The ICOS Course
INTERDISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE ON ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES SEMINAR SERIES
Co-Directors:
Jim Westphal, RSB Strategy and Lilia Cortana, LSA Psychology
The ICOS Seminar comes in two formats. The one-credit version, offered pass/fail and available to both masters and doctoral students, requires attending the weekly seminar, completing the readings for the week, and participating in the discussion, either live during the session or virtually via the ICOS webpage.
Doctoral students can also elect to take the ICOS course for three credits. This version is taken for a letter grade. In addition to meeting the requirements for the one-credit version, this format requires a substantial paper on an organizationally-relevant topic. You can think of it as a concurrent independent study. Students typically use this option to work on a literature review for their dissertation, or to generate a substantial research proposal, or to explore an organizational topic that would benefit from guidance by ICOS faculty. This paper cannot be used for any other course.
[Note: if you are registered for 2 credits, or if you are a non-PhD student registered for 3 credits, please re-register for 1 credit before the start of the semester.]
The instructor is flexible about the topic and focus on the paper, and happy to chat with students about paper ideas, and/or provide feedback on initial drafts at any point during the semester. The University’s guidelines suggest that courses should entail about 3 hours of work per credit hour, so you should expect to spend roughly 8-10 hours per week working on the paper if you choose this option.
COURSE-RELATED QUESTIONS: Contact Jim Westphal at westjd@umich.edu.