You have questions, we have answers...

Prior to applying for admission to our graduate program, you should contact an advisor Dr. Carrie Stephens or Dr. Randol Waters to learn about graduate admission requirements. However, the essential admission requirements are also found in our Graduate Student Handbook and the UT Graduate Catalog. We encourage you to review these resources to learn more about our graduate program and admission to graduate studies at UT.

After talking with an advisor and reviewing the program options, you must apply for admission to the Office of Graduate Studies and be admitted to our graduate program before you can enroll in classes. You can find information about minimum requirements for admission and the application process at University Catalogs Online. Once there, you will find that you can
either apply online or print the application and complete it and mail it in using conventional mail. To apply for admission to our program visit Office of Graduate and International Admissions and simply follow the instructions for applying for admission. Make sure you specify "Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications" as your intended major when completing the application. Along with your application, you should submit at least three completed reference forms. Print them and give them to appropriate references to be completed and returned directly to :

• Dr. R. G. Waters
  Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications
  2621 Morgan Circle
  325 Morgan Hall
  The University of Tennessee
  Knoxville, Tennessee 37996

These references will be added to your dossier prior to review of your application. Once your dossier is complete (including application and all transcripts from other institutions you have attended), the Office of Graduate Studies will review it for minimum admission requirements and, if met, they will forward the dossier to the department for review. We will review the dossier (along with all references) and make a decision, usually within three to four weeks of receiving the dossier from the Office of Graduate Studies. You will receive a letter from our graduate program coordinator shortly after the decision has been made.

Once you've been admitted to our graduate program at UT, you may enroll in courses using the online registration system called “Circle Park Online.” However, you will need to know your NetID and your Password before you can log into Circle Park Online (CPO). Both of these pieces of information should have been provided in the information sent to you by the Office of Graduate Admissions shortly after being admitted. If you do not know your student ID type your first and last name in the search box on the top of this page and select "people search" and hit "go." That should return a screen with information about you. In the upper right corner of the screen will be your NetID. It is usually some combination of letters (and possibly numbers) that may resemble your name. Once you get your NetID, continue to CPO and use it and your password to log onto CPO and register for classes. If you do not know your password, there are instructions on the CPO logon screen for assisting you in securing or resetting your password. When registering for courses at “Circle Park Online” you will also need to know the section number and number of credits for each course. This information is listed in the current semester timetable of classes. After registering for classes, do not forget to confirm attendance to assure that you are not dropped from courses after the first day of classes. Confirmation of attendance should be set to "Yes" before exiting CPO.

If you are a UT employee, you can waive up to 9 credits of coursework per semester. You will need to complete a course fee waiver form before the course fee waiver is approved.

• UT Course Fee Waiver Form
• Fee Wavier Form for UT Extension Employees

Yes, possibly. You may transfer up to one half of your coursework from another accredited college or university campus. However, you should check with your advisor in ALEC before selecting these elective courses, to assure they fit into your program. These courses must also have been completed within the timeframe of your program. (All courses for your degree in ALEC must have been completed within a 6 year time-frame.)

Upon admission to a graduate program at UT, you are allowed to continuously enroll in courses each semester as long as you remain a student in good standing. Once admitted, you are encouraged to complete your course work as quickly as possible, taking a maximum of 6 years to complete your program. If, due to your work load or other personal reasons, you decide to skip a semester, you may do so and still enroll in courses the following semester. However, if you do not enroll in any courses during one full academic year (ie. 3 continuous semesters: fall spring and summer), you will be required by the Office of Graduate Studies to apply for re-admission to the graduate program you were enrolled in. You will not be required to pay another application fee with the application for re-admission.

While there may be some exceptions, most of our distance-delivered courses will be accessible to registered students via the online delivery system called “Online@UT”. The system is powered by Blackboard, Inc. Currently using the Blackboard 6.2 operating system) and it is best viewed using the most recent version of the Internet Explorer web-browser. Online@UT is located at: http://online.utk.edu/ . Once you access the Online@UT web-site using your IE browser, you should be able to log onto the system using your NetID and password. If you have properly registered and enrolled in the course at “Circle Park Online”, you should see the appropriate course icons for your course(s) on your Blackboard web page, after logging on. If not, contact your instructor immediately for assistance. (It takes approximately 2-3 working days AFTER you have registered for courses on CPO for your course entry portals to show up on Online@UT.) For most courses, you will also need the most recent version of Windows Media Player installed on your computer. Windows Media Player is already installed as part of the operating system on most Windows-based PCs. However, you should check with your local IT coordinator if you are unsure about whether this software is currently installed on your computer. It is available to download for free at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/
While Online @UT is accessible via phone modem hook-ups, phone modem connections are extremely slow and technically, NOT supported by our system. You should access the system via a high speed DSL or a network internet connection. Check with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) if you are unsure of the kind of Internet connection you have.

About the middle of each semester, you may check the course timetable to see what courses are being offered in ALEC the following semester. You can also check with you advisor to find out this information. However, for planning purposes, we have a tentative list of graduate course offerings for the next three years. View a complete course description for each course, with required pre-requisites or in the UT Graduate Catalog. Unless otherwise noted in the reference, all courses are distance-delivered courses.