Consultation/Communication

Consultation Guidelines

When developing new courses, revising established courses, dropping established courses, or if a course being dropped/added to a curriculum is outside of the program’s college, the initiating department or program should consult as widely as possible with other Colleges, departments, or programs and consultation should be sought whenever:

1. Duplication or significant overlap may occur.  In an effort to avoid duplication or significant overlap of course content between departments, a keyword search of the course catalog is available at http://next-catalog.ncsu.edu/courseadmin/ to search for already existing courses that may have similarities in content to the proposed course. Duplication of courses on the same subject at the same level by different departments or programs should be avoided. Exceptions to this guideline will require special justification.
2. The new course being proposed is intended to serve as a required course or qualified elective in the curricula of those departments.
3. The course to be revised (especially, revisions in content, credit/contact hours, or pre/co-requisites) has been serving as a required course or qualified elective in the curricula of those departments.
4. The course to be dropped has been serving as a required course or a qualified elective in the curricula of those departments.
5. The pre-requisite for a course would significantly impact enrollments in another department.

Please contact Registration and Records if assistance is needed in determining the curricula in which your course serves as a required course or qualified elective.

How does it work?

The requester of a consultation will send an email to their Associate Dean of Academic Affairs requesting a consultation. That ADAA will send this request to the ADAA of the college(s) that might be affected in order to determine if/how the proposed action will affect the curricula and/or course offerings within that department/College. The email should provide a date by which a response is needed. 

Want to include a link directly to the CIM action?

You can include a hyperlink to the course action by copying the relevant link for Programs, Courses, or MiscAdmin (right click and copy link URL) and replacing the “XXXX” with the CIM Record Key (found at the bottom right hand of the action in CIM in small font next to “Key”).

An ADAA or their designee has 3 weeks to acknowledge and/or fully respond to a request for consult. The response(s) received should be either attached to the course action or the Consultation fields may be filled out with summaries. 

Multiple consultations may be sought simultaneously.

Departmental consultations within a college are assumed to have been completed when the course action bears the signature of the College’s Course and Curricula Committee and Associate Dean. 

UCCC will review consultations during review of the action. Members should scan the agenda in the week prior to the meeting to ascertain if any consultations may be needed that have not been pursued/documented based on the guidelines above. Reason for consultation should be referenced before or during the meeting related to specific courses or curricula.

If two parties in a consultation have not reached a resolution, the voting members of UCCC will act as arbiters regarding cases of overlap.

What if no response is received?

If the consulted College does not acknowledge the request within 2 weeks, the initiating College should attempt to contact the Associate Dean by phone. If no acknowledgment or response is received after the 2nd attempt and by the end of the 3rd week, the action may move forward for consideration by the UCCC. In this case, please document the attempts to contact and attach to the course action or fill out the consultation section.

Consultation does not need to be complete within 3 weeks, but discussion must have begun and consultations cannot be used to stall actions.