Course overlap between two or more programs (Policy)

In designing or revising Majors, Minors, Certificates, or other credentials, decisions about whether the same courses can count toward more than one credential rest with the home academic units.

  • Academic units proposing a new credential should consider the potential for its courses to count toward other credentials, either inside or outside the unit. The university does not restrict the use of the same courses to fulfill requirements for more than one credential but individual academic units may prohibit any overlap they deem inappropriate. The guiding principle should be to allow course overlap that promotes intellectual coherence for students and does not erode program identity. Academic units wishing to restrict overlap should articulate the limitations carefully. These might be partial or complete – that is, they might limit the number of credits that could be counted toward their credentials (e.g. “Students may count only 8 credits toward both Credential A and Credential B”), or they might bar students who earn a particular credential from earning another specified one (e.g. “Students may not be awarded both a Credential A and a Credential B”). Whatever local policy is adopted, it must be made readily available to advisors and students in order to support informed academic planning. In addition, any deviation from the default university policy (no restriction on course overlap) must be communicated to the Registrar for addition to the UO degree requirements.
  • All academic units are invited to review their existing credentials and either to adopt the default university policy or to delineate specific overlap limitations. Each unit’s chosen policy should then be made available to students, advisors and the Registrar.
  • In cases of disagreement, where one unit wishes to allow significant overlap with another unit against that unit’s wishes, or vice versa, the school(s) or college(s) housing the affected units will endeavor to forge a compromise.

Approved By: University Senate        Date: 06/18/16

Motion Number: US15/16-24

Revision History: First version approved 5/18/16

Original Source: https://senate.uoregon.edu/senate-motions/us1516-24-majorminorcertificateprogram-course-overlap-policy