Undergraduate
The unit of credit is the semester hour. Courses may carry from zero to six semester hours of credit.
During the Fall and Spring terms a semester hour represents 60 minutes per week of classroom work (direct faculty instruction) or 180 minutes per week of laboratory/clinical work. A minimum of 120 minutes of outside work per week is expected for each semester hour. There are multi-semester courses for which no credit can be earned until all semesters of that course have been completed in a satisfactory manner.
During the January and Summer terms a semester hour represents 200 minutes per week of classroom work or 600 minutes of laboratory work with at least 400 minutes of outside work.
Courses offered during the Summer terms may be delivered in an online format (distance learning with partial or no direct faculty instruction). A course taught online covers the same material in the same depth as a face-to-face version of the same course taught with direct faculty instruction. Prior to scheduling, the academic department or interdisciplinary program council must review courses taught online to ensure the standards for awarding credit are consistent and met by all students across all instructional modalities.
Courses that carry zero credits are typically participatory in nature with the expectation of low or minimal work outside of class and are assigned marks of Satisfactory (S) or Unsatisfactory (U). Zero-credit courses are approved in the same manner as credit-bearing courses.
Graduate
The Physician Assistant Program’s credit hour assignments are based on the Carnegie Unit, as follows:
Credit hour ratio for classroom instruction (lecture / learner) is 1:1, where one credit hour is equivalent to one hour of classroom instruction per week.
Credit hour ratio for laboratory instruction (lab and / or small group) is 1:3, where one credit hour is equivalent to three hours of laboratory instruction per week.
Credit hour ratio for clinical clerkships is based on the number of weeks of the experience, where each week (60-80 work / self-study / logging hours) is equal to one credit hour.
Contact hours are based upon the course’s credit hours and modified, as needed, by the mode(s) of instruction used to deliver the course and the length of each Term.