Course Credit Policy

Each course that offers academic credit is assigned a credit value based on the number of scheduled student contact hours and the type of teaching modality used to deliver the course. The college defines a semester credit hour as a unit of coursework equivalent to either 1) 50 minutes of lecture instruction and student engagement per week for 15 weeks or 2) a laboratory comprised of 2-3 hours weekly of structured laboratory learning involving the faculty and the student for 15 weeks, or 3) up to 75 hours of internship or fieldwork for 15 weeks. For courses offered on a schedule different from the 15 week schedule, the associated instructional time (typically 2250 minutes for a three credit course) is distributed evenly over the scheduled weeks of the course. The credit value for each course is displayed as a number ratio following the course title and credit assignment. The first digit indicates the weekly lecture hours; the second digit indicates the weekly laboratory hours; the third digit (where appropriate) indicates the number of weekly experiential learning hours (clinical, internship, practicum, etc.) Courses are designed such that students should expect to study a minimum of two hours outside of class for every hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction.