Interdisciplinary Committees and Degree-Offering Groups

Certain fields of knowledge or inquiry may be of interest to members of the graduate faculty associated with two or more University departments, schools, or colleges. To facilitate collaboration, the Graduate School may be asked to establish interdisciplinary committees or degree-offering groups in which faculty members can be active and yet retain their primary associations and appointments in departments, schools, or colleges.

Committees

Faculty members from more than one department, school, or college who wish to establish an interdisciplinary committee concerned substantially with research or graduate education may ask to be designated as a Graduate School Committee. Among the purposes of such committees may be coordination across departmental and college boundaries of research projects, proposal submission, graduate student recruitment, consulting, seminars, or graduate curricula.

If the interdisciplinary collaboration emphasizes both research and graduate education, designation simply as an "Interdisciplinary Committee" should be requested. If the primary emphasis is on either research or graduate education, respectively, the requested designation may be "Interdisciplinary Research Committee" or "Interdisciplinary Program Committee", respectively. An interdisciplinary committee, however designated, does not offer its own graduate degrees; graduate students associated with such a committee must be enrolled in and meet all requirements of an authorized department, school, or college degree program.

A request to establish an interdisciplinary committee is made by letter to the Dean of the Graduate School. The letter should describe the purposes of the committee and list for proposed members their names, faculty ranks, and units of primary appointment . Committees are appointed for approximately three years coinciding with the academic calendar. A progress report to the Dean of the Graduate School is expected as a condition of renewed appointment, and during its term the committee is requested routine ly to send copies of agendas, minutes, revisions in membership, and other information to the Academic Programs Office in the Graduate School. The Graduate School normally does not offer financial support for committee activities.

Groups

If an interdisciplinary faculty committee wishes to offer a graduate degree program, a proposal to do so is reviewed by the University in the same manner as a new-degree proposal from a department, school, or college. Policies and procedures for such reviews are described in Graduate School Memorandum No. 6, Authorization of New Graduate Degree Programs. If the Board of Regents ultimately grants authority to offer the new degree, the interdisciplinary committee is designated as a degree-offering Group and is administered through the Graduate School.

A group offers the curriculum and graduate student supervision associated with its graduate degree program. The chair of the group is its Graduate Program Coordinator. A group recommends admission to and graduation from its degree program. It may administer an operating budget and space when these are available from cooperating schools and colleges; normally the Graduate School does not allocate such funds or facilities. A group may administer research grants and contracts associated with the graduate program.

A group does not maintain primary appointments of its faculty, since these are held in departments, schools, or colleges. Members of a group must be members of the University graduate faculty (see Graduate School Memorandum No. 12, Membership in the Graduate Faculty) . Proposed new group members must be approved by a majority vote of present members and subsequently by the Dean of the Graduate School.

A group may be continued indefinitely, be absorbed by another unit, or become a new department within a school or college. Groups and their degree programs are reviewed periodically by the Graduate School in the same manner as all graduate degree program s and at least once every ten years. Policies and procedures for such reviews are described in Graduate School Memorandum No. 7, Periodic Review of Existing Degree Programs.