Guidelines for New or Revised Programs

Approvals of New, Revised, and Eliminated Programs

Academic Programs have a lifecycle, which we consider from having your idea for the program and consultation with campus entities such as the Office of the Provost through proposal, implementation, maintenance and potential phase down/elimination.

Program Lifecycle

Program lifecycle flowchart

1. Consult

No matter what stage of new program proposal development you are in, it is strongly encouraged to consult with Brooke Newell, Director for Educational Programs.

2. Propose

When you are ready to propose a new program, utilize the Curriculum Inventory Management for Programs (CIM-P) system. Upon submission, CIM-P will route the request for the necessary departmental, college, and campus workflow for review and approvals. Proposals to establish, revise, or eliminate undergraduate or graduate curricula require Senate approval and may require additional levels of review.

3. Implement

Once the program is fully approved, work with campus, college and department entities as necessary to implement the program.

4. Maintain

To help maintain the program, complete the CourseLeaf Annual Reports (see the Review of Programs section below) and IBHE-Mandated Reports.

5. Phase Down/Eliminate

Depending on the needs of the department, college, associated workforce, and/or prospective students, the program may need to be to be phased down or eliminated using the Curriculum Inventory Management for Programs (CIM-P) system.

Program Approval Process

CIM-P ensures all proposals are reviewed for conformity to Senate guidelines and budgetary implications before forwarding them to the Senate Educational Policy Committee (EPC) for review. The Senate EPC may recommend that the proposal be returned to the sponsor for revision; if so, the proposal will be rolled back to the sponsor in the system.

Upon approval by Senate EPC, the proposal is submitted through CIM-P to the Senate for review and consideration. If the Senate approves it, the proposal is sent on to the University Senates Conference for classification as a Type I (affecting this campus only) or Type II (affecting other University of Illinois campuses) item. Type II items must be reviewed and approved by the other affected University of Illinois campuses.

Depending on the nature of the proposal, it may also require notification to or approval of the Board of Trustees, the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and the U.S. Department of Education (DoE).

Once a proposal has been reviewed and approved at all the necessary levels of governance, CIM-P auto-generates a formal approval and implementation notice on behalf of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost. Please note that the proposed program/changes to the existing program are not effective and thus should not be advertised until the approval and implementation notice has been issued. The effective term will be the term subsequent to the approval date (e.g., an implementation notice received in October would have an earliest effective term of Spring unless otherwise indicated by the sponsor).

The Program Approval Process Flowchart is available as a guide for the entire process of review and approval at the university, Board of Trustees, and IBHE levels. Note that not all proposals require all levels of approval indicated on this chart. Units are strongly encouraged to consult with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost early in the process of preparing proposals to determine the level of approval that will be required.

CIP Code and Admission Status Change CIM-P Revisions

While there are several reasons that a sponsor would seek a program revision in CIM-P (including, but not limited to, revisions to coursework in the Program of Study, change in delivery modality, revision to corresponding programs), below is information on CIM-P revisions that aren’t as common:

Changing CIP Code

For a sponsor seeking to change the CIP Code for their program, please reach out to Brooke Newell in the Office of the Provost and Emily Stuby in DMI to discuss plans and process.

Seeking Temporary Suspension of Admission or Change to Non-Direct Admission for a program (up to five years)

Sponsors seeking to temporarily suspend admission to/enrollment in a program for a semester, year, or more should complete the Temporary Suspension of Admission form and follow the instructions below. Sponsors seeking to change a program’s admission status from open to one that does not directly admit students should complete the Change to Non-Direct Admission form and follow the instructions below. Both of these requests go through CIM Programs, as a Revision. Note: To phase down and eliminate a program, neither form would be filled out. Rather, that would go through CIM-P as a proposal to Phase Down/Eliminate the program.

CIM-P Revision instructions to temporarily suspend or change to non-direct admission status are below.

