Approved: April 27, 2020
Monitor: Vice President for Academic Affairs
Course charges are defined as amounts to be paid by students for supplies, materials, or other instructional expenses of a course (or course section) or program which are directly related to student participation and which may vary in amount from one student to another. Examples: materials used for class projects which the student retains; materials which are used, broken, or destroyed; cost of maintenance of supplies such as towels/laundry; transportation expenses for field trips; and instructional equipment for use in labs (including dedicated instructional computer labs within academic departments) or studios by students. Instructional equipment is limited to single unit costs of less than $2500 and all purchase requests need to be approved by the Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Students shall be notified in the online schedule for registration which courses have approved course charges and the amount of the course charges. The amount of the course charge shall not be published in the University catalog.
Course charges shall be assessed, or discontinued, only upon the approval of the President. Course charges shall not be approved for general instructional materials such as course syllabi and examination materials. Course charges will be assessed for all scheduled sections of courses with an approved course fee provided that a department may elect prior to the commencement of registration not to assess or to reduce a course fee for a specific section.
All requests for new course charges and all requests for ongoing changes in existing course charges must be submitted to the Provost by December 1 and to the President for consideration by February 1, and generally will be effective with the succeeding Fall Semester. Fees and charges are considered annually. Interim consideration may be made only in exceptional emergency situations.
Funds collected as course charges shall be expended directly or indirectly related to the purpose for which the charge was authorized.
Course charge funds shall be deposited into a separate account.
All course charges shall be reviewed annually by the Vice President for Academic Affairs.
The repository of record for charges approved by the President shall be in the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs.