Creating your Student Directed Seminar

Your Faculty Sponsor should be a tenured or tenure-stream faculty member. Sponsoring a Student Directed Seminar requires additional work that may not be included in the work terms for faculty with other appointments.

However, with the support and approval of a Department Head, the SDS Advisory Committee will consider seminars supported by colleagues other than tenure or tenure-stream faculty. In this case, it is important that such faculty members agree to take on this supervisory role voluntarily and understand that it is not a condition of their UBC employment.

Responsibility for finding a faculty sponsor rests with aspiring student coordinators. We suggest you look to connect with a faculty sponsor whose interests align with yours and with whom you’d like to develop a close working relationship.  When ‘cold-calling’ professors to express interest in collaborating on an SDS, consider setting up a meeting to explain your interest, providing links to the SDS program and an abstract of your course idea.

The committee is looking for academically rich, challenging, and well thought-out courses that will create an exceptional learning environment for students. 

Submit your seminar proposal through our application form using the 2025/26 Student Directed Seminars Proposal Guide (pdf).

We need to ensure that coordinators have the academic background to undertake this rigorous form of study. All coordinators are required to submit unofficial grades for all years at UBC from Workday.

If you studied at another institution for a portion of your degree, please include those grades. If this is not possible, please let us know.

This unofficial record must be uploaded to your online application form when you are ready to submit.

This confirms that your Faculty Sponsor has agreed to supervise your coordination of a Student Directed Seminar. Have you Faculty Sponsor complete the 2025/26 Student Directed Seminars Faculty Sponsor Form (pdf) and email it to student.seminars@ubc.ca by the application deadline. The email must come directly from your Faculty Sponsor.

This form should come from a Faculty Member who can attest to your suitability to take on the role of a Student Directed Seminar Coordinator. It cannot be filled out by your Faculty Sponsor. In other words, your Faculty Recommender cannot be the same person as your Faculty Sponsor.

If you have a Co-coordinator, each individual must submit a separate faculty recommendation form.

Have the Faculty Member submit the 2025/26 Student Directed Faculty Recommendation Form (pdf) and email it to student.seminars@ubc.ca by the application deadline. The email must come directly from the Faculty Recommender.

Student Directed Seminars are expected to run in Term 2 of the year your proposal is accepted, after you have completed mandatory training in Term 1.

All seminar coordinators must participate in mandatory training in Term 1 of the year their proposal is accepted. Training is a requirement for running an SDS course. Training takes place in Term 1 and the dates and times are decided by each cohort.

All student coordinators must be undergraduate students for the full-year of the year their proposal is accepted (Sept to May) in order to complete training prior to course facilitation. This means if you submit a proposal in the summer and are graduating in Term 1 of the same year, you are unfortunately ineligible to participate in the program.

The Student Directed Seminar program works with students from all academic backgrounds. While there is no specific grade requirement, the SDS adjudication committee looks for students with a strong academic background. Aspiring student coordinators need to demonstrate both the capacity to undertake the time commitments of coordinating an SDS and the ability to facilitate a rigorous upper-level course. Academic performance is one component of the adjudication process.

Some best practices to consider when soliciting a faculty sponsor include:

• Providing background information about the SDS program, including a link to the program website
• Providing some initial ideas about your proposed course, like an abstract
• Providing a link to the Faculty FAQ page
• Scheduling a chat or meeting to introduce yourself

Responsibility for finding a faculty sponsor rests with aspiring student coordinators. We suggest you look to connect with a faculty sponsor whose interests align with yours and with whom you’d like to develop a close working relationship. When ‘cold-calling’ professors to express interest in collaborating on an SDS, consider setting up a meeting to explain your interest, providing links to the SDS program and an abstract of your course idea. If you’re really stuck, have a look through the list of previous SDS faculty sponsors or ask one of your current professors for ideas.

SDS coordinators come from all backgrounds, disciplines and experiences. Some of the characteristics which make for a successful SDS coordinator experience include:

• Strong time-management skills
• A willingness to learn
• Leadership experience
• Strong communication skills
• Critical thinking skills

Training is provided to help develop facilitation, teaching and communication skills.

Potential Student Directed Seminar coordinators are not expected to be experts in the areas they are proposing; however, background knowledge and curiosity in the topic proposed is important. We look for proposals which demonstrate an academically rigorous knowledge base (e.g., academic literature and media).

Unfortunately, the Student Directed Seminars program is only available to undergraduate students in good academic standing.

All proposals are reviewed by a committee of faculty, staff and alumni coordinators. The committee looks for many qualifications, including:

• Academic rigour
• Demonstrated gap in the UBC curriculum
• Qualifications of the seminar coordinator(s)
• Proposed learning environment and processes

All proposals receive feedback after their first review and some proposals may require resubmission before acceptance into the program.