University Curriculum Committee Policies

About the UCC

UCC Website. Includes list of members, meeting schedule, meeting agendas and minutes.

Approval Decisions

In the Academic Approval Tracking System, the UCC uses the following policies for request decisions:

• Approved. The request will be advanced to the next approval process step.
• Conditionally Approved. The request will be sent back to the approval group for the preceding approval process step. This is typically the college. After the UCC comments have been addressed, the previous approval group may again approve the request. Such requests will then typically be handled by UCC staff and not return to the full UCC.
• Denied. The request will be sent back to original requestor and may not be revised without submission through the approval tracking system as a new request.
• Recycled. The request will be sent back to the approval group for the preceding approval process step. This is typically the college. After the UCC comments have been addressed, the previous approval group may again approve the request. Such requests will then return to the full UCC for approval.
• Tabled. The request will be considered at a later UCC meeting. This decision is typically used when further information is required by the UCC before making a decision.

New Courses and Curriculum Changes

1. New courses that are required for a new degree, major, track, certificate, minor or curriculum change must be approved by the UCC at least a month before the new program or curriculum change is considered by the UCC.
2. New courses may be offered in the semester following UCC approval (in same catalog year) after approval by SCNS.
3. Minor changes to existing courses may be made effective the semester following UCC approval (in the same catalog year) if the changes do not disadvantage students already enrolled.  Most changes to existing courses will be effective the following catalog year.

Syllabus Policy

Every course syllabus must conform to the UF Syllabus Policy.

Graduate Programs and Courses

Graduate programs and courses, except for joint graduate/undergraduate courses, are approved by the Graduate Council and go to the UCC as information items – they do not require UCC approval. In these cases, after Graduate Council approval has been indicated in the approval system, the requests will move to the UCC in the system but will be immediately marked as approved at the UCC, even before they are presented at a UCC meeting. Then the graduate programs will move immediately to the Senate and the courses move up to SCNS.

Co-Listed Graduate and Undergraduate Courses

Two or more courses are said to be co-listed or co-taught if the students in the courses are taught by the same instructor(s), at the same times. For face-to-face courses these would need to be scheduled at the same time and in the same location, but that is not necessary for courses offered online or by distance learning. This policy addresses co-listed courses involving pairings of undergraduate courses with graduate courses, which are also referred to as joint graduate/undergraduate courses. The aim of this policy is to ensure that the university

(a)   Upholds the integrity of the graduate program by ensuring that students who receive graduate credit are completing graduate-level work, and

(b)   Guarantees that students receiving undergraduate credit not be held to graduate-level standards.

 The university has adopted the following policy to govern co-listed, or joint, undergraduate and graduate courses:

1. Acceptable configurations of such courses include only 4000/5000 and 4000/6000 levels.  Lower level undergraduate courses should not be co-listed with a graduate course.
2. Students can obtain credit for only one of two co-listed courses.
3. The University Curriculum Committee (UCC) has the responsibility of preventing duplication of courses so it must approve new courses that will be co-listed. The following guidelines will be followed in considering applications for joint graduate/undergraduate courses:
   • Approval for offering new joint graduate/undergraduate courses must be obtained from both the Graduate Curriculum Committee (GCC) and the UCC. The requests to the GCC and UCC for these approvals must include syllabuses for all the courses involved.
   • The two syllabuses must provide for substantial differences in student expectations at each level. In particular, graduate-level courses should specify a combination of the following, in contrast to their undergraduate counterparts: additional readings, additional assignments or examinations, more rigorous assignments or examinations, more demanding performance criteria. These syllabuses must clearly inform students of the fact that the two levels (graduate and undergraduate) are included in the same class.
   • All students in the co-listed courses should be held to the same standards regarding attendance, academic honesty, and general class expectations.
4. Colleges should monitor offerings to ensure that all co-listed sections (not just new ones) meet these criteria. Since newly proposed graduate and undergraduate courses    are processed through different approval paths, it is particularly important that college curriculum committees monitor new submissions for co-listed courses for compliance with these policies.