Academic Advising
ONE OF THE MAJOR WAYS
in which the College expresses its concern for the academic
development of each student is in the program of academic
advising coordinated by the Office of the Vice President and
Academic Dean. Each student is assigned an advisor in his
or her major field of interest. Students who have not decided
upon a major or teaching option are assigned a temporary
advisor until a choice is made.
These students should
first work with their academic advisor for discussion of the
programs at Concord College and what may or may not be
appropriate for them. The Counseling Center can provide
testing to help determine a student's aptitude in different
academic areas. When one or more programs are identified,
students are encouraged to approach faculty in these areas for
more information. Students expecting to complete program
requirements in a timely fashion should declare a major before
they have completed 60 credit hours.
Provision is made for
the change of advisor, if this is necessary, by consulting the
division office in the student’s major area. The advisor
is the student’s major contact point with the College.
Questions concerning curriculum, regulations, course selection,
change of major, and academic achievement should be taken to
the student’s advisor. Personal or social problems of a
more general nature can be taken to the student’s advisor
for referral to the appropriate College or community service.
See section on counseling, page 157.
Planning a Course of Study
Graduation from Concord
College requires a minimum of 128 semester hours credit. A
semester hour is equivalent to a class meeting once a week for
a semester; a course carrying three semester hours credit,
therefore, normally meets three times a week in one-hour class
periods throughout the semester. A semester is approximately
sixteen weeks in length. Most courses are three semester hours,
some with laboratories are four-hour courses, and a few courses
carry a different number of hours credit. This number is found
in parentheses at the end of each course title.
A normal course load
for Fall or Spring Semester would be four or five courses
totaling about fifteen or sixteen hours credit. Sixteen hours
taken over eight semesters would complete the total of 128
hours in four academic years without Summer study. It is not
just any 128 hours that is required, however, but the total
including all the specified courses required for the degree
being sought. Most degree programs can be completed within 128
semester hours; certain combinations of majors and minors, or
teaching fields, may require more hours.
Many students find it
necessary to take courses in one or more Summer terms in order
to complete their requirements within four calendar years.
Seven credit hours may be taken in each of the two terms
offered each Summer session.
Concord College
reserves the right to prescribe not only the courses required
for a degree, but the order in which those courses may be
scheduled by a student. This is because a college education is
regarded as a whole, the parts of which should be developed in
proper relationship one to another, not simply as a random
collection of credit hours.
Definition of Terminology
The following terms may be helpful to
students in their program planning.
MAJOR: Under the Bachelor of Arts,
Bachelor of Science, or Business Administration degrees, the
student’s non-teaching field of primary academic
emphasis. The courses may fall within a
single department or may overlap several departments for a
comprehensive major.
MINOR: Under the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor
of Science, or Business Administration degrees, the
student’s non-teaching secondary academic emphasis.
TEACHING FIELDS: Under the Bachelor of
Science in Education degree, the student’s program of
courses in a specific field or fields required for teaching in
the middle and/or high school. One or two fields may be
selected.
SUBJECT SPECIALIZATION:
Under the Bachelor of Science in
Education degree, the student’s
specific specialization taken along with a core program for
teaching in the elementary and/or middle school.
EMPHASIS: In some degree programs,
the student selects a non-teaching area of emphasis, along with
the required basic courses.
Evening Classes
The College offers a number of its regular campus
courses at night. The schedule of courses for any
semester will indicate which courses will meet in the evening.
Students successfully completing these courses are given
residence credit, if they are fully admitted to the College.
Regular students may take evening classes as part of
their full schedule. For those taking less than full
course loads, including persons enrolled only for single
courses, part-time fees prevail as described on pages 161-162.
Workshops
Workshops on and off campus may be scheduled, depending
on the needs expressed and the availability of Concord faculty
for such service. Workshops occasionally are
scheduled as courses on campus, for which college credit is
given to those properly enrolled. They usually carry one
to three hours of credit, and may not be taken for credit in
that subject more than once. Non-credit workshops may be
arranged for particular purposes, in consultation with College
officials. All workshops are subject to approval by
Concord College, and they must follow the regulations of
West Virginia's Higher Education System. Workshops
carry the number 225.
Public Service Learning Internships
Each fall and spring
semester, the West Virginia higher education systemsponsors a
number of off-campus student internships. The majority of
these are in State government offices in the Charleston
metropolitan area. They are a full semester in length,
and are designed to familiarize participants with the
activities and responsibilities of West Virginia’s
public agencies. Students accepted into the program
receive financial support during their internships and are
awarded up to fifteen hours of college credit upon satisfactory
completion of the internship requirements. Further
information may be obtained through the Registrar’s
Office at Concord.
