FCI - Guidelines for Certificate Programs

Guidelines: Five College Certificate Programs
(Updated October 2023)

General Description of Certificate Programs

Five College certificate programs bring faculty members together across the institutions to offer a focused course of study normally not available on the individual campuses and to support Five College collaboration in a particular field.  They also certify student

work in this concentration so that it can be acknowledged on transcripts issued by home campus registrars.  They are normally interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary in nature, and they generally succeed by taking full advantage of available faculty resources on a Five College basis without requiring additional resources.  Certificate work complements a major or other institutionally required course of study and certificates are only awarded upon completion of the degree; courses used to fulfill institutional requirements may also be used to fulfill certificate requirements when appropriate.  Only undergraduate students enrolled at a Five College institution that has approved the certificate are eligible for award of the certificate.  Most certificate programs require 6-7 courses distributed among categories of courses.  All certificate programs are administered by Five College faculty committees, assisted by Five College staff members.  Certificate programs are reviewed for renewal by the Five College Provosts Council every five years on submission of a self study prepared by the faculty committee overseeing the program.

Fundamental Activity

Certificate programs pursue their central purposes in various ways, some emphasizing certain activities over others.  But all certificate programs should achieve the following:

• outline a coherent, intellectually sound set of requirements for completion of the certificate program and review requirements as necessary;
• establish and maintain a list of approved courses, which is posted on the program webpage;
• identify at least two faculty advisors per participating campus;
• certify successful completion of program requirements and report certifications to the Five College office; 
• coordinate course offerings across the institutions so that students are able to complete certificate requirements within the period normally required for a degree; 
• maintain consistent faculty consultation across the institutions in support of curriculum development, teaching, and scholarship; 
• support collaboration among the institutions to promote and sustain the certificate field in cost-effective ways (for example by coordinating efforts to bring guest speakers and organize other relevant programming);
• when appropriate, and at the request of search committees, ensure consultation among the institutions in matters of institutional staffing to support recruitment and to maximize complementarity;
• when approved by the Provosts, support external fundraising for collaborative projects.

Establishing a Certificate Program

A proposals to establish a Five College certificate program should be developed by Five College faculty committees, normally in consultation with Five College staff.  Proposals will then be reviewed by the Provosts Council, which will decide whether the proposal may be submitted by committee members for approval following normal procedures for establishing new programs on each participating campus.  When at least three campuses have approved the certificate program, it will formally be established as a Five College certificate program and students from participating campuses may be awarded the certificate.

Program proposals should offer a rationale for the program, explaining why a Five College program is necessary given new scholarly developments, resources on the campuses, student and faculty interest, etc.  Proposals should clearly describe any new resources the program will require and outline a plan for providing these resources (for example, by reassigning institutional resources, by better coordinating resource use, by seeking new resources from individual campuses, Five Colleges, Incorporated, or external sources).  (In general, the Provosts Council will favor proposals not requiring new resources.)  Proposals should describe program requirements and offer a scholarly and pedagogical rationale for these requirements.  They should outline how the program will support students completing certificates, listing normally offered courses fulfilling requirements and where they are taught, as well as faculty willing to serve as program advisers (normally, at least two faculty members on each campus, to allow for coverage during leaves etc.).

Proposals should clearly state program goals for the first five years, outlining some standards the program will use to measure its success.

Review and Renewal

Certificate programs seeking renewal should prepare program evaluations every five years for review by the Provosts Council.  Evaluations should document how well the program has achieved its various goals, listing, for example, numbers of students awarded the certificate.  They should also describe programming organized in support of the certificate’s field of study, pedagogical and curricular workshops, courses developed or revised, examples of how the program has supported searches at the institutions, etc.  Evaluations should identify any changes in program goals, and explain how these new goals will be achieved.  And they should explain how the renewal of the program on a Five College basis will continue to serve the institutions given programmatic or staffing changes on the campuses since the program’s establishment or last review and any changes in student or faculty interests.  Evaluations should also re-examine certificate requirements in light of any shifts in scholarship and pedagogy, confirming their continuing value or proposing revisions.  Finally, evaluations should demonstrate that current faculty resources—and institutional commitments to the certificate field—are sufficient to meet the needs of the program for another five years.

In reaching decisions regarding renewal, the Provosts will consider program activity as a whole, recognizing that a program may be more active in some areas than others while still providing valuable service.  They will also consider the possibility that a program can serve important curricular ends across the consortium even if student participation in the program is not equally distributed among the institutions.

Discontinuing a certificate program

The process for discontinuing a Five College certificate mirrors the one for establishing a new one.  Working with Five Colleges staff, the certificate program committee proposes discontinuing its program to the Provosts Council.  If it supports the proposal, the Provosts Council issues a memo making a recommendation to the respective campus curriculum committees to initiate the closure of the certificate program.  The memo, which can be modified to fit the facts for each participating campus, specifies the date after which no new student will be admitted to the certificate, a teach-out plan for students still in the pipeline, and the effective date of the certificate’s closure.