University of Michigan-Flint Graduate Programs

Process Enhancement for Graduate Degree Audits

Background

At present, graduation/degree audits at the graduate level are handled almost exclusively in the academic departments. Students initially apply for their degrees through the online Registrar form. Submissions are forwarded to the departments for action. Each department has their own method of performing the audit. When an audit is complete, the department sends a list of names to the Registrar, who checks for I, Y, and * grades and a minimum GPA. Once those are checks are complete, the degrees are posted.

The Registrar does not currently check for minimum number of credit hours or adherence to the double-counting, transfer of credit, or residency requirements of an academic unit.

In the past year, a number of concerns have been raised by internal and external constituents about proper controls in the auditing of graduate degrees. This proposal seeks to enhance the existing process to satisfy the concerns of those constituents and position our campus for any future questions that may arise about our audit controls.

Revised Process for Graduate Degree Audits

The enhancement to the current auditing processrequires the Office of the Registrar, Office of Graduate Programs, and academic programs to work together to ensure all required courses have been completed (or have substitutions entered), minimum credit hour requirements and GPA have been met, and policies for transfer credit, double-counting, and residency are being followed. This requires the following:

  1. Approximately two months before the posting of completed degrees, the Office of the Registrar will emaildepartments requesting that each program run a list of anticipated graduates using WebFocus. Departments must identify any students missing from the list. (Departments have one week to reply.)
  2. Six weeks before the posting of degrees, the Office of Graduate Programs will email the tentative graduates and instruct them to run a Degree Evaluation in SIS to see if all requirements have been met for their degrees. Students finding problems with their evaluation will be instructed to contact their advisors. This gives students and departments about 5 weeks to enter any missing course substitutions, waivers, etc. so that the degree evaluation is correct.
  3. Departments complete final audits on graduate degrees on the same timeline as currently used. Departments are expected to use Banner’s CAPP compliance (degree evaluation) to ensure accuracy.
  4. Registrar will run a degree evaluation (using CAPP) to check the following when a student is recommended for a degree:
  5. Student has taken all required courses, which could include course substitutions and waivers
  6. Student has a minimum number of credit hours (including applicable transfer work) toward the degree requirements (as listed in the Catalog for the student’s catalog year in Banner)
  7. I, Y, and * grades on the transcript are changed appropriately if the courses are to be used toward degree requirements
  8. Student has a GPA of 5.0 or better
  9. Students earning a second degree or currently enrolled in multiple graduate programs will be referred to the Office of Graduate Programs for other checks. (See next item.)
  10. Dean of Graduate Programs or his/her designee will check for adherence to transfer of credit, double counting, and residency policies for any student enrolled in multiple graduate programs or seeking more than one graduate degree from UM-Flint. The Dean willapprove the audit before the Registrar posts the degree. This step is not required for a student earning their first graduate degree from UM-Flint and only currently admitted to one graduate program.
  11. For students whose degree evaluations come back as “incomplete,” the Registrar will notify the department, which will only have 1-2 days to make any substitutions, grade changes, or other corrections to the record. Failure to respond by the deadline will result in the student’s graduation being pushed to the next date.

Implementation

This process enhancement will take place beginning with degrees conferred at the end of the Summer 2012 semester.