Course Substitutions and Waivers

Guidelines for Substitutions, Waivers and other Implementation Issues

Approved by the Liberal Studies Council: May 20, 2002; revised September 25, 2002; revised April 30, 2003; revised February 21, 2006; revised June 4, 2008.

In an academic policy statement approved by Faculty Council and Academic Affairs in spring of 2001, which set standards for revising and maintaining academic programs in the University's official electronic environment, the following statement was made: "The Liberal Studies Council will establish guidelines for case-by-case substitutions. (Blanket changes in Liberal Studies requirements must be approved by the Liberal Studies Council.) Designated Associate Deans in the colleges, following the guidelines, will be authorized to make substitutions on a case-by-case basis." What follows is a policy statement covering a variety of common questions and issues relating to substitutions, waivers, transfer courses, and other implementation issues relating to the Liberal Studies Program. The policy is a result of meetings and communications that took place during the 2001-2002 academic year among a number of advisors, assistant deans and associate deans in the schools and colleges whose students participate in the Liberal Studies Program. It also includes and revises many current practices, which were established among the college offices when the current Liberal Studies Program was implemented in 1997.

All undergraduate (non-SNL) students are required to complete the Liberal Studies program. Students often request waivers and substitutions to the Liberal Studies requirements for various reasons. It is the belief that Associate Deans, College Office Advisors and Counselors in the Office of Admission act in good faith as they apply both DePaul courses and transfer courses to the Liberal Studies program. Still, there seems to be a good deal of inconsistency in how decisions are being made. In an effort to standardize policies and procedures throughout the university, this document establishes guidelines as to when substitutions and waivers are appropriate and what the process should be for requesting and granting these waivers. The designated Associate Dean of the student's home college has been given the authority to make the decisions based on these guidelines now established by the Liberal Studies Council.

Beginning Winter Quarter 2003, students transferring the equivalent of ENG 103 and/or ENG 104 must have received grades of C- or better in these courses in order to fulfill the Liberal Studies requirement. Beginning Winter Quarter 2003, students taking ENG 103 and/or ENG 104 at DePaul must receive grades of C- or better in order to fulfill the Liberal Studies requirement.

The following items are effective beginning Autumn Quarter 2002.

A. Transfer Students

1. Transfer students are required to complete the Liberal Studies Program including the specific designations within the domain requirements.

2. DePaul University accepts the Illinois Articulation Initiative General Education Core Curriculum (I.A.I. G.E.C.C.) as its general education core if a student successfully completes the I.A.I. before transfer and this is indicated on their official transcript. In addition to the I.A.I "package," however, these students must also complete the junior year experiential learning requirement and the fourth year capstone seminar, as well as four upper level domain electives chosen in consultation with a DePaul University academic advisor. Students who have not completed at least two Religion and two Philosophy courses must incorporate these courses in the four domain electives.

3. In consultation with the Chair of the Liberal Studies Program, the University Articulation Coordinator will determine whether transferred courses can be applied for Liberal Studies credit. Students may appeal to their home college associate dean to have additional courses apply towards Liberal Studies credit. The associate deans will keep records of their decisions, and will submit them periodically to the Liberal Studies Council for review.

4. Transfer courses should be applied to the most appropriate learning domain. Courses should be applied based on the articulation agreements and on the guidelines outlined on the Liberal Studies website (www.depaul.edu/~lstudies).

5. All transfer students who completed less than 30 quarter hours of transfer work will complete the first-year program (including Discover/Explore Chicago and Focal Point Seminar).

6. Students who enter with 30 or more quarter hours may not take Discover Chicago/Explore Chicago or Focal Point courses. They should complete two domain electives outside their area of specialization. Transfer courses may be used to satisfy these requirements--see item #4 above.

7. All transfer students must satisfy the writing requirement as they do under the current program--either with transfer credit or course work completed at DePaul. Placement in those courses is determined by standardized test score, credit hours, and, if applicable, DePaul's placement essay. All transfer students may be exempted from the placement essay and admitted directly into WRD 103 if they have an ACT composite English/Reading score of 25 or greater, or SAT Verbal score at or above 590, or have more than 100 quarter credit hours. All other transfer students must write the placement essay, and the score (which is assigned by two DePaul faculty members) helps determine their placement. If a transfer student places into ENG 101 and/or ENG 102, and has transferred in the equivalent of WRD 103 (and not WRD 104), the student will complete ENG 101 and/or ENG 102 followed by WRD 104.

   1. Transfer students who enter DePaul with earned credit for WRD 104 are exempt from the online writing placement test, if they desire. They can satisfy the second writing course requirement by taking any one of the following expository writing courses:

      WRD 103 Composition and Rhetoric I
      WRD 206 Introduction to Professional Writing
      WRD 300 Composition and Style
      WRD 301 Writing in the Professions

   2. If the transfer student with earned credit for WRD 104 wishes to substitute an open elective for the second writing course requirement (or for Writing 103), here is how that can accomplished:

      1. The online writing placement test must be taken and a score of 9 or higher must be earned.

      2. If the transfer student taking the online placement test receives a score of 8, the student will take one of the advanced writing classes (i.e., WRD 206, WRD 300, or WRD 301), but not WRD 103.

      3. If the transfer student taking the online placement test receives a score of 7, the student will take WRD 103.

      4. If the student receives a score of 6 or lower, the student will use the writing assessment score to determine an ENG 101 or 102 start. The student will also complete WRD 103, but will be exempt from WRD 104.

      College advisors cannot waive ENG 101/102 placements.

