Chapter III: Degree Requirements and Graduation Procedures, and the Academic Minor Option

The College awards three basic degrees, the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.), the Bachelor of Science (B.S.), and the Bachelor in General Studies (B.G.S.). The Bachelor of Science in Chemistry (B.S. Chem.), a special degree, also is granted.

The Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Science degrees require competent use of the modes of thought which characterize each major area of knowledge, and a deep understanding of at least one subject area. Each student is required also to achieve competency in the use of the English language, to acquire second-year college-level proficiency in a language other than English, must receive credit for an approved course addressing questions on race and ethnicity, and must fulfill the quantitative reasoning requirement. Beyond these general requirements, which serve not to limit but rather to enhance the value of the educational experience, students are free to choose elective courses to complete a minimum 120 credits. The difference between the A.B. and B.S. degrees is that the B.S. degree requires 60 credits of approved courses in the physical and natural sciences and/or mathematics. A secondary teaching certificate requires the A.B. or B.S. student to earn additional credits (see the School of Education Bulletin).

The Bachelor in General Studies degree encourages students to take responsibility for structuring their own multidisciplinary academic programs within guidelines emphasizing upper-level courses elected in three or more departments. This degree also requires a minimum 120 credits, and includes the College English Composition requirement, the Race and Ethnicity requirement, and the Quantitative Reasoning requirement. At least 60 credits of courses numbered 300 or above must be completed, and no more than 20 of these 60 credits may be in one department.

The Bachelor of Science in Chemistry is described in Chapter VI under Chemistry.

This chapter describes the requirements of the A.B., B.S., and B.G.S. degree programs as well as the procedures for graduation. Chapter IV describes associated academic policies. Honors students must always consult the Honors Program about special degree requirements, courses, policies, and procedures, and petition the Honors Program for any exceptions to the rules.

Students are always responsible for knowing and meeting degree requirements. A student may either comply with the degree requirements stated in the Bulletin effective during the first term of enrollment in the College or with those in the Bulletin effective at the time of graduation. Students should also consult the most current Bulletin for concentration requirements since the applicable rules are determined at the time the student declares the concentration.

Degrees and the Selection of a Degree Program

Students must submit a Declaration Form (available in 1255 Angell Hall) indicating their choice of degree program to the Academic Advising Center, sometime between the second term of the freshman year and the beginning of the junior year. It is generally done after consultation with a concentration or BGS academic advisor.

Common Requirements for the A.B., B.S., and B.G.S. Degrees

Credits and Grade Point Average

To qualify for a degree from the College, a student must complete a minimum 120 credits with a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 (C). The overall GPA of courses included in the field of concentration (see Concentration Policies below) for an A.B. or B.S. degree (unless stated differently for particular concentrations in Chapter VI) or counted toward the 60 credits of upper-level courses required for a B.G.S. degree must be at least 2.0. (GPA is explained in Chapter IV.)

English Composition: College Requirement

Administered by the Gayle Morris Sweetland Writing Center, the composition requirement consists of two parts.

Part I: Introductory Composition. Placement into an appropriate writing course in LS&A is based on student self-assessment. This voluntary placement system is designed to allow students to select the course that will most appropriately challenge them. Writing Workshop instructors are available in 1139 Angell Hall to help students make this choice. (Writing portfolios are no longer required of entering students.)

Students may fulfill the First-Year Writing Requirement in three ways:

1. Students entering Winter Term, 1999 and thereafter who have taken approved courses elsewhere may use those courses to satisfy the requirement (a list of currently approved courses is available at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/swc/requirements/transfcourses.html);
2. Students may take any approved 4-credit course in the College (a list is available at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/swc/requirements/firstyearcourses.html); or
3. Students may take the 2-credit Writing Practicum and then take an approved 4-credit course.

The Introductory Composition Requirement should be completed in the first year.

