Syllabus Materials from Bates Resources


Student Affairs

The Office of Student Affairs provides a number of resources for syllabus creation, including several Bates-wide policies related to attendance, course deferral, academic integrity that are critical for inclusion: 

Academic Resource Commons (ARC)

The Academic Resource Commons provides syllabus language that provides students with information on peer tutoring for writing and course content across all academic disciplines:

Writing @ Bates

Writing@Bates provides several handouts and videos to support course design, syllabus creation, and universal design for learning.

Purposeful Work

Purposeful Work: As you work with students looking to connect their academic endeavors to meaningful work beyond the classroom, please encourage them to engage with activities to explore purposeful work and reach out to the Purposeful Work team with interests and questions. Students benefit significantly from working with faculty who actively seek to help them translate their knowledge and skills to professional contexts. If you as a faculty member are interested in explicitly connecting your course content to discussions of meaning, purpose, work and/or careers, consider joining a long list of faculty peers in the Purposeful Work Infusion Project.

Office of Intercultural Education

Office of Intercultural Education: As you work with students coming from a diverse array of backgrounds and experiences, particularly those with minoritized identities from historically underserved communities, please encourage them to access the various student support resources available to them across campus and reach out to the Office of Intercultural Education team with questions and concerns, especially as they relate to navigating their identities, needs, and spaces while at Bates. If you as a faculty member are interested in how to best support our increasingly diverse student population, do not hesitate to reach out to the Office of Intercultural Education team for consultation and support.

Learning Assessment in Institutional Research

IR Learning Assessment webpage for Course-level Assessment Resources includes three approaches to course design: Backward Design (Vanderbilt University), Integrated Course Design (Fink, 2003), and 5E Instructional Model (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study). There are also tools specifically for syllabus design: Universal Design, including sample syllabi (CAST); Syllabus Development Toolkit (Columbia University); and over 7 million sample syllabi in the Open Syllabus database. In discussing learning outcomes and course goals, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a common framework for incorporating multiple levels of thinking and engagement, a list of verbs for each level is a helpful reference when creating course materials.

ILS Curriculum and Research Computing (CRC)

CRC oversees a handful of specialized computing spaces on campus, including the Digital Media Studios. The DMS website includes resources that may be useful in syllabus design, including available support for video projects, podcast/audio projects, and a catalog of the various facilities and loaner equipment.

Harward Center for Community Partnerships

Harward Center: To learn more about the Harward Center and the supports they provide for community engaged learning, please visit this site.