Honors Courses
The Honors Program
provides opportunities for students with records of high
achievement to further enrich their Concord education.
Participants are encouraged to take a more active part in
shaping their own education, both in the classroom and outside,
by enhancing some of their courses for honors designation, by
making more extensive use of the opportunities for independent
study and research which the College already provides,
and by discovering the richness of the resources offered by our
area and our faculty through extracurricular programs and
activities designed especially for Honors students.
Participants in the Honors Program also have the
opportunity to live in specially designated "academic
emphasis" areas of the residence halls.
Students who have
successfully completed the Honors Program will receive the
designation "Honors Graduate," which appears on the
student’s transcript and diploma, and are acknowledged at
commencement.
Successful completion
of the Honors Program entails the following:
1. Formal Admission. The student must complete an application
for admission to the Honors Program, which must be approved by
the Honors Coordinator. Ordinarily, incoming students are
eligible for admission if they have a score of 26 or higher on
the ACT composite (or, for transfer students, an equivalent
score on the SAT), and a grade point average of 3.5 (on a 4.0
scale) or above on course work in high school or at another
college, but the committee may refuse applicants it deems
unsuitable or it may admit applicants who do not meet the usual
requirements. Students already enrolled at Concord are
eligible for admission if their cumulative Concord grade point
average is 3.5 or higher. No student will be admitted to
the Honors Program who has earned more than 78 hours of credit
toward graduation from Concord.
2. Academic Requirements. The student must successfully complete 13
hours of Honors credit. This credit must include HON 101,
HON 401, and 9 hours of regular courses enhanced for Honors
designation through the completion of an Honors Project.
HON 101 is an interdisciplinary, one credit
course; all students admitted to the Honors Program are
required to enroll in this course in the first semester of
their participation in the Program, or the next semester if the
classes are filled.
HON 401 is a three-hour
"capstone" course, interdisciplinary in nature,
centered around a theme or topic (e.g. a contemporary social
issue, or the role of technology in society, or art and/or
literature and history), open only to Honors students within
one year of graduation.
Any student who is in good standing with
the Honors Program and who has completed at least one semester
at Concord may attempt an Honors Project in any class in which
the student is enrolled. The student wishing to attempt
an Honors Project must contact the Honors Coordinator for
initial approval and assistance with project development.
The student, and, if necessary, the Coordinator will then
present the proposal to the faculty member teaching the class
for advice and his/her final approval. The approval
process must be completed by the end of the fourth
instructional week of the semester, and the project must be
completed by the end of the semester. The faculty member
teaching the class will have full responsibility for evaluation
of the completed project, but the project will be separate from
the calculation of the regular course grade. If the
project has been satisfactorily completed, the letter H will be
placed on the student’s transcript along with the course
grade and the student will receive Honors credit for that
course’s credit hours (e.g. a three credit course will
yield three hours of Honors credit), provided that the grade
for the course is B or higher. No Honors designation or
credit will be awarded for courses in which the course grade is
lower than B.
3. Academic Performance. After completing 30 or more hours of
Concord course credit, the student must have achieved and must
maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher in
all courses taken at Concord.
4. Extracurricular Programs. Each Honors student is expected to
participate in a majority of the programs and/ or activities
provided for Honors students each semester. The number of
such offerings will vary from semester to semester.
Independent Study
Independent Study
courses are designed to allow students to pursue independent
research projects in specialized areas other than, and beyond
the content material of any other specific course listed in the
Catalog. The purpose of the independent study is to
encourage individual research initiative and independent study
habits. No independent study course, therefore, will be
used to substitute for any other course listed in the Catalog,
or to satisfy course requirements other than independent study
itself. Although each independent study course is
tailored differently, to suit individual departmental and
divisional differences, all individual study courses will meet
the following minimal requirements:
Before undertaking an
independent study, a student must present a written proposal
outlining his or her study project and his or her anticipated
research methods to an appropriate Faculty member. The
proposal will be evaluated by a committee consisting of this
Faculty member and at least two persons, drawn from the
appropriate discipline, or disciplines, and created for that
particular independent study project. The committee must
approve the study proposal before the student is allowed to
register for the course. This same committee will be
responsible, upon completion of the independent study, for
evaluating the project, and assigning a final grade for the
course. Divisional and/or departmental chairpersons will
be required to keep a record of the activities of each
committee.