Part II: Upper-Level Writing Requirement. All LS&A students must complete the Upper-Level Writing Requirement any time after they have completed the First-Year Writing Requirement but preferably in their junior year. To complete the requirement, students should enroll in one of the approved advanced writing courses. A list of approved courses for a particular term is available from the Student Academic Affairs website (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/saa/) and the Sweetland Writing Center web site (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/swc/requirements/advcourses.html). A course approved to meet the requirement one term is not necessarily approved in subsequent terms. The College strongly recommends that the course be in the student's field of concentration or area of academic interest. Students must modify the approved course for "ECB" through Touch-Tone Registration. The course instructor must certify that the student has met the requirement at the end of the term.

Quantitative Reasoning: College Requirement

All students admitted to the College for the Fall Term of 1994 and thereafter must meet the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) requirement. The goal of this requirement is to ensure that every graduate of the College achieves a certain level of proficiency in using and analyzing quantitative information. Students may fulfill this requirement either by:

• successfully completing one course (of 3 credits or more) designated for full QR credit (QR/1); or
• successfully completing two courses (at least one of which must be of 3 credits or more) designated for half QR credit (QR/2).

QR courses may come from a wide range of disciplines representing the natural and social sciences, as well as some areas of the humanities.

Quantitative reasoning is first and foremost reasoning. It is not mathematical manipulation or computation, but rather the methodology used to analyze quantitative information to make decisions, judgments, and predictions. It involves defining a problem by means of numerical or geometrical representations of real-world phenomena, determining how to solve it, deducing consequences, formulating alternatives, and predicting outcomes.

Advanced Placement (AP) courses may not be used to meet the Quantitative Reasoning requirement. Courses transferred from another college or university do not generally carry QR credit, except in the following circumstances: (1) QR is considered fulfilled for all science, math, and computer science concentrators who transfer in the prerequisites; (2) Transfer credit for Physics 125, 126, 140, 240 and any statistics course receive (QR/1) credit. Courses used to satisfy the QR requirement may also serve to satisfy other College requirements; e.g., students who are working towards an A.B. or B.S. degree may elect a QR course that also counts toward meeting the Area Distribution, Concentration, or other College requirement.

Race and Ethnicity: College Requirement

All students admitted to the College for the Fall Term of 1991 and all terms thereafter must meet the Race and Ethnicity requirement. The requirement is met when, at some point before graduation, the student has received credit for one course from a list of approved courses published each term on the Student Academic Affairs website (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/saa/). The Curriculum Committee of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts is the approving agency for courses, and the expectation is that a wide variety of courses offered by departments and programs throughout the College will be approved each term. Credits transferred from another college or university do not meet the requirement, except by successful petition to the Academic Standards Board. Students who are working toward an A.B. or B.S. degree may elect a course to meet the Race and Ethnicity Requirement that also counts toward meeting the Area Distribution or the Concentration or Composition requirements. Likewise, students who are working towards a B.G.S. degree may elect a course to meet the Race and Ethnicity requirement that also counts among their 60 credits of courses numbered 300 or above, or toward the Composition requirement.

Courses approved to meet the Race and Ethnicity requirement will address issues arising from racial or ethnic intolerance. In approving the requirement, the faculty of the College made the following statements:

1. Required content. All courses satisfying the requirement must provide discussion, consistent with disciplinary approaches, of: (1) the meaning of race, ethnicity, and racism; (2) racial and ethnic intolerance and resulting inequality as it occurs in the United States or elsewhere; (3) comparisons of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, social class, or gender.
2. Required focus. (1) Every course satisfying the requirement must devote substantial but not necessarily exclusive attention to the required content. Courses may meet this requirement by various means consistent with disciplines or fields of study, and faculty members from all departments are urged to think creatively about how their fields might contribute to the requirement. (2) Although it is hoped that many of these courses will focus on the United States, it is not required that they do so. Courses that deal with these issues in other societies, or that study them comparatively, may also meet the requirement.

Non-LS&A Course Work

To qualify for a degree, a student must complete a program of study which includes primarily LS&A courses or equivalent LS&A transfer credit.

LS&A courses are listed in this Bulletin. Courses offered by other academic units (e.g., Business Administration, Education, Engineering, Natural Resources and Environment) of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and not listed in this Bulletin are non-LS&A courses. Non-LS&A course work should not be confused with transfer credit (defined in Chapter VII). Out-of-residence credit may transfer to the College as credit equivalent to LS&A courses or non-LS&A courses.

