If you are interested in proposing a course for academic credit through Extended Courses, we thank you for your interest. We are pleased to work with sponsoring organizations and UM academic departments to facilitate courses in Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters. We feel these courses provide an important professional development and personal enrichment facet of higher education to the community.
A complete course proposal packet includes the Credit Course Proposal Form, a course syllabus, and a current resume for non–UM faculty.
After reading the information below, please contact Holly Kulish to begin the Course Proposal Process. She can be reached at 406.243.4168 or holly.kulish@umontana.edu. (If you need to drop materials off, we are located in the James Todd Building on the UM campus. Click here to see a campus map.)
As an instructor or sponsoring agency, you'll be asked to complete a Course Proposal Form detailing information about your course, prepare a syllabus to describe the course content, and provide an up-to-date Curriculum Vitae for the instructor of record. When your course proposal packet has been received and reviewed by Extended Courses, we'll forward it to the appropriate academic department for the necessary signature approvals.
After your course has been fully approved, you'll receive a registration packet and instructions to help students register to receive academic credit. We will process academic credit registrations and provide you with a grade roster to assign grades.
We'll provide all the forms you'll need, definitions, guidelines, information on how to prepare a syllabus, and we'll consult with you throughout the process.
A minimum of 15 hours of instruction over a 2-3 day period is required for each academic credit offered.
Instructors must possess a master's degree to teach undergraduate credit or a combination of undergraduate and graduate credit, or a doctorate or other terminal degree to teach a course for graduate credit only.
A minimum of six to eight weeks is required between the submission of the Course Proposal packet and the course start date. This allows time for academic review and signature approval.
Courses may not be advertised for academic credit until signature approvals have been obtained.
Students will be charged a flat $135 credit recording fee for up to 5 credits for each course in addition to the fee charged by your agency.
The following elements of a syllabus are a good guide for any discipline.
Department and Course Number — Title
Instructor(s)
Dates and location of course
1. Paragraph giving overview of the course
2. Expected student learning outcomes (meaningful, rigorous)
3. Schedule of course topics and activities (dates, days and times)
4. Assessment that clearly connects to learning outcomes above, along with appropriate grading scale.
If the course is offered for both undergraduate and graduate credit, please differentiate the undergraduate and graduate expectations for evaluative assignments. The differentiation must be substantive.
Grading Options:
5. Course materials/readings
We appreciate our relationships with all of our sponsoring agencies. Here are a few of the organizations we work with:
AERIE Backcountry Medicine
America's Professor
American Federation of Teachers (Educational Research and Dissemination Program)
Big Sky Science Partnership
Center for Global Education
Connole-Morton Real Estate School
Ecology Project International
Flathead Lake Biological Station
Glacier Institute
Grant Kohrs Ranch
Missoula Fire Science Lab
Missoula Outdoor Learning Adventures
Montana Writing Project
Montana Speech Language Hearing Association
National Geographic Education Foundation
National Park Service
National Science Foundation
Northwest Connections
Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education
SpatialSci
Wild Rockies Field Institute
WM-CSPD (Western Montana Comprehensive System of Professional Development) through OPI, Helena
Yellowstone Institute