   3. Transfer students who met first-year writing requirements at their previous institution through coursework other than equivalents of WRD 103 and WRD 104 may petition their college offices for a waiver or substitution of this requirement. The petition should include a course description and, if possible, a syllabus. Petitions will be sent to the Associate Director of First-Year Writing who will review them on a case-by-case basis and make a recommendation to the appropriate associate dean. Based on information from the course description and syllabus, a determination will be made as to whether the student a) should take WRD 103 and/or WRD 104, b) should substitute an upper-level writing course from an approved list for WRD 103 and/or WRD 104, or c) have part or all of the requirement waived entirely. LSP domain credit may be given for the content area of the course, where appropriate.

8. All transfer students need to satisfy the quantitative reasoning requirement with this exception: If the student has taken, or, because of his or her program, will take calculus, or tests as prepared to take calculus, he or she is exempt from the quantitative reasoning requirement. If the student transfers 100 or more hours, he or she is exempt from the writing placement essay, but must complete the mathematics (computational skills, basic algebra, math diagnostic) placement tests. However, college advisors can waive the test requirement, if the student has successfully passed a calculus class at another institution.

9. The sophomore multiculturalism requirement is required of all students unless they have completed the I.A.I general education core.

10. Transfer students are required to complete the junior year experiential learning requirement, which can be met through approved study abroad, domestic study, service-learning, or internship courses, or an individual or group research project involving extensive field work or work in the laboratory (see the Liberal Studies website www.depaul.edu/~lstudies). DePaul does not usually award credit for internships or cooperative learning courses taken at another college or university. In rare cases a student may petition the Chair of the Experiential Learning committee for a waiver of this policy. The student must make the case that the course meets the Experiential Learning guidelines. At the time they transfer to DePaul, students having participated in a full-year or term-long study abroad program through an accredited institution, consisting of no less than ten weeks abroad and no less than 12 credits abroad, and having received grades of no less than a "C" in these courses, may use one of them to fulfill the Junior Year Experiential Learning Requirement for Liberal Studies.

11. Transfer students are required to complete the senior Liberal Studies Capstone requirement. This requirement cannot be substituted or waived.

12. Accumulation of additional credit in general education type transfer courses. Students transferring courses from semester institutions receive 1.5-quarter hours for each semester hour earned. As these courses are applied to DePaul's programs, where courses traditionally earn 4 quarter hours, the additional transferred hours tend to add up (i.e. most semester courses are worth 3 semester hours which translates into 4.5 quarter hours of credit—hence there isn't a neat one-to-one correspondence between courses and so when credits are transferred, extra credits can accumulate). In addition, students sometimes take more courses that would normally qualify for a particular domain than DePaul requires in that domain (e.g. the student took four Self, Society and the Modern World types of courses, and we only require three). Therefore the Liberal Studies Council authorizes waivers to be granted for transfer students based on the extra hours accumulated in courses that would normally "fit" into one of the learning domains. Waivers can be granted for domain electives (which take the place of Discover/Explore Chicago and Focal Point); self, society and the modern world; arts and literature; scientific inquiry (not lab); philosophical inquiry; understanding the past; or religious dimensions)—at most one course may be waived per domain. Furthermore, students must complete at least one course (transfer or DePaul) per domain.

    1. Students transferring into DePaul with the I.A.I. package who have accumulated additional credits may use those credits to waive one course from either the Philosophical Inquiry or the Religious Dimensions domain, as long as they complete at least one course (transfer or DePaul) in each of those domains.

    2. Domain electives (granted to transfer students who enter with 30 or more credit hours in lieu of Discover/Explore Chicago and the Focal Point Seminar) will be waived before domain courses.

    3. Transfer students who want to combine waivers based on accumulated extra hours with the Modern Language Option may do so as long as they complete at least one course (transfer or DePaul) per domain.

B. All DePaul Students who participate in the Liberal Studies Program

There are a number of general Liberal Studies program guidelines that pertain to all DePaul undergraduate students (except for SNL).

1. Students cannot double count classes in their major and Liberal Studies. Exception: students who are doing a minor or double major can count courses from the minor or second major for Liberal Studies credit.

2. Because all sophomore seminar courses in multiculturalism in the U.S. are listed as ISP 200, students can take a class offered by a faculty member from their major field department to fulfill the multicultural seminar.

3. Students can take a class offered from their major to fulfill the junior year experiential learning requirement. If this course is applied to the major, students will then complete an additional domain elective or the third class of the modern language option can apply if the students are pursuing the MLO. For exceptions, see item #6 below.

4. The senior Liberal Studies Capstone course is offered through the student's major field of study. Students must receive a grade of C- or better. For LA&S students: If the capstone is listed as a requirement within the student's major, the student will then complete an open elective in place of the capstone.

5. For various reasons students may ask for course substitutions within the Liberal Studies program. Students requesting a substitution must write a letter to the associate dean of their home college explaining why the substitution should be granted. The associate deans will keep track of these requests and the decisions. The chair of the Liberal Studies council will periodically convene the associate deans to discuss these decisions.

6. Students who would like to take a more advanced class for Liberal Studies credit (i.e. a DePaul course not approved in one of the domains) must first meet with the instructor of the class to determine that the student is eligible for the course and that the content of the course meets the Liberal Studies guidelines for that domain. If the faculty member approves of the student's request, the faculty member must write to the dean's office of the student's home college or to the chair of the Liberal Studies council (who will forward the request to the designated associate dean in the student's home college) indicating approval and briefly stating how the course meets the guidelines of the domain. This should be done by the first day of the quarter. The designated associate dean in the student's home college will make the final decision and notify the faculty member and the student of the decision and authorize the substitution to be entered into the student's record. The chair of the Liberal Studies Council will periodically convene a meeting of the associate deans to discuss/review the decisions that have been made.