Independent Study

Independent Study is an intensive, highly individualized course taken for knowledge enhancement beyond the courses offered in a particular area of interest and covering material not described in the University catalog in any other format. An Independent Study is offered by a department only to its majors and minors.

Independent Study must relate to a subject for which the student has adequate preparation and must be commensurate with the student’s class level, major field, and experience. The faculty supervisor must have, or be willing to develop, expertise sufficient to assess the quality of a student’s independent learning. Learning outcomes and criteria or rubrics for assessment of learning should normally be agreed upon in advance.

Independent Study can involve what Ernest Boyer termed the scholarship of discovery, integration, application, or teaching (Scholarship Reconsidered--Priorities of the Professoriate, 1990) or the scholarship of creativity, including creation of works of art, literature, music, film, and theater.

A student must meet with the independent study supervisor to decide on focus, scope of project, meeting times, due dates for progress reports and plan for human subjects approval, if necessary. Credit for a single independent study should not exceed three semester hours; a student should not register for more than three semester hours of independent study in one semester; and the total number of credit hours of independent study for a single student over the course of that student’s graduate career should not exceed six hours.

 A faculty member should normally supervise no more than one independent study student per semester. Students must apply for independent study using a form obtained at their Dean's Office, which must be approved by the supervising instructor, the student’s academic advisor, the department chair of their major, and the Dean’s Office of their major before the student enrolls for the course. If the course is in a department different from their major, the department chair and dean of that program/college must also sign this request.