The creation of a new course is a significant undertaking for a faculty member—it takes research, diligence, and a deep commitment to student learning. It also takes a lot of time: the course proposal process is extremely rigorous, going through a minimum of 8 levels of approval, from the department to the college, all the way to the Provost, often with multiple rounds of revisions. From conception to classroom, creating a new course often takes years.
Still, in 2024–25, faculty in the College of LAS created nearly 60 new courses—each one a testament to the curiosity and dedication that drive meaningful impact in our classrooms and beyond.
Here we spotlight a selection of these newly created courses, all of which have been taught for at least one semester, with brief reflections from the faculty and instructional staff who created and taught them. These spotlights highlight the innovative spirit of our educators and the College’s commitment to shaping transformative learning experiences.
If you’re interested in learning more about the course creation process, see LAS Guidelines for course creation, revision, and deactivation.
ESL 535, Jin Pennell
"I created this course for first-year international graduate students from technical fields who need training in common genres in technical writing. I hope my students learned how to critically engage with AI tools at each stage of their writing and how to help their readers easily find what they need from their writing, understand what they find, and act on the message."
Kelvin Droegemeier, LAS 450
"It took me 40 years to learn about the topics taught in this course and I realized I could have done a lot more in my career, a lot earlier, had I had the knowledge available in the course at the front end of my career. I bring in as guest speakers experts from Federal agencies, congressional staff, and scholars from all types and sizes of academic institutions."