The Graduate School recognizes that co-scheduling, offering a single course section to both undergraduate and graduate students simultaneously, can serve valuable pedagogical and programmatic purposes when applied judiciously. Co-scheduled courses can enrich the learning environment by bringing together advanced undergraduates seeking academic challenge and graduate students who benefit from revisiting foundational material. In all cases, graduate students must produce extra work of a kind expected in fully graduate courses. Even under these conditions, however, overuse or inappropriate use of co-scheduling can dilute the graduate educational experience, inhibit cohort formation, and blur the distinction between undergraduate and graduate study, learning outcomes, and expectations.
For these purposes, co-scheduling refers to the practice of holding a class that enrolls both undergraduate and graduate students simultaneously under separate course numbers (e.g., 4XX/5XX). For all cases of co-scheduled courses, graduate students must engage in additional or more advanced work, such as supplementary assignments, projects, readings, or a distinct culminating element that reflects graduate-level pedagogical expectations.
Co-scheduling should be used selectively when pedagogically justified and is particularly valuable in the following cases: advanced undergraduates preparing for graduate study or professional advancement or new graduate students requiring foundational content to succeed in a graduate program. The academic level of instruction must be appropriate to both course designations, with explicit differentiation in learning outcomes and assessment criteria. Co-scheduling is not appropriate when such courses are the predominant path to a graduate degree.
Co-scheduled courses must be approved on a semester-by-semester basis through the Graduate School
form. Deadlines for form submission are February 1 for Fall courses, and September 1 for Spring courses. This form requires that a request include clear pedagogical rationale and the distinct requirements for graduate students. Approval from the department(s) offering the course(s) is required. The first time a graduate course is co-scheduled, approval from the academic dean(s) must also be obtained.
Graduate degree programs are responsible for limiting reliance on co-scheduled courses in which undergraduates predominate, ensuring that these courses make up no more than three of the courses applied toward graduate degree credit.
Exceptions to the above policy will be granted for new graduate programs in their initial two years of development (reviewed and extended as warranted), bridge courses that are commonly required of new graduate students (approval for up to five years, renewable), and those courses that are predominantly taught at the graduate level and enroll advanced undergraduate students (approval for up to five years, renewable). Exceptions require approval of the Graduate School and the appropriate Academic Dean.