Cross listing is a procedure that benefits students by giving them a choice of relevant prefixes under which to take a cross-listed course. It benefits faculty by giving them an opportunity to collaborate across disciplinary lines. It benefits departments and programs by increasing access to courses. Cross listing should be considered, however, only when two or more appropriate departments, each with valid claims to a given subject matter, genuinely wish to collaborate on the offering of an identical course. Cross listing should not be used simply as a tool for resolving differences or opposition between or among departments over their respective offerings or perhaps similar but by no means identical courses.
Guidelines for cross-listing courses are:
- Course proposals and outlines must be identical in title, prerequisites, description, outline, classification, units, grading practice, and number of times a course may be taken for credit. The course number may differ for each prefix, as long as all numbers are at the same level (lower division, upper division, graduate). Each 40 word description must end with: "Also offered as [cross-listed prefix and number]. Students may not take the course a second time under an alternate prefix." [If the course is repeatable for credit, substitute "students may only re-take the course under the same prefix as before."]
- Generic courses and their variants are not eligible for cross listing.
- When two or more departments/programs agree to cross-list a course:
- a. They shall contact each other every semester to determine if one or another wishes to offer the course in the following semester’s schedule. The schedules of all parties must reflect any offering of the course.
- b. They shall have the option of staffing the course in alternating sequence. One party may forgo their "turn" in any given semester, and defer that turn until the next semester in which it wishes to offer the course.
- c. They shall not offer all the courses in the same semester, unless the offering of multiple sections are agreed upon by all parties.
- d. Each shall choose its own instructor for the course when it is its "turn" (unless prior agreement has been reached to choose instructors in concert).
- e. They shall never make changes in the course title, prerequisites, description, outline, classification, units, grading practice, or number of times it may be taken without the complete agreement of the other party/parties.
- f. Each shall notify all other participating departments if it is contemplating withdrawing from a cross-listing arrangement subsequent to the course being approved.
- Students have the option signing up under any prefix when the course is offered (except if the course is being repeated for credit). All FTES is returned to the department/program that is funding the instructor.