The postsecondary curriculum lies at the heart of disciplinary and institutional politics, embodying the identity, values, and vision of both academic fields and educational institutions. Postsecondary faculty members hold significant power in designing courses, a critical aspect of their professional responsibilities. However, little is known about how faculty navigate the processes of course planning, teaching, and revising. This study employs qualitative methodology and the Contexts for Agency framework (Landy et al., 2022) to explore the following research question with nine faculty participants: In a Science-focused Residential College (SRC), how do science faculty beliefs about course design interplay with their curricular decisions? The analysis revealed five key dimensions that shape the interplay between faculty beliefs and curricular decisions: 1) perceived organizational context, 2) faculty’s goal for student learning, 3) sources of faculty’s passion in teaching, 4) evolution of faculty’s curricular decisions, and 5) institutional settings. The discussion highlights the intellectual stimulation faculty derive from course design and emphasizes the importance of institutional trust in empowering faculty to make meaningful curricular decisions.
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