Instructors, Administrators and Faculty
Challenge Course Requirements
Offering a Challenge course at a high school depends on the following:
- An instructor who meets departmental requirements. In all cases, approval is consistent with the Department’s selection process in appointing part-time faculty for on-campus classes. See Procedures Manual for specific department requirements.
- A PSU 100-200 level catalog-listed course that fits the high school’s needs. To see what is offered at a particular high school, see the Participating High Schools page.
- An available faculty partner from the appropriate Department
Becoming a Challenge Instructor
- An interested instructor submits an application, a vitae, and copy of credentials to the director. These are forwarded to the appropriate Academic Department for approval to teach an identified PSU course. Department eligibility requirements are detailed in the Procedures Manual.
- If it appears that all requirements are met, the director arranges a meeting that includes the faculty coordinator for the Department, the director, and the high school instructor. This is an opportunity to answer questions and collaboratively decide how best to support the high school instructor in preparing to teach. It is the general policy of the Challenge Program to not add any new instructors after the start of the new fiscal year (July 1) for the upcoming school year. This helps ensure there is time for a new teacher to become familiar with the course and the program.
- Once approved, the instructor receives a Letter of Acceptance that includes course information, textbook requirements, orientation and workshop requirements, confirms his/her departmental faculty partner, and may include specified training.
- Based on the initial review, the new instructor will either begin training or meet with his/her faculty partner to more thoroughly go over the course syllabus, textbooks, assessment and grading standards prior to teaching the course. There will also be a session with the Director to go over administrative procedures.
- At the start of each academic year, Program Instructors are given Department adjunct appointments on a fixed-term, non-remunerative basis. As such, they are entitled to a PSU computer account, all library services and resources, and the PSU web classroom management system, Canvas.
Current Procedures Manual for Instructors, Administrators, and Faculty