The University's course numbering system will be revised with a new scheme scheduled to debut in Fall 2011, officials confirmed March 10.
The new numbering system will be similar to those used at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and many other higher education institutions. Introductory level courses will be numbered in the 100s, undergraduate courses in the 200s and 300s, advanced undergraduate classes and some graduate classes will be in the 400s to 600s and the remaining graduate classes will be in the 700s to 900s.
Problems with numbering cross-listed courses and new classes prompted the need for a change, said Ingeborg Walther, director of the Office of Curriculum and Course Development and an associate dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. She added that Duke students faced difficulties with their transcripts because some graduate and professional schools thought the students were taking low-level classes.
"Departmental curricula often appear to be confusing at best and incoherent at worst," Walther, who is head of the committee in charge of the revision, wrote in an e-mail. "I think the time is ripe for instituting a new numbering system that will be more transparent to all and even encourage departments to take a fresh look at their courses and curricula."
Steve Nowicki, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, said renumbering the courses is a good idea but added that he considered the change mostly "bureaucratic" and not deeply substantive.
Junior Chelsea Goldstein, Duke Student Government's vice president for academic affairs, said she thinks the change is important, particularly for students applying to graduate schools.
She noted that students could be helpful in reviewing the revised numbering system and then making recommendations to the faculty. The committee currently only consists of faculty members, but Walther said she would like to have students participate in the process.
"I think it's appropriate that it started with faculty and students are coming in later," Goldstein said.
Sophomore Harrison Lee, a Robertson Scholar currently taking classes at UNC, said the correlation between UNC's course numbers and level of difficulty is weaker than at Duke. He added that he was not worried about Duke's current numbering system appearing on his transcript.
"If employers are looking at your transcript diligently... and see that you're doing comparable coursework, then I think it's not going to be a problem given that Duke has a very strong academic reputation," he said. "I think that should count more than how courses are numbered."
Freshman Margo Wilkinson said the new course numbers could be helpful when discussing her classes with friends at other universities that use the more common numbering scheme.
The revision committee will work on the new numbering system to present to all academic departments this semester, Walther said. The departments will have all of Fall 2009 to renumber their courses for review by the committee in Spring 2010. The committee will then update everything in the University's system that includes course numbers before Fall 2011.
Walther added that to avoid confusion with the new system, many courses will carry both current and new numbers for a couple of years.
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