Non-LS&A course work earns credit toward a degree and honor points according to the following policies:

1. Candidates for an A.B. or B.S. degree must complete a minimum 108 credits of LS&A courses, thus allowing 12 credits of non-LS&A course work in the minimum 120 required for the degree. Non-LS&A course work elected to meet concentration requirements may be elected beyond the 12 credit limit if the concentration advisor provides written approval. This approval represents that the non-LS&A credit is required by the concentration either in substitution for courses from the department of concentration or as required cognate credits. In no case may a student exceed 20 non-LS&A credits in the 120 required. Candidates for an A.B. or B.S. degree with a secondary teaching certificate must complete a minimum 104 credits of LS&A courses.
2. Candidates for a B.G.S. degree must complete a minimum 100 credits of LS&A courses, thus allowing 20 credits of non-LS&A course work in the 120 required for the degree. Candidates for a B.G.S. with a secondary teaching certificate also must complete at least 100 credits of LS&A courses.
3. A cross-listed course is sponsored by two or more academic departments or programs and may be elected in any one of the participating units. Courses cross-listed between LS&A and another school or college of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) count toward the required number of LS&A credits if elected in the participating LS&A department. If elected in the non-LS&A department, the course counts as non-LS&A course work. Students in their final term in residence may request the Academic Auditors to change a completed election to an alternate cross-listing.
4. Kinesiology courses are recorded as "not for credit" (no credit hours toward graduation, no honor points) for LS&A students, except for the following courses for which LS&A students may receive degree credits and Honors points:

   Kinesiology (Division 887) 411, 421, 422, 431, 432, 441, 442, 471, 513, 521, 531, 541, and 542;

   Movement Science (Division 882) 241, 250, 320, 330, 340, 411, 421, 422, 431, 432, 441, 442, 471, 521, 531, 541, and 542;

   Physical Education (Division 884) 310;

   Sports Management and Communication (Division 885) 101 (first- and second-year students only; juniors and seniors can not take this course for degree credit), 300, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 310, 316, 401, and 513.

5. School of Music ensemble courses yield degree credit but not honor points.
6. Transfer credit for Speech and Journalism courses are counted as non-LS&A.
7. The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts does not grant degree credit for any courses offered through the Military Officer Education Program except for those courses which are cross-listed in other academic units.

Requirements Particular to the A.B. and B.S. Degrees

By the end of the sophomore year, students should have met the language requirement, made substantial progress toward completing an area distribution plan, and completed prerequisites for a concentration.

The Language Requirement

Second language study contributes importantly to a liberal education, not only as a means of access to the cultural and intellectual heritage of the world's non-English-speaking majority, but also as a way to gain a new reflective understanding of the structure and complexity of English itself.

Fourth-term proficiency in a language other than English is required and may be met by any one of:

1. Certified proficiency on a University of Michigan reading and/or listening test. Students with previous experience in a language they want to use to meet the language requirement must take a language placement test. A student may not elect for credit a language course below this placement level without departmental permission.
2. Credit for a University of Michigan fourth-term language course listed below with a grade of C- or better.

   Arabic
   

   • Modern Standard (one of the following: 202, 204, 416, 418)
     
   • Classical (582) Armenian (272 or 273)
     

   Chinese (202, 302, or 362)
   Czech (242)
   Dutch (232)
   French (230 or 232)
   German (230 or 232 or 236)
   Greek
   

   • Classical (301 and 302)
     
   • Modern (202)
     

   Hebrew
   

   • Biblical (202)
     
   • Modern (202)
     

   Hindi-Urdu (206 or 366)
   Indonesian (204)
   Italian (232)
   Japanese (202 or 362)
   Korean (202)
   Latin (232)
   Marathi (438 or 380)
   Ojibwa (323)*
   Persian (242 or 243)
   Polish (222)
   Portuguese (232)
   Punjabi (212 or 372)
   Russian (202 or 203)
   S&SEA 302
   Sanskrit (210)
   Serbo-Croatian (232)
   Spanish (230 or 232)
   Swedish (234)
   Tagalog (208)
   Tamil (214 or 374)
   Thai (202)
   Tibetan, Classical (404)
   Turkish (252 or 255)
   Ukrainian (252)
   Vietnamese (216)
   Yiddish (202)

   *Students need to be careful about electing Ojibwa to meet the language requirement. The requisite courses may not be offered on a regular basis.

