Mini-Courses

Current graduate students are the primary intended audience for Bioscience’s mini-courses. Course directors are also encouraged to open their course to postdoc participation, though postdocs cannot officially enroll.

Mini-courses are short format, one to three week courses. The condensed format allows faculty and students to explore a topic without the commitment of a full quarter course. This format also allows faculty to provide intensive learning experiences that cannot feasibly be sustained over a full quarter.

2023-2024 ACADEMIC YEAR
April 2024	Call for Mini Course proposals opens for Fall & Winter Quarters
May 31, 2024	2024-25 Fall & Winter Proposals Due Deadline for mini-course directors to confirm all course details (e.g. title, descriptions, grading basis, units, preferred course schedule, room needs/special requests) New Mini-Course Form due to oge-helpme@stanford.edu. The form will be signed by the Senior Associate Dean and submitted to School of Medicine Registrar.
Mid-late June 2024	Mini-course directors notified of award decisions
June 30, 2024	Priority scheduling deadline: Office of Graduate Education will submit all scheduling requests for Biosciences Mini Courses.
July – September, 2024	Course directors notified of classroom assignments
August 2024	Call for Mini Course proposals opens for Spring & Summer 2025
September 2024	Mini-courses announced to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars; registration opens in Axess.
September 2024	2024-25 Spring & Summer Proposals Due Deadline for mini-course directors to confirm all course details (e.g. title, descriptions, grading basis, units, preferred course schedule, room needs/special requests) New Mini-Course Form due to oge-helpme@stanford.edu. The form will be signed by the Senior Associate Dean and submitted to School of Medicine Registrar.
October 18, 2024	Priority scheduling deadline: Office of Graduate Education will submit all scheduling requests for Biosciences Mini Courses.
November 11, 2024	First day of autumn quarter mini-courses
February 24, 2025	First day of winter quarter mini-courses
May 12, 2025	First day of spring quarter mini-courses
July 21, 2025	First day of summer quarter mini-courses

Mini-courses are offered during the last three weeks of autumn, winter, and spring quarters, and at any time during summer quarter. Mini-courses do not meet on University Holidays. Regular add/drop deadlines apply.

Mini-courses should adhere to the University class meeting time pattern.

Mini-courses must adhere to University unit of credit rules. All mini-courses should meet for a minimum of 10 hours (1 unit).

We are particularly interested in courses that are interdisciplinary in nature and/or address the following high-priority areas in graduate and postdoctoral training:

• Topical/subject areas of interest, targeted to an interdisciplinary audience
• Diversity and Inclusion and Belonging: gender in science, microaggressions, implicit bias, inclusive practices
• Research rigor, reproducibility, and transparency: statistics, statistical analysis, data and image processing, materials and data availability, experimental design
• Responsible conduct of research: conflict of interest, data sharing, responsible authorship and publication, policies for handling misconduct, human/animal subjects, data management, peer review, mentor/trainee responsibilities, collaborative science
• Graduate Student, Postdoc, and/or Faculty Wellness: emotional, environmental, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and/or spiritual well-being
• Career, personal, and/or professional development
• Communication (written, verbal, interpersonal)

Interdisciplinary mini-courses are those that combine areas that are of significant interest to a broad audience of graduate students and postdocs in the biosciences, and do not overlap with existing courses, programs, or workshops.

To encourage and support the development of mini-courses, course directors may be awarded up to $5K for teaching assistants (TAs). For new mini-courses, an additional $5K in course development funds may be requested. Funds are limited and award amounts may vary based on the number and types of proposals received. Departments receive TRS-based funding for mini-courses just as they do for regular courses. Please be as clear and as detailed as possible in your funding request.

Funding decisions will be provided a few months after the application status notification. 

We invite proposals from faculty members or faculty-postdoc, faculty-student, and faculty-staff teams. A faculty member must serve as the lead instructor. If awarded, funds will be allocated to the faculty course director’s PTA account.

We encourage mixed teaching teams of faculty and students and/or postdocs to apply. 

Mini-course proposals should utilize the online form linked above, and must include:

• Name(s) and email address(es) of course director(s)
• Quarter(s) in which you want to teach the course
• Proposed schedule (following University class meeting time pattern)
• Proposed unit value and grading basis
• Course description
• Course learning goals
• Detailed funding request
• Classroom needs and preference
• Course capacity for graduate students and postdocs

Postdocs will be invited to express interest in mini-courses each quarter and may be admitted at the course directors’ discretion, as space permits.

• School of Medicine classroom scheduling is completed by MedScheduler and is completed based on class schedule, capacity and instructional needs.
• LKSC rooms are in highest demand; if requesting an LKSC seminar classroom please be aware that mini-courses are unlikely to be scheduled in the same classroom for each class meeting, especially during peak times of day (10:30am-12:20pm is the most popular class time).
• MedScheduler uses the following priority order for classroom scheduling:
  • Required courses in the MD/PhD/Masters curriculum, including placement exams and finals
  • Required courses in the scholarly concentration curriculum
  • Elective course in the MD/PhD/Masters curriculum, including final exams and seminars (mini-courses = 3rd priority)
  • If you have a department meeting/conference room you can schedule for your mini-course, this is preferred and is very helpful! Please indicate this on your course proposal if you plan to reserve your own meeting space for your course.

For approved Biosciences mini-courses, the Office of Graduate Education (OGE) will:

• Liaise with the School of Medicine Registrar and MedScheduler team to administer course creation, scheduling, and room reservations.
• Provide Project, Task, Award (PTA) accounts for funded mini-courses
• Create and distribute a poster advertising all mini-courses
• Collect postdoc interest lists on a quarterly basis

The mini-course Director and teaching team is responsible for all other course administration responsibilities, including course evaluations, recruiting and hiring TAs/CAs, purchasing supplies, A/V support, and all communication with students and postdocs.