collect postdoc interest lists on a quarterly basis

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.