Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost

Criteria for approval. Criteria for approval should follow the University’s existing guidelines to ensure connection to mission, relevance to market and disciplinary needs, faculty oversight, and ongoing assessment of quality. Colleges are expected to develop parallel criteria for the development, approval, and administration of noncredit certificates, although these are not subject to central review.²

Administrative home and faculty roles. Certificates should be located within departments or graduate programs. If a certificate is interdisciplinary across department, graduate program or college boundaries, it should have its own identified program faculty. If it spans multiple colleges, it is recommended that the participating deans determine tuition attribution and that one dean accept the role of host college with primary oversight responsibility.

Certificate programs should be governed by a faculty oversight committee of at least three members that would be responsible for approving courses and instructors, for electing new program faculty members, and for similar administrative matters. At least 50% of the oversight committee must be tenured or tenure-track faculty of the University. A program advisory committee might also be formed for closer ties to the professional community that the certificate serves; it would consist of a mix of program faculty and external community/professional members. Administration of the program should be located where the primary financial responsibility and revenue are located.

Development process. An initial core group of faculty (and, when appropriate, community representatives) would lead in developing the program structure, usually in cooperation with staff from relevant colleges. Colleges and departments are urged to consult with colleagues in other units before listing their courses as part of a certificate program. For Regents’-approved certificates (appearing on the transcript) the proposed program would be reviewed and approved by the host department/program, by the college curriculum committee or academic council and the dean, by the Provost’s office and ultimately by the Regents. For college-based programs, final approval would be at the college dean’s office. After the certificate program’s establishment, new courses would proceed through the host college’s normal approval processes. "Mainstreaming" certificate development and review should ensure faculty engagement and program quality.

Program review. Certificate programs should be reviewed regularly by the host college, perhaps every 3-5 years, to assess program quality and continued or diminished need for the programs. Termination of a Regents’-approved certificate program requires Board of Regents approval.

Fast-track development. Because certificate programs are often designed to meet emerging and fast changing professional training and market opportunities, colleges and host departments/programs will need to develop "fast-track" development and review processes. These might be especially expedited for college-level certificates (whether credit or non-credit) not requiring Regents’ approval. Those certificate programs that are especially designed to meet fast-changing market demands should be reviewed more frequently.

Record Keeping. Because in the case of college-based certificates the courses but not the certificate itself will appear on the student’s transcript, colleges sponsoring them must develop and maintain permanent archival records of student’s certificate work.

Credits. Regents’-approved certificates appearing on a transcript should require at least 12 semester credits. A college or campus may exceed this minimum, based on college standards or the content demands of particular certificate programs, as judged by the internal faculty oversight committee or by an external professional or licensing body. College-level certificates, which afford greater flexibility, should generally require 8 to 12 semester credits, to ensure that the certificate represents substantive preparation in the designated field. Individual certificate programs may require a capstone project or internship experience or comprehensive examination, but such requirements need not apply to all certificate programs. It is understood that in some fields there will be externally administered examinations for the granting of licenses or other external certification.

Credit transfer. Up to 40% of credits toward a certificate program may be transferred from other educational institutions, according to the transfer standards of the host college. The developers of individual certificate programs may propose a lower transfer limit.

Relationship between certificates and degree programs. Many certificate programs are likely to draw upon existing University courses. Thus the credits earned may often be applied to both a certificate and a degree program to which the student has been or will be admitted. Non-degree students enrolled in a certificate program must be clearly notified that their admission to or completion of a certificate program does not guarantee admission to a related degree program. Colleges may adopt different admissions criteria (e.g., relevant professional experience) and/or standards for their certificate programs than for their degree programs in related areas of study. Generally, if many students are likely to move from the certificate to the degree program, it is advisable to keep the standards fairly parallel. (It will be hard to explain persuasively to a student who has completed a certificate program with excellent grades that he or she is still inadmissible to the related degree program.) For similar reasons, certificate students potentially eligible for overlapping degree programs should be encouraged from the earliest stages to obtain academic advising from the degree program’s faculty and staff, so that their selections of courses, etc., will work smoothly into any future degree program efforts.

Admission, good standing, and completion standards. Each certificate program, with the approval of its host college, must specify its procedures and standards of academic performance for admission, good standing and completion. For undergraduate programs, the good standing and completion standard is maintaining a 2.0 grade average; for post-baccalaureate certificate programs the minimum is 2.8. There should generally be a maximum four-year time limit on the completion of all work for a certificate program, although individual certificate programs could specify a shorter (or longer) time limit for completion. Each certificate program should specify a process through which an individual student could apply for an extension of time for completion.

Distributed learning considerations. It is likely that increasing numbers of certificate programs will be delivered partly through technology-enhanced or distance-education methods; some certificate programs may be delivered entirely by such methods. The best assurance of high quality for such programs is to have them administered and reviewed through regular University channels as described above, with as much involvement and oversight as possible coming from University faculty. External distributed learning courses or experiences that a student wants to transfer into a University certificate program should be subject to the University’s normal standards and procedures for transfers of credits in degree programs.

Role of non-tenure-track instructors. Because certificate programs are often designed to provide practical training related to specific professions or labor markets, it is reasonable that some of the instruction would be provided by qualified non-tenure-track faculty with relevant professional experience. The appropriate proportions of regular and non-tenure-track faculty will vary from program to program, within the University’s overall framework for academic appointments. To assure that the University is not merely stamping its name on a certificate delivered largely or entirely by non-tenure-track faculty, this matter should be regularly reviewed by faculty oversight committees (and especially their regular faculty members), deans and, as relevant, the Provost’s office.

The dean of the college hosting and administering the certificate program bears final responsibility for its financial objectives and viability and for its compatibility with the college’s larger mission and goals. Business models, tuition rates and incentives for faculty involvement can match risk structures and market demands for particular programs.

Those planning certificate programs should be aware that:

• By federal law international students may not be eligible to come to the U.S. only to pursue a certificate program. Those planning a new certificate program should consult with International Student and Scholar Services about possible visa constraints.
• Aid administered by the Office of Student Finance (OSF) may be available to certificate students. It is advisable for those planning a new certificate to consult with OSF to determine whether it meets the U.S. Department of Education criteria for an eligible certificate program.