The Graduate School

The required approvals for graduate program and certificate programs are outlined here: https://changecatalog.uconn.edu/graduate-academic-program-approvals/. However, you only have to tell the system the first levels of approval. If your program falls within a department, the initial stage is the department, followed by the corresponding school/college. If, on the other hand, the program reports directly to a school/college or some other unit, you should identify that unit as the beginning point of the approval process. As long as you correctly identify the type of request and the initial approval stage, the system will automatically route the proposal through the entire approval process, starting from the initial stage you identify. If your program involves faculty from other departments or schools/colleges in a substantive way, please include the department and/or school or college of those faculty.  If units whose approval is later deemed to be necessary have not been included, the proposal will need to be returned for a second round of approvals.

The approval of new programs, as well as the approval of modifications to existing programs, involves multiple approval stages.  The exact list of required approvals (e.g., Department, Dean, Graduate School, Provost/Board of Trustees) depends on the specific type of proposal.  Proposals should be submitted well in advance to allow time for the needed approval/review stages to be completed in time.  As a general rule, proposals for new degree or certificate programs should be submitted approximately one year in advance of the proposed start date to allow ample time for completion of all reviews and approvals.  Proposals for new pathways to existing programs (such as accelerated pathways)  that seek entrepreneurial status should also be submitted at least one year in advance.  Proposals for modifications to existing programs that involve changes to the Graduate Catalog but do not require Provost/BoT approval should be submitted no later than January 10 (for inclusion in the next Graduate Catalog).  For questions about needed approvals and the timing of submissions, contact the Associate Dean of The Graduate School, Mary Bernstein, at mary.bernstein@uconn.edu.

A request can be initiated by any member of the faculty or staff, including program directors and administrative staff. The initiator simply needs a NetID.

You can initiate a request by clicking the “Submit an Approval Request” button at the top of this page and signing in with your NetID.

The system will ask for different types of information, depending on the nature of the proposed action.  More information about what is required for a request is provided below. The needed information can be collected and prepared in advance and then simply put into the system when the initiator is ready to submit the proposal. For some required information (such as background/justifications, program descriptions, and graduate catalog copy), it might be easiest to prepare the needed text in a separate Word file, for example, and then cut-and-paste the information into the form. A proposal that is only partially complete can also be saved for later if you discover you need more information before completing the proposal (see more on this below).

Note that, because the approval processes differ for different types of requested actions, it is important to identify clearly the type of action requested. A context in which this can be potentially confusing is the distinction between adding/deleting/changing a degree program (such as a master’s degree or a PhD degree) and adding/deleting/changing an Area of Concentration within a degree program. If you have any question about whether the “program” to which your proposed action applies is a separate degree program (“Field of Study”) or an Area of Concentration within a degree program, please look at the list of programs in the pdf version of the Graduate Catalog (gradcatalog.uconn.edu) or contact gradschool@uconn.edu.

Yes. You can save a draft of a proposal by clicking “Save” (but not clicking “Submit”) and then return to the proposal at any time. The next time you log into the system, it will ask you if you want to “Continue with Saved Data” or “Start Over”. Clicking “Continue with Saved Data” will bring you to the draft you have saved. Note that if you click “Start Over” anything that you saved will be lost. You cannot save data for one proposal (without submitting it) and then initiate another proposal without losing what you have saved. Once a proposal is submitted, it will be entered into the system and you can initiate a new proposal without affecting the one you previously submitted.

Once you have submitted a proposal, you can and should periodically track where it is in the approval process to make sure it is moving along.  You can do this  by clicking this link for “Track Your Proposal” and looking at the column titled “Stage.” This will tell you the stage in the approval process where the proposal is awaiting action.

For details on approvals that have already been received, you can then click on the proposal and look at the “Activity Log” on the bottom of the last tab of the proposal to see which levels of review or approval have already been completed (and who has submitted that review or approval).  If you see that your proposal is not moving forward through the system in a timely manner, you should follow up with either the approver(s) at the next stage or The Graduate School.  For any questions related to this, contact Associate Dean Mary Bernstein at mary.bernstein@uconn.edu.

You will need to revise the Graduate Catalog copy for your program if you are making any changes to the program requirements as described in the Catalog, or making any other similar or related changes (such as name changes, additions/changes in areas of concentration, changes in delivery mode, etc.). This can all be done through the “Modify an existing program” feature of GPAR. For some types of changes, the system will automatically prompt you to revise catalog copy (since those types of changes typically require corresponding catalog changes), but otherwise you can simply click the box for revising catalog copy. When providing the information that is requested (see below), please be sure to use the most recent version of the catalog proofs, available on the Graduate Catalog Proofs page, so that any changes made since the publication of the previous catalog are incorporated into any additional revisions you propose to make. Also, please be aware that all proposed changes to catalog copy must have received final approval through the GPAR system before March 1 to become effective and be included in the next catalog. As noted above, this implies that proposals that only include modifications to program requirements or descriptions in the catalog should be submitted to the GPAR system no later than January 10.

For questions about or any difficulties with the GPAR system, contact The Graduate School at gradschool@uconn.edu, or Associate Dean Mary Bernstein at mary.bernstein@uconn.edu.