The Big Ten Academic Alliance, a consortium of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago, formerly known as the CIC, has established the Traveling Scholar Program as part of its effort to increase cooperative use of the resources of its member institutions. The program enables a doctoral-level student to attend another BTAA institution for a maximum of one year in order to take advantage of special course offerings, laboratory facilities, independent study with an expert in a particular field, or library collections that are not available on the student's own campus. Traveling Scholars register and pay fees as if they were in residence at their home universities. Some host universities may have additional special fees. Credit earned while in this program is automatically accepted by the Graduate College and is considered "credit in residence." Application forms are online at www-s.cic.net/OnlineApplications/ts/tsapp/, and available from the Graduate College.

The procedure for applying to this program is as follows: The student's advisor discusses the proposed visit with a colleague at the host university, and both faculty members agree that the student is qualified to take advantage of the visit and that the work will be advantageous to the student's educational goals. The advisor should obtain course numbers and titles from the host university for the application at this time.

After the executive officer of the student's department approves the application, it should be forwarded to the Graduate College Traveling Scholar liaison officer.

When the liaison officer has approved the visit, the application is sent to the liaison officer of the host campus, who will obtain the signatures of the advisor and executive officer on that campus and approve and return the application to the student's home liaison officer.

The graduate student must register on the University of Illinois campus for CIC 500 for the term(s) for which he or she plans to be a Traveling Scholar. If the student wants to take the course work for Credit/No Credit, the appropriate paperwork must be completed on the home campus. The student must also keep in mind that a course taken for less than two quarter-hours cannot be transferred.

When the student has completed the courses at the host institution and grades have been assigned, the liaison at the host university will supply the liaison at the home university with transcripts from which the courses taken may be transferred to the student's transcript in place of the CIC 500 listing.