Christine Wilcox's undergraduate painting course uses Painting as a Language as a textbook.
http://www.macalester.edu/~willcox/classes/begsyll.html
John Carlander's syllabus tells a story and depicts a warm and open environment in which to start to become a painter:
http://cgi2.westmont.edu/forms/syllabi/syllabus_archive/1998Spring/Humanities/art050.doc.
Kamrooz Aram's summer introduction to painting at Columbia
http://www.ce.columbia.edu/_Syllabus.cfm?prmID=430
A minimalist syllabus from Bert Yarborough for a summer class at Harvard:
http://www.summer.harvard.edu/2003/syllabi/31363/
Here's one with an enthnic community perspective by Bryan Keith Thomas
Ethnic Studies Studio: Painting in/within Our Communities
http://www.ccac-art.edu/capl/pdf/Keithsyllabus.pdf.
St. John's College has an amazing course:
http://www.sjcsf.edu/instruction/art/art.html#syl
Learning to paint is an artistic growth gained by figuring out one's own uncharted paths through life and expression. These syllabi offer a number of different styles of facilitating the complex knowledge about how to make a painting that expresses both personal and shared meaning within a compostitional unit.