• Provost Office - Board of Regents Agenda Items Deadline

• Attach a cover memo as deemed appropriate.
• Include letters of support with your proposal.
• Resolve any concerns about your proposed program (within or outside your college) before submitting for approval/review.
• Attach Word / Excel documents as appropriate.
• For new degrees, include the New Degree Planning Notification Memo (approved/signed).

A minor is a concentration of courses that focus on a single area or an interdisciplinary perspective developed by the department or program that offers the minor. The department or program offering the minor is responsible for setting enrollment limits and deciding which courses are used to meet the minor. Coursework consists of 15-18 hours with a minimum of 6 in residence at the 300-400 level. (Texas A&M University Student Rule 14.16).

Texas A&M University offers distance education (DE) degree and certificate programs. Visit our distance.tamu.edu website to learn more about distance education at Texas A&M University.

Students who are not enrolled in an approved distance education program cannot take more than 50% of their required courses online. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) rules that no more than 50% of courses can be taken online if the program is not approved to be offered online as a distance education program.

Documents to submit through the Curricular Approval Request System (CARS):

Degree Programs

• All forms indicated on the TAMUS website will need to be completed and submitted through workflow so that your program can be approved to be offered via distance education.
  • In addition to the forms on the TAMUS website, doctoral degree programs seeking approval for distance education must also complete and submit the THECB Distance Education Doctoral Degree Proposal form.

Non-Distance Doctoral Programs

• A memo addressed to the Provost from the Department Head requesting that there be a notification forwarded to the THECB allowing more than four courses, but less than 50% of the courses via distance, excluding research courses, within the specific degree program.
  • The memo should be addressed to the Provost, through the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, through the Dean of the College from the Department Head.
  • The memo should include the specific number of courses requested with the numbers and names of the courses that can appear on the degree plan.
  • The memo must indicate a plan of how the number of distance courses for the program will be monitored so as not to have an inadvertent online degree situation occur.


• Under the Catalog Program Requirements on the CARS form, the Degree Plan section needs to state the exact number of courses the program will allow to be taken distance.


• The proposal will follow the abbreviated approval path for minor changes as outlined in the University SAP 11.99.99.M0.01. Once approved, the Provost’s Office will forward the notification to the THECB.

Departments requesting a new interdisciplinary degree program should submit the documents required for the new degree program indicated above.

The University Studies degree is an innovative interdisciplinary degree with an area of
concentration and two minors.

Departments requesting the combination of existing degree programs which allow students the opportunity to receive two degrees at the same time must submit a proposal through the Curricular Approval Request System (CARS).

Undergraduate Combination Programs:

• Combination programs must be a minimum of 150 hours.

• Even though the undergraduate and graduate programs are combined, students must satisfy the required hours of both programs. Hours in excess of 150 hours can be used to double count courses. For example, an undergraduate program with 120 hours and a graduate program with 48 hours can use up to 18 hours to double count.

• The proposal for the undergraduate degree and graduate degree program requirements must show the plan of study grid/table (ex., First Year-Fall, Spring, Second Year-Fall, Spring,etc.) for both programs which should identify the courses that will be double counted.

• Departments prepare and submit the combination proposal through the curricular approval process. The proposal must be approved by both the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (undergraduate program) and Graduate and Professional Council (graduate program) because this affects both undergraduate and graduate levels.

• Guidelines for the Establishment of Combined Graduate and First Professional Doctoral Degree Programs (PDF).

The proposed degrees are existing TAMU degrees, therefore, require internal approval only.