Download the seminar course proposal form

Associate instructor appointments in Collins are .50 FTE Student Academic Appointments. Appointments include fee remission, health insurance, and their home department’s semester stipend. Per campus policy, student academic appointees are limited to .50 FTE, meaning associate instructors in Collins may not hold additional appointments of any sort. For advice on this topic, contact the assistant director at 812-856-3025.

We are unable to hire graduate students from outside of the College or IU staff members for teaching at Collins.

Note: Collins also offers 1 and 2 credit courses. For more information, contact the Collins Director. The pay is as follows:

• $4333 2-credit seminar or Options course
• $2167 1-credit Options course

Even if you’re an early bird, we don’t recommend scheduling Collins classes before 9:00 a.m. Most of our classes run between 10:10 a.m. and 4:50 p.m. If a course requires film screenings, those screenings will often be scheduled for an early evening hour.

Collins’ associate director can help you work out a schedule for your course that will work best for you and your students.

Your course will be listed under the department heading “CLLC” for Collins Living-Learning Center. Most of the 100 and 200 level courses count for General Education credit. In some cases, departments allow majors to take Collins seminars for credit in the major. If you think your department might agree to do this, we urge you to approach the director of undergraduate studies.

Board of Educational Programming (BOEP) members and the Collins staff promote courses within Collins. Promotion elsewhere on campus is the responsibility of the instructor.

We strongly encourage instructors to publicize their courses to their own departments, related departments, and academic advisors.

Flyers, informational meetings, in-class announcements, email, websites, and personal contact are all effective methods for promoting your course.

We will ask you to design a course flyer that will be used to advertise your course. The flyers will be posted inside Collins; we urge you to take extras and post them in relevant academic buildings. The Collins staff can help you design a flyer, if needed, and reasonable duplicating expenses will be covered by Collins. We would also be happy to host informational sessions or other promotional events (such as a lecture or workshop) in one of our public meeting spaces.

If you are concerned about low enrollment in your course, contact Collins’ staff.

Minimum enrollment for most Collins courses is 10.

If at least 10 students are not enrolled four weeks prior to the beginning of the semester (or one week before the course begins, for 2nd 8 weeks courses), the course may need to be cancelled. We occasionally offer undersubscribed classes as 2nd 8-week courses but are not eager to do so.

Maximum enrollment for most Collins courses is 16 students. This relatively small size is supported by the College, and we believe it helps to maintain the high quality of student-teacher and student-student interaction for which Collins courses are known.

If you feel there are special circumstances that may require a different minimum or maximum enrollment for your course, please describe these in your course proposal and discuss them during your BOEP interview.

Once your course has been approved by the Collins Faculty Curriculum Committee, it will be offered. We do expect our courses to meet minimum enrollment requirements (usually ten students).

You may access your roster from your course’s Canvas site as soon as it becomes available to you (typically in early June for fall courses and in October for spring courses). These rosters change continually until all students have enrolled.

All Collins instructors have a mailbox in the Collins Duty Office (off the Edmondson Formal Lounge). Please check it before or after each class. You may receive some duplicate campus mailings here, but you will also receive Collins announcements and other relevant material. You may also use your mailbox as a drop-off point for students to turn in homework or return borrowed materials. Please note that your mailbox will only be accessible when the office is open, which is 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Textbooks: Visit Faculty Enlight at https://www.facultyenlight.com/ to create an account and place your order. Even if you will not have a textbook for your class you will need to follow these steps to indicate this. Collins’ Associate Director contacts instructors prior to the deadline for orders with a reminder.

Course readers: Visit ClassPak at https://custompub.indiana.edu/index.html for ordering and for more information.

You may purchase books, DVDs, subscriptions, and other materials that will be made available to your students at the Collins Library from your instructional support budget (usually $200 for a 3-credit course; prorated for others), or submit a proposal to BOEP to fund these purchases.

Be sure to speak with Collins’ assistant director before making any purchases.

Please do! Each course has an instructional support budget intended to encourage experiential learning, including field trips. If you have a major trip planned (for example, out-of-state or overnight), the Collins staff will help you organize it.

Additional funding is available for major trips. Among the places Collins classes have visited are the Art Institute and Newberry Library in Chicago, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the International Dada Archives at the University of Iowa. Classes have also attended conferences on various topics, such as Animé and Star Trek.

Many classes take day trips to resources in Indianapolis and elsewhere within the state as well.

Yes. We can pay any guest speakers a stipend as taxable income from your course budget. We’ll need to process paperwork in order to make this payment, so please let the Collins assistant director know when you are planning to have a guest speaker that you would like to pay for their time. Higher-budgeted guests may be covered with support from BOEP or other IU resources (plan well in advance).

The instructional support budget is intended to provide funding for experiential learning activities, guest speakers, supplemental instructor materials, culminating activities, and other projects and supplies that will enhance students’ learning.

It is funded by the living-learning center fee paid by Collins residents, and provided courtesy of the student Board of Education Programming that selected your course.

Note: Student textbooks and student supplies are not covered by the instructional support budget; students are expected to purchase their own textbooks and supplies.

The support budget for 3-credit courses is generally $200 per semester. You will be given a budget when you are appointed to teach. All expenditures must go through Collins’ assistant director; if you have any question about whether an expense will be allowed, just ask.

If you have a special project or purchase that will take you over budget, you may submit a proposal to request additional funding from BOEP. Experiential learning is strongly encouraged at Collins; it is an important part of what makes our courses unique. We will do whatever is needed to facilitate your planning.

Instructors are encouraged to use Canvas for syllabi and other course materials. You may also have your syllabus and other short class handouts copied in the Duty Office. Please bring in your materials at least two days before you plan to distribute them. If you have lengthy handouts, please submit them as a course packet for students to purchase at the bookstore or put them on Canvas.

Rooms and Keys: All three classrooms are open during the day; no key is needed. The Cravens classrooms are locked in the evening; you may sign out a key at the Center Desk in Edmondson. If you will hold scheduled film screenings as part of your class in the Collins Cinema, you will gain access to the space through your IU ID card. Our Associate Director will provide you with further instructions. Use of any of the rooms outside your scheduled class time is by request; you may also schedule larger spaces, such as the Coffeehouse, for special events; contact Collins’ student services assistant for more information.

AV Equipment: There is standard media equipment in each classroom. For more information, call the associate director at 812-855-7354. Please do a trial run before class with any of the equipment you haven’t used before. Make sure all equipment is left as you found it before leaving.

First, post a message through Canvas to your students. Then, call or e-mail the Student Services assistant in the Duty Office (812-855-9815 or CLLC@indiana.edu). If no one is available, you may call the assistant director (812-856-3025), the associate director (812-855-7354), or the Center Desk (812-855-5553) and request that a notice be posted on the door to your classroom or on the white board in your classroom.

As for other classes at IU, add/drop is automatic during the first week of classes. After that students may only add classes at the instructor’s discretion. Contact the associate director about adding students after the auth. add/drop period.