Curricular Information
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Syllabi
CCA faculty are required to produce a syllabus for each course taught. The syllabus should include the following:
- course plan by date
- learning outcomes (supplied by program chair)
- assignments with due dates
- course requirements
- grading criteria
Early in the semester, faculty are required to upload the course syllabus to their course's Portal page. Instructors may find this syllabus format and parts helpful.
Upper Division Interdisciplinary Studio (UDIST) Course Proposals
Upper Division Interdisciplinary Studio (UDIST) courses offer opportunities for undergraduate students and instructors to generate interdisciplinary theories, practices, and works within a studio-based format. These required studio courses allow students to work in an interdisciplinary manner with peers from other programs while at the point in their education where they have developed media and disciplinary expertise in their respective majors.
Interested in submitting a course proposal? Please follow the link for detailed instructions, learning objectives and proposal guidelines prior to submitting your proposal application.
More information on UDIST Course Proposals
Undergraduate College-wide Learning Outcomes
California College of the Arts educates students to shape culture through the practice and critical study of design, architecture, fine arts, and writing.
Through coursework rooted in the many facets of a studio practice, a rigorous general education curriculum, and enriching co-curricular experiences, students prepare for a lifetime creating work that matters.
This preparation culminates in graduates whose creative practices demonstrate the perceptual acuity, conceptual understanding, and technical facility sufficient for them to begin work on a professional level.
In addition to the outcomes linked below, which are vital components of any undergraduate education at the college, each academic program addresses discipline-specific concepts, techniques, and learning outcomes in depth.
CCA Minors
The minors in Computational Practices and Ecological Practices incorporate courses across all disciplines to count towards their minor requirements. These courses substantially address at least one of the minors' learning outcomes with course content clearly outlined in the syllabus to indicate a focus on topics related to the minor.
Faculty interested in aligning their courses with the minors or questions about the designation process can reach out to J.D. Zamfirescu-Pereira, Computational Practices Minor Coordinator, or Susanne Cockrell, Ecological Practices Coordinator.
Check out past Computational Practice Courses and Ecological Practices Courses.
Student Laptop Requirement
All incoming undergraduate students are required to have a laptop and external storage device that meets CCA's minimum technical requirements. This requirement will help ensure that all students have access to the college’s digital resources at home or on campus. As collaboration is a foundation of our curriculum, owning a laptop will promote communication and research, as well as making, in and out of the classroom.
Sponsored Studios
A sponsored studio is a CCA studio course in any discipline or collaboration of disciplines that receives a minimum donation of $50,000 from a sponsor. The primary purpose of the sponsored studio is the educational and professional development of CCA students, particularly through the expectations and critique given by representatives of the sponsoring company.
Types of sponsors:
- industry manufacturers and/or service providers
- professional agencies and firms that offer consulting services
- government organizations
- philanthropic organizations
Intellectual Property
The purpose of CCA's Intellectual Property Tenets is to:
- maximize the development and open exchange of ideas and the generation of creative work product in the educational environment of California College of the Arts (“CCA”)
- provide guidance to the CCA community in the development and disposition of works created in connection with CCA
- provide a method for resolving potential ambiguities or conflicts, or both, regarding the ownership and disposition of such works
- facilitate the development, distribution and use of works created with CCA facilities by its students and faculty for the benefit of the public, and the benefit of CCA and its students and faculty
Some of the programs at CCA may give rise to exceptions to these Tenets.
These Tenets are intended to evolve as the result of feedback from the CCA Community and will therefore change from time to time.
To review the Intellectual Property Tenets in its entirety, download Intellectual Property Tenets (PDF).
Assessment & Student Data
As an institution where learning and creative practices are pursued through cycles of iteration and critique, CCA is fundamentally oriented towards continual improvement.
Assessment of student learning is the practice whereby faculty establish learning goals, review evidence of student learning to determine whether those learning goals are being met by (all) students, and determine how the curriculum and pedagogy might evolve to improve learning. Thus, assessment findings represent the direct and specific feedback programs use to make evidence-based decisions about their efforts and resources.
In order to have the fullest understanding of assessment results, student ID numbers are sometimes collected during the assessment process. Having this information allows programs and the college more generally to understand much more about how well learning goals are being met. For instance, ID numbers might be used by a program to determine that seniors have met the learning goals of a course while sophomores in the class have not, which the program faculty and chair will then want to address as a structural matter.
Assessment data is not associated with any individual student’s performance because assessment is oriented towards identifying generalized trends and aggregated findings that can inform things like course design, faculty development, and prerequisite updates in order to help more students achieve the learning outcomes.
It is worth noting that assessment projects are distinct from evaluations (grading, course evaluations, etc.), which are oriented towards providing students individualized feedback about their accomplishment in response to assignments, projects, and courses. Assessment findings are also not intended to determine the effectiveness of any individual instructor and are generally not used for this purpose.