3. Credit for a University of Michigan language course which presumes a fourth-term proficiency in a language (except for 305 and/or 306 in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and Spanish 290/ American Culture 224).

In meeting the language requirement, students must earn a grade of C- or better in the prerequisite course to proceed on to the subsequent course. Any exception to this rule must be granted by a designated faculty representative in the department.

The final course in an elementary language sequence used to fulfill the Language Requirement must be elected on a graded basis, or, for Residential College students in a Residential College language course, with a narrative evaluation. (Effective for all students admitted to the College in Fall Term, 1995 and thereafter.)

The language requirement cannot be fulfilled by out-of-residence credit which is elected after the student has begun degree enrollment in LS&A unless the appropriate language department has approved that plan in advance.

Students who wish to meet the requirement with proficiency in a language not listed above (including American Sign Language) should contact the Academic Standards Board. A student whose first language is not English and who attended a high school where that language was the language of instruction is considered to have met the requirement.

Area Distribution

By means of this requirement the College seeks to instill an understanding and an appreciation of the major areas of learning. Students are not expected to master all areas in detail, but should develop a coherent view of essential concepts, structures, and intellectual methods which typify these disciplines.

Courses offered by the academic departments and programs of the College are divided into five area categories: the natural sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, mathematics and symbolic analysis, and creative expression. Each of these divisions represents a different perspective on human knowledge and learning; some departments and programs overlap these divisions while others may stand outside them.

All candidates for the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees from the College must fulfill the 30-credit Distribution Requirement.

This broad intellectual experience, which forms an essential part of a liberal arts education, is to be achieved in the following way:

1. Students must complete 7 credits in each of the following three areas: Natural Science (NS), Social Science (SS), and Humanities (HU), for a total of 21 credits.
2. Students must also complete 3 additional credits in each of three of the following five areas: (NS), (SS), (HU), Mathematical and Symbolic Analysis (MSA), and Creative Expression (CE), for a total of 9 credits.

General Policies for Area Distribution Plans

An area distribution plan may include:

1. prerequisites to concentration elected outside the department of concentration.
2. courses elected pass/fail, credit/no credit, or by any other non-graded pattern.
3. courses elected to satisfy one of two concentration plans by students who elect a double concentration (see "Double Concentration" below in this chapter).
4. Transfer credit from other schools and colleges of the University of Michigan and from other academic institutions (see "Residence Policy" in Chapter IV).
5. a course elected outside the department of concentration or concentration requirements to meet the Junior-Senior Writing Requirement, the Race and Ethnicity Requirement, or the Quantitative Reasoning Requirement.
6. Courses in Non-LS&A Units offering courses with Creative Expression designation (Credits are counted as Non-LS&A)

Art and Design (Division 010)

101. Ceramics I.

111. Painting I.

114. Drawing Mini-course.

115. Basic Drawing I.

116. Basic Drawing II.

121. Fibers: Introduction.

125. Basic Design I.

126. Basic Design II.

131. Graphic Design I.

161. Photography: Introduction.

191. Sculpture I.

254. Jewelry Casting.

261. Photography I.

Architecture (Division 005)

201. Introduction to Communication Skills.

202. Graphic Communication.

218. Visual Studies.

Performance - Piano (Division 639)

110. Performance.

111. Performance.

Dance (Division 671)

101. Introduction to Modern Dance.

102. Introduction to Modern Dance.

111. Introduction to Ballet.

112. Introduction to Ballet.

121. Introduction to Jazz Dance.

122. Introduction to Jazz Dance.

241. Afro-American Dance.

Ensemble (Division 672): All Courses

Courses in other Music Performance divisions (viz., other than Piano Performance) may also be used for Creative Expression, but enrollment is restricted to students of advanced ability. Request forms for performance instruction are available at the Information Office, Room 2249, School of Music, North Campus.