Beyond these minimal requirements,
responsibility for the administration of independent study
courses, including the make-up and manner of selection of each
committee will be the prerogative of the appropriate division
or department.
Applications for
Independent Study may be obtained from the Divisional
Chairpersons. Procedures to follow are listed on the
applications.
Dean’s List
The Office of the Vice
President and Academic Dean publishes a list of full-time
students who were registered for a minimum of 12 credit hours
and have attained a grade average of 3.5 or above at the end of
each regular semester.
Accreditation
Concord College is
accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and
Secondary Schools, 30 North LaSalle Street, Suite 2400,
Chicago, Illinois 60602-2504 (telephone 1-800-621-7440).
Programmatic accreditations are held with the National
Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education and the
Council on Social Work Education. The Teacher Education Program
is approved by the West Virginia Department of Education. The
College is a member of the National Association of Business
Teacher Education.
Off-Campus Program
In accordance with the Standards for Off-Campus Instruction, adopted by the West Virginia higher education
system, Concord delivers a number of its classes at off-campus
sites throughout its service region. The principal
recipient of Concord’s growing program off-campus is the
Beckley/Raleigh County area.
Concord has been
delivering Business classes to the Beckley area since 1976.
Over the years the College expanded its offerings there
to include Education and Social Work. In Fall 1991 the
College appointed a full-time Director to coordinate its
offerings in Beckley. Concord also began to provide
general studies classes in Beckley to support its upper
division offerings. Since Fall 1991 Concord’s
Beckley enrollment has continued to grow, as have the
number of classes and the services offered.
Concord officially
opened its Beckley Center in downtown Beckley in January 1992.
With support from the main campus in Athens, the
Beckley Center offers a variety of student support services
tailored to the needs of the adult and part-time student.
These include financial aid counseling, career education
and job placement assistance, academic advising, placement
testing and registration services.
In the area of Adult
Education and Career Counseling, the Beckley Center’s
services range from career counseling and academic advising to
skills testing, résumé writing, interviewing
skills and job search assistance, and access to Concord’s
extensive career placement network.
Off-campus courses qualify
as resident credit for Concord students, and satisfy the
Standards for Assuring Quality in
Off-Campus Credit Instruction,
adopted by West Virginia’s higher education system
in January 1992. These Standards include: a) the same
admission, assessment, and placement standards as those which
apply on-campus; b) a substantive mix (as close to 50%-50% as
possible) between part-time and full-time faculty to ensure
standards of academic quality; and c) the same course
prerequisites, student assignments, number of instructional
hours, degree of library and laboratory use, and other features
of improved student performance as are required on-campus.
The College offers
credit for courses sponsored by West Virginia’s higher
education system that are presented on the Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS) network. Inquiries or requests concerning
television courses should be made to the Associate Vice
President. The television courses cannot be used to
duplicate or substitute for any program course
requirement. They can only be used for elective
credit.
Concord’s services
off-campus will expand as needed as its service area expands.
In future semesters the Beckley Center will provide
credit and non-credit classes to area businesses and schools,
and academic and related services tailored to the needs of
business, adult students, non-profit agencies, local
government, and other groups in the region. It is
anticipated that new technologies will assist Concord
tremendously in fulfilling its mission to serve.
Out-of-State Academic Programs
West Virginia provides
for its residents who want to pursue academic programs not
available within the State through the Academic Common Market
and through contract programs. Both programs provide for
West Virginians to enter out-of-state institutions at reduced
tuition rates. Contract programs have been established
for study in veterinary medicine, optometry, architecture,
podiatry, travel industry management; the Academic Common
Market provides access to numerous graduate programs. The
programs are restricted to West Virginia residents who have
been accepted for admission to one of the specific programs at
designated out-of-state institutions. Further information
may be obtained through the Registrar’s Office.
BA/BS Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies
INTERDISCIPLINARY
STUDIES at Concord College offer students the opportunity to
design a course of study that meets a particular career or
professional need not available in single existing degree
programs. Scholars have long recognized that some of
today’s most exciting career challenges cut across
traditional specialties and demand expertise in more than one
subject area. The BA/BS degree in Interdisciplinary
Studies enables students to include as many as four different
subject areas. This is not an appropriate degree option
for the student undecided about a major. On the contrary,
it is the ideal program choice for the student with a career
plan that is multi-subject and professional goals that are
quite specific. Students will work with a faculty
committee drawn from his or her desired subject areas to insure
that the overall plan is coherent, that every class is
appropriate, and that every student will benefit from the total
range of expertise and talent available on the Concord College
faculty.
