Can “Topics” courses carry Ethnic Studies Designation?
In most cases, no. The “topics” course mechanism allows departments and programs to offer a variety of courses under a standard number, usually with the title, “Topics in [Subject]”; often, these course listings are used to test and refine new courses as they’re being developed, or to provide members of the faculty a chance to teach in an area of specialty not usually found among the regular course listings. Since the content of topics courses varies from offering to offering, it is usually inappropriate for such courses to carry the Ethnic Studies designation, since there is no way for the Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS) to discriminate between when the designation is appropriate and when it is not. A few departments and programs that focus much of their attention on issues related to ethnic studies and often develop new courses in those areas have been granted permission to create “Ethnic Studies Topics” courses, with the understanding that only topics that meet the criteria for