An area distribution plan may not include:

1. any course from the department of concentration.
2. required cognates in a concentration plan.
3. Experiential courses, Independent Study, and University (Division 495) mini-courses.
4. Advanced Placement credits.

Concentration

The concentration requirement provides an opportunity to pursue a thorough investigation of a subject or problem. If education is to be a connected, developmental experience, then fundamental skills, abilities, and knowledge must be used continuously. Concentration programs organize students' work in such a way that later experiences relate to and extend earlier ones.

Students normally declare a concentration during the second term of the sophomore year, although some students make a decision earlier. To declare a concentration, a student should develop a plan with a concentration advisor and then submit a Declaration Form signed by the advisor to the Academic Advising Center. A student may, with the approval of a concentration advisor, change the plan. Students who wish to change concentrations must discuss their plans with a concentration advisor in the new concentration and submit a new Declaration Form.

Concentration Policies

1. Each A.B. or B.S. student must develop a concentration plan in consultation with a concentration advisor, who must also approve it.
2. Course requirements of the various concentration programs range from 24 to 48 credits, of which no more than 30 will be in one department. The required courses outside the department for departmental concentration programs are called required cognates. Students will often take more than the required courses, but no more than 60 credits in a concentration (including courses in one department and the required cognates) may be counted toward the 120 for the degree. When an academic department has two or more divisions (e.g., Anthropology, Romance Languages and Literatures), a student may count a total of 60 credits from that department, not from each division.
3. No more than 60 credits in one language may be counted in the 120 required for a degree. However, the 60 credit limit on courses elected in one concentration may be exceeded when the excess credits have been used to meet the language requirement.
4. Students electing an area, interdepartmental, or special concentration may count no more than 60 credits in any one department.
5. Students may not elect courses in a concentration plan, including required cognates, by the Pass/Fail grading option.
6. A department or program may include in its concentration program Experiential or Directed Reading/Independent Study courses that are graded on a Credit/No Credit or Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis, but all other concentration courses must be taken for a grade, either A-E or (in the case of Residential College courses) with narrative evaluation.
7. No course in the department of concentration or required course in a concentration plan may be part of a distribution plan (see, however, "Double Concentration" below in this chapter).
8. A student must earn an overall GPA of at least 2.0 in courses taken in the field of concentration. This includes all courses taken in the department of concentration (prerequisites, required courses, and electives) and any required cognates. Any exceptions for particular concentrations are specified in Chapter VI.
9. A course or courses that are part of the student's concentration plan may also meet the Junior-Senior Writing Requirement, the Race and Ethnicity Requirement, or the Quantitative Reasoning Requirement.

Concentration Programs

Students may choose a concentration from:

Afroamerican and African Studies
American Culture
Ancient Civilizations and Biblical Studies
Anthropology
Anthropology-Zoology
Arabic, Armenian, Persian, Turkish, and Islamic Studies
Asian Studies
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Biochemistry
Biology
Biophysics
Biopsychology and Cognitive Science
Cell and Molecular Biology
Chemistry
Chinese
Classical Archaeology
Classical Civilization
Classical Languages and Literatures
Communication Studies
Comparative Literature
Computer Science
Dramatic Writing
Economics
English
Environmental Geology
Film and Video Studies
French and Francophone Studies
General Biology
General Physics
Geological Sciences
German
Greek
Hebrew and Jewish Cultural Studies
History
History of Art
Italian
Japanese
Judaic Studies
Latin
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Latino or Hispanic-American Studies
Linguistics
Mathematics
Medieval and Renaissance Collegium (MARC)
Microbiology
Middle Eastern and North African Studies
Music
Near Eastern Civilizations
Oceanography
Philosophy
Physics
Plant Biology
Political Science
Psychology
Russian
Russian and East European Studies
Social Anthropology
Sociology
Spanish
Statistics
Studies in Religion
Theatre and Drama
Women's Studies

Special Concentration Programs

Individual Concentration Program

Students with academic interests outside existing area, departmental, inter-departmental, and special concentration programs may propose their own field of concentration and, on approval, elect the Individual Concentration Program which is described in Chapter VI.