  1. Find your program in CIM-P and click the Edit the Program
  2. Fill in appropriate responses in all red-boxed fields on the CIM-P form for a CIM-P revision. Some helpful information to insert in certain fields is provided below.
    • Proposal Title – Temporary Suspension of Admission (or input Non-Direct Admission if applicable) to the [insert degree name] in [insert program name] in the College of XXXX (Example: Temporary Suspension of Admission to the Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training in the College of Applied Health Sciences)
    • Program Justification
      • “Provide a brief description of what changes are being made to the program” – We are requesting a [temporary suspension of admissions OR non-direct admission] to this program.“
      • Why are these changes necessary” – Discuss what has led to the [temporary suspension of admissions OR non-direct admission] and the timeline. If it is a current practice, describe how long it has been going on. If temporary suspension of admissions, describe the length of time requested for the suspension and why that length of time is appropriate.
    • Program of Study field – Attach the completed Temporary Suspension of Admission or Change to Non-Direct Admission form

For approved Suspended Admission or Non-Direct Admission proposals, on an annual basis, sponsors will provide a status report of the suspension to the Office of the Provost.

Reactivation of a Program with Temporary Suspended Admission

Reactivation of Admission (Temporary Suspension) requests go through CIM Programs, as a Revision.

Helpful CIM-P Revision instructions are below.

  1. Find your program in CIM-P and click the Edit the Program
  2. Fill in appropriate responses in all red-boxed fields on the CIM-P form for a CIM-P revision. Some key text to insert in certain fields is provided below.
    • Proposal Title – Reactivate admission to the [insert degree name] in [insert program name] in the College of XXXX (Example: Reactivate admission to the Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training in the College of Applied Health Sciences)
    • Program Justification
      • “Provide a brief description of what changes are being made to the program” – We are requesting to reactivate admission to this program, which has been temporarily suspended since (Term Year).
      • “Why are these changes necessary” – Discuss how long the program has had temporary suspension of admission, why it was changed to temporary suspension of admission (briefly), and what has led to the reactivation of the admission.
  3. A few questions are not red-boxed but are important for the reactivation of admissions in the Admission Requirements section.
    • Desired Effective Admissions Term – select when you want the program to have admissions. (This would also be the term you enter in Effective Catalog Term box under Proposal Title.)
    • Is this revision a change to the admission status of the program? – Mark ‘Yes’ and describe.
  4. After you have reviewed and are ready to move the program through the approval process, click on the Start Workflow button at the bottom.
Reactivation of a Program with Non-Direct Admission

Reactivation of Admission (Non-Direct Admission) requests go through CIM Programs, as a Revision.

Helpful CIM-P Revision instructions are below.

  1. Find your program in CIM-P and click the Edit the Program
  2. Fill in appropriate responses in all red-boxed fields on the CIM-P form for a CIM-P revision. Some key text to insert in certain fields is provided below.
    • Proposal Title – Reactivate admission to the [insert degree name] in [insert program name] in the College of XXXX (Example: Reactivate admission to the Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training in the College of Applied Health Sciences)
    • Program Justification
      • “Provide a brief description of what changes are being made to the program” – We are requesting to reactivate admission to this program, which has been non-direct admission since (Term Year).
      • “Why are these changes necessary” – Discuss how long the program has had non-direct admission, why it was changed to non-direct admission (briefly), and what has led to the reactivation of the admission.
  3. A few questions are not red-boxed but are important for the reactivation of admissions in the Admission Requirements section.
    • Desired Effective Admissions Term – select when you want the program to have direct admissions. (This would also be the term you enter in Effective Catalog Term box under Proposal Title.)
    • Is this revision a change to the admission status of the program? – Mark ‘Yes’ and describe.
  4. After you have reviewed and are ready to move the program through the approval process, click on the Start Workflow button at the bottom.
Review of Programs

There are different review cycles that academic programs undergo as part of program maintenance, such as reviews related to the academic catalog including courses and programs within CourseLeaf (CIM systems), learning outcomes reporting, and reviews for new and continuing programs that are mandated by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE).

All IBHE-approved certificate and degree programs as well as IBHE-approved permanent centers must complete IBHE program review reports, including an initial third-year progress report and ongoing eight-year cycle reports. Some degree programs will also be asked to complete APEER reviews. For information on the IBHE reports, visit the IBHE-Mandated Reporting page.

Annual CourseLeaf Review

Annually, programs are reviewed for “red box” errors (errors that indicate that a course in a program of study has been deactivated or is listed for credit hours that aren’t what has been approved through governance), revisions started but are either stalled somewhere in the CIM-P workflow or programs were initiated/revised but workflow wasn’t started and are thus stale requests. These are part of the Annual CourseLeaf Review conducted by the Offices of the Registrar and Provost. The Annual CourseLeaf Review reports are an important way to ensure students have access, through the Academic Catalog, to the most up to date course and program information.