Application Information & Procedures

How Residential College Seminars are developed and selected

Residential College Seminars are courses offered for credit to Yale undergraduates under the auspices of the residential colleges. Proposals for seminars are generated within the residential college—suggested by students, college fellows, and masters—or externally, by Yale graduate students or potential instructors outside the Yale community. Each of Yale's twelve residential colleges sponsors a committee comprised of students and faculty responsible for reviewing and approving seminar proposals.

Eligibility of applicant

Residential College Seminar instructors generally hold a terminal post-baccalaureate degree (PhD, JD, MFA, MD, or the equivalent), and generally have experience teaching at the college or university level. Exceptions are sometimes made in the case of advanced graduate students at Yale, who are actively pursuing a terminal degree and are in the final year of their graduate career. Exceptions are sometimes also made in the case of writers, artists, business executives, entrepreneurs, and others who have distinguished themselves in their chosen fields and who have five or more years of professional experience. Please note: Graduate students from institutions other than Yale are not eligible to apply.

In This Section

Residential College Seminars

How to propose a College Seminar

To propose a course, potential instructors are required by the Committee on Teaching in the Residential Colleges (CRTC) to submit an application in the manner stated below. As part of the application, potential instructors must complete a set of standardized proposal forms. A potential instructor may submit only one proposed course per term. There are restrictions on when and how often an instructor may teach. If an instructor has taught previously in the program, he or she should check with the Program Coordinator regarding eligibility. (An instructor may not teach in consecutive terms and, after teaching a second time, must take a two-term hiatus. This two-term hiatus applies every second term of teaching, and it applies to the instructor, even though the course may change. If two terms or more pass after an instructor teaches, the requirement for a two-term hiatus is fulfilled and eligibility to teach begins once more.)

What happens after proposals are submitted

All proposals are forwarded to each of the twelve college seminar committees for consideration. If a college is interested in a particular proposal, that college's seminar committee will schedule an interview with the applicant. The interview period will run for one month following deadline. Applicants coming from a distance with multiple interviews should try to schedule their interviews so that they have only one or two trips to campus.

Once a course is selected, it is sponsored by two Residential Colleges and goes through an extensive review process by the following committees:

Committee on Teaching in the Residential Colleges (CTRC): a standing Yale College committee that is responsible for overseeing the Seminar Program and reviewing all sponsored seminars.
Course of Study Committee: a standing Yale College committee that reviews all courses offered for credit in Yale College.
Yale College Faculty: those seminars sponsored and approved by the previous two committees are presented for approval at a meeting of the Yale College Faculty.

Approved instructors will be appointed Lecturers in Yale College (or, in the case of graduate students, Part-Time Acting Instructors).

The purpose of this process is to ensure the high quality of the seminars offered. Approval is not automatic at any of these stages. Final approval for seminars can only be given by the College Seminar Program Coordinator after proposals have passed through all of the stages described above.

Requirements for students enrolled in College Seminars

Seminars in the Residential Colleges carry a standard one-course credit in Yale College. This means that a seminar constitutes between one-fifth and one-fourth of a student's workload for the semester. Seminars meet for one two-hour period weekly during the semester. Evaluations of a student's performance must incorporate some graded work by midterm and a substantial final paper, project, or exam. The norm for written work is 18-22 total pages per term (significantly higher for writing courses); graded work is required by midterm and final papers and projects are due by the end of Reading Period. The syllabus should include all due dates as well as papers with page length specified, projects, exams, etc. with percentages accorded to each (classroom participation may represent no more than 20%-25% of a final grade).

Compensation for teaching

The stipend for instructors from outside Yale who teach in the College Seminar Program is $6400 for 2009-2010.

In keeping with the financial aid guidelines of the University, Graduate and Professional School students registered at Yale receive the same stipend as Part-Time Acting Instructors who are teaching one course.

Full-time staff of the University do not receive compensation in addition to their usual salary; instead, a transfer of $3000 is made to the employee's budgetary unit if the unit is not within Yale College.

Arts and Sciences faculty do not receive compensation in addition to their salary. No monies are transferred to their budgetary unit.

Co-instructors receive one half of the appropriate stipend.

Instructors will be appointed as Guest Fellows in their primary sponsoring residential college. Among other things, this appointment entitles instructors to the use of the Yale libraries and to the purchase of meals in the dining hall of their sponsoring college at 35 percent discount.

In addition to providing these stipends, the College Seminar Program can assist with some of the expenses incurred while teaching. Information concerning allowable expenses is provided on the budget information form.