If you are an upper-year undergraduate student (in your third year or beyond), you are eligible to coordinate a Student Directed Seminar. UBC students can register in two Student Directed Seminars during their degree: once as Coordinator and once as a participant. You can view current seminars or explore past seminars and previous faculty sponsors.
Student Coordinators must complete mandatory training in Term 1 and be prepared to facilitate their seminars in Term 2 of the same academic year.
Applications for the 2025/26 Student Directed Seminars will open in March 2025.
There are a few things that you will need to prepare and submit a proposal. Before starting your proposal, be sure to read through the FAQs.
If you need one-on-one support, please book an advising session.
Once you have a topic in mind for your Student Directed Seminar, you will need to complete the following steps.
Step 1. Reflect on your suitability for being a seminar coordinator
We are looking for academically motivated students who have a strong academic background and leadership experience that can translate to a classroom environment. Student Coordinators must be willing to engage in a true peer-based learning environment and share responsibility with the participants for achieving course outcomes. Becoming a Student Coordinator requires a significant amount of time and strong time management skills.
All Student Coordinators must complete mandatory training in Term 1 and be prepared to facilitate their seminars in Term 2 of the same academic year.
Step 2. Find a Faculty Sponsor
A supportive faculty member is an important part of your application process. They can provide advice and guidance and help shape your idea into a clear and intentional course plan. Your Faculty Sponsor must be a tenured professor who has expertise in your proposed seminar’s discipline or a closely related discipline. An ideal Faculty Sponsor is someone who is interested in mentoring you through course design and facilitation process.
Finding a Faculty Sponsor can be the most difficult part of your application process, but it doesn’t have to be if you start your search early. Reach out to potential faculty sponsors with information about who you are, your qualifications, and your ideas about the course.
You may want to direct your potential Faculty Sponsor to FAQs for faculty (pdf).
Choosing a Faculty Sponsor
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.
If you don’t know who to approach
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.
Step 3. Find a Faculty Recommender
Your Faculty Recommender cannot be the same person as your Faculty Sponsor. Your recommender should be able to attest to your abilities in the key areas required to become a successful Student Coordinator, including leadership, facilitation, communication, and time-management skills.
The Faculty Recommender must submit the 2025/26 Student Directed Faculty Recommendation Form (to be released in 2025) and email it to student.seminars@ubc.ca by the application deadline. The email must come directly from the Faculty Recommender.
Step 4. Develop a course proposal
The course proposal is a strategic document which helps demonstrate the academic value of your proposed course in a way that links academic literature and peer-based learning. Your proposal also helps to contextualize why your seminar would be an asset to the scholarly community at UBC.
Importantly, a strong course proposal clearly demonstrates how your proposed course is unique, including how the material has not been offered before and how it does not duplicate an existing UBC course.
The proposal is also an opportunity to build your idea into a concise and thoughtful plan that links an idea to implementation. Student Directed Seminar Proposals must include the following:
- Seminar rationale (500 words max)
Include your academic focus, the gap you wish to address in the UBC curriculum, any informing literature or frameworks, and academic rigour.
- Learning objectives
Show the ultimate behavior change your seminar is hoping to achieve in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
- Learning environment (250 words)
Outline strategies or approaches to foster a peer-based learning environment.
- Commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (250 words max)
Write a statement indicating how your course will take into consideration the UBC Inclusive Action Plan and indicate how you will foster an inclusive, equitable, and diverse learning community.
- Role of coordinator (150 words)
Describe your positionality within the learning environment.
- Coordinator suitability (250 words)
Share your previous personal, professional, and/or academic experiences that have prepared you to successfully design and facilitate a seminar.
- Co-Coordinator Suitability (250 words) (if applicable)
Share your anticipated challenges in joint facilitation and how you expect to tackle these challenges.
- Academic Freedom and Inquiry (250 words)
Write a statement on how you will foster respectful discourse without the risk of censorship, taking into consideration UBC’s policy on academic freedom.
- Seminar grading and evaluation
Highlight the types of assignments and strategies for evaluation.
- Seminar recruitment and selection (250 words)
Identify the eligibility criteria for enrolment and strategies for recruitment and selection.
- Seminar schedule and plan or sample syllabus
Provide a schedule of topics or readings for the first 4 weeks, as well as the frequency of your seminar.
- Reading list
List the readings for the seminar on one page.
Step 5. Complete all components of the application package by the deadline
The application can take time, so make sure you do not leave it to the last minute.
Apply through an online form which we will release in 2025 for the Student Directed Seminars application cycle.
Please be sure to submit your final seminar proposal form and your unofficial academic record using the online application form. If you are proposing your seminar with a Co-coordinator, you will submit one application for both of you.
Required application components
Seminar proposal
The committee is looking for academically rich, challenging, and well thought-out courses that will create an exceptional learning environment for students.
Submit your final seminar proposals using the 2024/25 Student Directed Seminars Proposal Form (pdf).
Unofficial copy of your grades (all years)
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 the Student Service Centre.
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.
Faculty sponsor form
This confirms that your Faculty Sponsor has agreed to supervise your coordination of a Student Directed Seminar. Have your Faculty Sponsor complete the 2024/25 Student Directed Seminars Faculty Form (pdf) and email it to student.seminars@ubc.ca by the application deadline. The email must come directly from your Faculty Sponsor.
Faculty recommendation form
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 2024/25 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.
The sample proposals shown here are for guiding purposes only. You do not need to use this format or style for your proposal. Application components change annually, so be sure to review all application criteria listed as you prepare your application.
You may book a one-on-one advising session to walk through your Student Directed Seminar Proposal through email at student.seminars@ubc.ca.
If your proposal is approved, you will be required to attend biweekly in-person training sessions for the first term (Sep-Dec). There, you’ll gain valuable tools on seminar facilitation, coordination, syllabus development and promotional strategies to fill up your course. You will also need to schedule a class meeting time, book a classroom, and identify any guest speakers you might want.
Once this has been completed, your seminar will then be made available for registration to students at UBC Vancouver as a 3-credit, upper level course. The minimum enrolment for each seminar is 7 student participants (not including the coordinator), and the maximum is 15.
It has been the most wonderful and insightful educational experience of my life. Period.
former sds participant
Please contact Sheker Mammetgurban at student.seminars@ubc.ca.