Double Concentration

A student electing a double concentration must meet all requirements for both concentrations. Courses, including cognates, elected as part of one concentration plan may be used, when appropriate, to satisfy the requirements of the second concentration. However, one of the two concentration plans must be independent of the area distribution plan. Each concentration plan must be developed in consultation with and approved by a concentration advisor.

A Concentration Release Form (see "Graduation Procedures" below in this chapter) for each concentration declared should be submitted to the Academic Auditors before the final term in residence. A double concentration is recorded on the transcript only if both release forms are received before graduation. If a student who has submitted a Diploma Application completes the requirements for only one of the two concentrations and wishes to defer graduation to complete the second, the Academic Auditors must be notified. Otherwise a degree is awarded in one concentration. After the date of graduation, a student completing additional work which fulfills another field of concentration can have the additional field entered on the transcript. The student will need to file an additional Concentration Release Form with the Academic Auditors.

Requirements Particular to the B.G.S. Degree

Within the 120 credits required for the degree and the minimum 60 credits of courses numbered 300 or above, specific guidelines must be met:

1. No more than 60 credits may be elected in all divisions of a department.
2. No more than 20 credits of upper-level courses may be counted from one department. If a department has several divisions, a B.G.S. student may elect up to 20 credits of upper-level courses from each division. These statements should not be interpreted to mean that as many as 20 credits of upper-level work from one or more divisions must be completed or that it is impossible to incorporate more than 20 upper-level credits from one division into a B.G.S. degree. It is entirely possible to complete the degree with fewer than 20 upper-level credits from any division as long as the upper-level credits from all divisions total 60. Similarly, the B.G.S. degree may be completed with more than 20 upper-level credits from a division by electing more than the required 60 upper-level credits (e.g., 25 credits of upper-level courses may be completed in a division as long as 65 upper-level credits are completed).
3. At least 40 of the required 60 upper-level credits must be in LS&A courses.
4. A student must earn an overall GPA of at lest 2.0 in the courses used to fulfill the requirement of 60 upper-level credits.

Second Bachelor's Degree

Individuals with a bachelor's degree who want to earn a second degree must obtain permission from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Normally at least two calendar years will have transpired between the awarding of the first baccalaureate degree and the beginning of the second baccalaureate degree program. Applicants must pursue an academic program significantly different from that of the first baccalaureate degree. Except in the case of joint degrees (see Chapter V), the College does not award concurrent bachelor's degrees. Students interested in two concentrations should read the section "Double Concentration" above.

For graduates of schools and colleges on the Ann Arbor campus the two baccalaureate degrees should be different (for example, not two Bachelor of Arts or two Bachelor of Science degrees). The second degree program cannot be a BGS degree. Applicants who already have an LS&A degree must earn at least 30 credits in residence in LS&A beyond the credits required for the first degree, and at least 15 of those must be in the new field of concentration. Graduates of a different Ann Arbor unit must earn at least 30 credits while registered in LS&A, all of those over and above the credit hours required for the first degree, and the second program must include a minimum of 108 LS&A credits. To be considered for admission to a second baccalaureate degree program, all applicants who have a baccalaureate degree from the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan must have the same minimum grade point average as the College requires of cross-campus transfer students.

Applicants whose first degree comes from any other institution (including UM-Dearborn and UM-Flint) will be required to complete at least 60 credits in residence at the Ann Arbor campus. The student must be registered in LS&A for at least 30 of these, and all 30 credits must be over and above the credits required for the first degree. The second degree program must include a minimum of 108 LS&A credits. To be considered for admission to a second baccalaureate degree program, these applicants must have the same minimum grade point average as the College requires for students who transfer from institutions other than the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus.

