Interdepartmental Concentrations and External Study

An outside shot of a classroom, lit within, while students sit in the room and walk by outside.

CMEP and Sydney Cotutelle Heading link

The Chicago Metropolitan Exchange Program (CMEP) allows graduate students in a doctoral program to enroll at one of the three participating institutions to take advantage of academic courses at any of the other participating institutions that are not available at their home institution. The three institutions in the program are the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. UIC students are permitted to take a total of three quarters of classes through the CMEP program at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

UIC students who would like to take courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign or the University of Illinois at Springfield may do so as a concurrent registrant through the UIC Registrar’s Office, and would not be part of this program.

Approved applicants for the Chicago Metropolitan Exchange Program will be referred to as Exchange Scholars. Exchange Scholars pay for class(es) taken at the host institution at the home university, and at the home university rates. Students show proof of payment they made at the home campus, or bill from the home campus, to the host campus liaison.

Please visit the Graduate College’s CMEP page for more information, including application procedures.

English PhD students are eligible to take advantage of UIC’s cotutelle arrangement with Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. A cotutelle (from the French for co-tutoring) grants students two PhDs (one from UIC, and one from Macquarie) while writing a single thesis, as well as providing them with an advisor at Macquarie. The cotutelle program provides round-trip airfare to and from Sydney and a living stipend of about $20,000 USD.  Cotutelle students are also eligible to teach for additional income, if they desire. We have been told that UIC as a whole can send about 5 students per year.

The cotutelle is intended for advanced PhD students (post-prelim) who will graduate within three years and are eligible to do research. Cotutelle participants should plan to spend between 1-2 years at Macquarie. Macquarie will also cover the expense to fly in the Macquarie advisor as an outside reader for a thesis defense. Browse Macquarie’s English department to look for people who could be co-advisors.

Macquarie is ideally located  30 minutes by train from downtown Sydney on well connected transit. Because it helps their international rankings to host more international grad student researchers, Macquarie is keen to host graduate students from UIC.