To gain general education status, special topics courses (286 or 486) must be approved by the General Education and Undergraduate Academic Policy Committee prior to the semester they are offered.
When a special topics course with gen ed status is approved as a permanent course, it must be reapproved as a gen ed course.
Once a course secures gen ed status, students enrolled in the course for the current or upcoming semester gain gen ed credit for the course unless they have otherwise already fulfilled it.
If a course secures gen ed status during a later semester, students who have previously taken the course do not automatically gain gen ed status for the course. A student may petition the AVP, however, to grant retroactive gen ed credit for the course. The student must complete the “Permission to Waive or Substitute Degree Requirements” form, which is available from the registrar’s web page.
Apart from 286 and 486, courses may not be run sometimes as gen ed courses and sometimes not.
A course in a given semester may not be a gen ed course for some students but not for other students.