Dual Registration

Students who wish to be dually enrolled, that is, enrolled simultaneously in LS&A and another division, school, college, or university, must request permission from the Academic Standards Board in advance of registration. This policy does not apply to UM Extension. Qualified seniors who are interested in the Concurrent Undergraduate-Graduate Studies (CUGS) Program should read that section in Chapter V.

Students enrolled in two colleges or schools of the University must complete a separate registration for each academic unit. These students are assessed tuition based upon the number of credits elected in each unit, normally to a maximum of the higher full program fee.

Graduation Procedures

Students who have completed 90 hours Credit Toward Program (CTP) should submit the Diploma Application and Concentration Release Form for each concentration in the term preceding the one in which they expect to graduate. In this way students can have an audit of their degree requirements prior to registration for the final term.

Degrees are conferred in May, August, or December, though graduation ceremonies are held in May and December only. To qualify for graduation, a student must meet degree requirements and submit a completed Diploma Application to the Academic Advising Center in 1255 Angell Hall. At the same time, candidates for an A.B. or B.S. degree must submit a signed Concentration Release Form. The deadline for submitting these forms is four weeks after classes begin in a term (one week after classes begin in the Summer Half-Term). Students who meet the deadline will be listed in the Commencement Program, will have an expedient audit of degree requirements, and will be able to receive the diploma following approval of the final degree list (8-10 weeks after Commencement).

Students whose forms are received after the deadline but before the last day of classes in the term of expected graduation may still be considered for graduation but their degree certification cannot be processed as quickly and they should not expect to be included in the Commencement Program. The degree audit will be delayed. In some instances, it will be necessary to defer graduation.

Students who do not complete degree requirements in the term a Diploma Application has been filed must file a new Diploma Application in order to be placed on any subsequent degree list. Students who have met the degree requirements but have not yet been graduated may obtain a Letter of Certification from the Academic Auditors in 1409 Mason Hall. Such a letter is usually acceptable as evidence that requirements have been met and a degree will be awarded.

Academic Minors

Beginning in 1999, students in the College are given the option of electing one or more academic minors offered by units within the College. Note that electing to earn an academic minor is optional; it is not a requirement; and note too that there is no limit on the number of academic minors a student may elect. Departments and programs in the College now have the option of creating academic minors, and as such minors receive College approval they will be listed with their requirements and other pertinent information on the Student Academic Affairs website at

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/saa/minors.html

In subsequent years, academic minors and their requirements also will appear in the annual LS&A Bulletin.

Although the opportunity exists for students to propose their own individual concentration program, an individual minor is not allowed. An academic minor will require no less than 15 credits of course work, will show structure and coherence, and will contain some upper-level courses. Students who declare and complete an approved academic minor will receive a notation on their student transcript but not on their diploma.

Academic Minor

1. Each A.B. or B.S. student who wishes to complete an approved academic minor must develop a plan for the minor in consultation with the designated advisor, who must also approve it. The academic minor is not an option available to students earning the B.G.S. degree.
2. Students may not elect courses in an academic minor plan by the Pass/Fail grading option, but must take academic minor courses for a grade, either A-E or, in the case of Residential College courses, with narrative evaluation.
3. Students may not elect a concentration and an academic minor, or two academic minors, offered by the same department or program, unless a specific exemption to this policy is noted with the approval of the minor.
4. Students may not use more than one course to meet the requirements of both a concentration plan and an academic minor, but one course may overlap and count for both.
5. If the academic minor has prerequisites, students taking courses to meet the prerequisites to a concentration may also count those courses as prerequisites to the academic minor.
6. Advanced Placement credits may not be used to meet the requirements of an academic minor, but may be used to meet prerequisites to an academic minor.
7. Since students electing an academic minor are required to meet the area distribution requirement, courses elected to meet the requirements of an academic minor also may be part of the student's area distribution plan.
8. A student must earn an overall GPA of at least 2.0 in courses taken to meet requirements of an academic minor, including any prerequisites.
9. A course or courses that are part of a student's academic minor may also meet the Language Requirement, the Upper-Level Writing Requirement, the Race & Ethnicity Requirement, or the Quantitative Reasoning Requirement.