Educational Policy Committee
Term: The term of office is three years. Members may not serve on other standing committees (excluding Faculty Forum). Members of this committee who have served two full consecutive terms must wait an additional two full terms before being eligible to serve again.
Membership: The committee has five elected executive faculty selected as follows: two members from the preclinical departments, two members from the clinical departments, and one member from the Trover Campus; for general faculty appointed by the Dean and three undergraduate student representatives. Departments may not have more than one representative on the committee. The associate dean for curriculum serves as chair and is a non-voting member.
Responsibilities: The Committee is responsible for the overall design, management, and evaluation of a coherent and coordinated curriculum that achieves the educational objectives of the medical school. The Committee will have the authority to lead, direct, coordinate, control, plan, and evaluate the curriculum, and will regularly report on curriculum matters to Faculty Forum and the Dean. To fulfill its responsibilities, the Committee will oversee the following curriculum-related activities:
• Development of the schedule for all courses
• Ensuring that the curriculum is logically sequenced
• Maximizing horizontal and vertical integration within and across all four years of the curriculum
• Evaluation of program effectiveness using outcomes analysis
• Surveying the content and workload in each course and clerkship
• Identifying and eliminating gaps and redundancies in the curriculum
• Reviewing the learning objectives of each course and clerkship and ensuring their alignment with programmatic objectives
• Development of policies that position students for mastery of the school’s educational objectives and maximize their success as learners and future physicians
The Committee will base its authority to implement these responsibilities on adherence to a defined process for determining curriculum changes, to ensure appropriate instructional freedom in the setting of central curriculum management. The Committee should ensure that each academic segment of the curriculum maintains common standards for content, such that each medical student will acquire appropriate competence in general medical care regardless of subsequent career specialty.
Meeting Dates: This committee meets on the first and thrid Wednesday of each month from 2:00pm-4:00pm. Time commitment: Members spend 2-3 hours reading materials for meeting. In addition, members may be asked to meet between regularly scheduled meetings to conduct subcommittee or task force work. This may (but not necessarily) add an additional 2 hours per week.