Examples
Examples of existing Interdisciplinary
programs include:
—Music
—Public Administration
—Health Care Management
—Environmental Geophysical Sciences
—Leadership and Entrepreneurial
Studies
—International Studies
—Sports Management.
How to Apply
Applications for the
BA/BS Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies are available in the
Academic Dean’s office.
Students must complete
one semester of college before being admitted into the program.
Each program of study must fulfill Concord’s
Program of General Studies and must include an
interdisciplinary program of study that comprises at least two
disciplines [four permitted], at least 48 credit hours, and a
minimum of 24 credit hours of upper level courses. Each
discipline included must contain at least 12 credit hours.
Up to 12 hours of internship, directed research,
performance, or exhibition credit is permitted in the program.
Students must apply
before completing 80 semester hours. To undertake an
Interdisciplinary Degree, a student presents a written proposal
outlining his or her goal and plan. The proposal will be
evaluated by the student’s advisor and four other faculty
members selected by the student. Faculty committee
members must have the rank of Assistant Professor or higher.
Each discipline in the concentration area must be
represented on the committee. The committee will indicate
whether the degree will be a Bachelor of Arts or Science
degree.
Each discipline
represented by 12 or more hours must contain an adequate number
of upper level courses. The student must have an overall
grade point average of 2.0 and must have a minimum of 2.0 in
the courses indicated in the program of study prior to
graduation. Completion of the degree program requires a minimum
of 128 semester hours.
After the program of
study has been designed, the courses listed on the application,
and the appropriate signatures secured, changes made in the
program of study must be approved by all people signing the
application.
Divisions and Departments
THE ACADEMIC programs
of the College are under the direction of six divisions and the
departments in those divisions. Following the
introductory comments, you will find the courses offered by
each division or department. The courses are listed,
generally, in numerical sequence. Usually, the 100- and
200-numbered courses are lower division (freshman and
sophomore), introductory courses. The courses numbered
300 and 400 are upper division (junior and senior), advanced
courses. Normally, students should progress from lower to
upper division work, particularly in their major area of work.
The course descriptions are only a brief notice of the
content and are not intended to be all-inclusive statements of
course objectives. Students should notice prerequisites
for courses, since courses, competencies, or approvals from
College officials may be required. The semester hours of
credit that may be earned by successfully completing the
courses are listed in parenthesis following the course title,
including variable credit. Some divisions include an
optional symbol indicating when the course is regularly
offered. Courses offered in the Fall Semester are
indicated by (F). Courses offered in the Spring Semester
are indicated by (S). On occasion, courses are offered
every other year, in which case, the year (2003, 2004, 2005)
follows the semester indicator. A course with the legend
(S-2004) would be offered during the Spring Semester of 2004
(second semester of the 2003-2004 academic year). Concord
College reserves the right to modify the frequency of course
offerings because of insufficient enrollment, inability to
competently staff the course, or other compelling reasons.
Departmental Abbreviations
Each department at the
College, and each major grouping of courses, is recognized in
course schedules, degree requirement listings, etc., by a two-,
three- or four-letter abbreviation as follows:
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ACCT–Accounting
BEOA–Business Education, Office
Administration & Secretarial Science
BGEN–Business General
ECON–Economics
FIN–Finance
MGT–Management
MKT–Marketing
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AT - Athletic Training
EDUC–Education
E ED–Early Education
H ED–Health Education
L SC–Library Science
P ED–Physical Education
S ED–Safety Education
SPED–Special Education
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ART–Art
CART–Communication Arts
MUS–Music
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ENGL–English
JOUR–Journalism
FREN–French
GERM–German
SPAN–Spanish
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BIOL–Biology
CHEM–Chemistry
GEOL–Geology
MATH–Mathematics and Computer Science
MDTH–Medical Technology
N SC–Natural Science
PHSC–General Physical Science
PHYS–Physics
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APST–Appalachian Studies
GEOG–Geography
HIST–History
PHIL–Philosophy
POSC–Political Science
PSY–Psychology
SOC–Sociology
SOSC–Social Science
SOWK–Social Work
RTM–Recreation Tourism Management
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COLL–Introduction to College
HON–Honors Courses