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Division of Academic and Student Affairs
Undergraduate Courses, Curricula, and Academic Standards

Consultation/Communication

The official consultation process enables cross-college/departmental/program communication about resources and overlap.

Try Out the New Consultation Form

The Graduate School and OUCCAS collaborated on a form to provide structure and support to consultations. Use this form and attach it when complete to the CIM record.

Download the Form
NCSU Campus Gateway

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. 

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 their review of the action. Reason for consultation should be referenced before or during the meeting related to specific courses or curricula.

Members can table or move to approve pending an action for consultation, or the originating college/group member may withdraw the action from the agenda.

Members should scan the agenda to ascertain if any consultation is needed that has not been pursued or documented based on the guidelines above.

To support communication, as a reviewer or presenter, you may be included in e-mails concerning consultations prior to the meetings.

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.