Graduate Course Requirements and Scheduling

Original Policy Source APPM Section III Item 13
Primary Audience Faculty
Student
Status Active
Policy Category/Categories Faculty & Academics
  1. Courses offered for graduate credit must contain material at a more advanced level or must require greater intellectual or creative performance, than do undergraduate courses in the same subject area. It is the level of course material and expectations, and not the level of the student, that defines whether a course should carry graduate or undergraduate credit.
  2. Consequently, in split-level courses, students pursuing graduate credit must receive a syllabus distinct from the undergraduate syllabus for the course. The graduate syllabus must provide evidence that graduate students are required to demonstrate advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities, especially when compared to the requirements established for undergraduate students in a split-level course. 
  3. Graduate courses must allow time for intellectual activities such as graduate-level readings and writing, thoughtful contemplation of class material, research, and analysis of information. Therefore, a graduate course with regularly scheduled class meetings (i.e., not independent study, internship, practicum, thesis, or dissertation courses) must be scheduled in a fashion that allows for such activities, in proportion to the credit per week (7 consecutive days) of scheduled class meetings. A one-semester-hour course may be completed with a single week of class meetings, provided that sufficient time is allowed for out-of-class activities. Each additional semester hour of credit must involve class meetings occurring in at least one additional week, with a break of at least two days between sets of class meetings.
  4. Any exception to these policies requires the approval of the department, the college dean, and the dean of the Graduate School, unless the exceptional format has been approved through the curricular process. If a course with an exceptional format is to be offered on an ongoing basis, it should be submitted through the curricular process for approval.
A, B, C approved by Graduate Council, December 7, 1992 
D approved by Graduate Council, April 7, 1997
A & D deleted, approved by Graduate Council, September 10, 2012
B approved by Graduate Council, April 1, 2013

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