Background on Licensure Disclosure Requirement

As part of its membership in the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), UW-Madison must comply with the federal regulation related to professional certification and licensure disclosures. Essentially the rule states that for each academic program offered by UW-Madison that leads to professional certification/licensure, the university must publically disclose if the educational requirements for the degree at UW-Madison meet or do not meet the applicable educational requirements for professional licensure or certification in each U.S. state and territory. Stated otherwise, the university must determine and disclose whether or not a student who enrolls in the program, and subsequently seeks employment in each state/territory after completing the program, will qualify to take any licensure or certification exam that is needed for the student to practice or find employment in the occupation. This rule is intended to ensure that students using Title IV funds do not end up incurring debt because they were not able to meet requirements in the occupations for which they are being prepared.

Important Changes for 2024

This federal disclosure regulation has been in place since 2019, and UW-Madison has been in compliance by publishing the state-by-state disclosure in the Guide (see Bachelor of Science-Nursing Certification/Licensure tab for example). The requirement had been that programs that lead to professional certification/licensure had to determine and disclose if the program met or did not meet the requirements for licensure in each state/territory, or state if a determination had not yet been made. However, in November 2023, the rule was changed and it is no longer an option to state that the determination had not yet been made. The university must now disclose if the program does meet or does not meet the requirements for licensure/certification in each state and territory. Updated disclosures are required on/by 1 July 2024, and thus will be included in the Guide publication issued in June 2024. 

Process and Support for Making Determinations

Data, Academic Planning & Institutional Research works with faculty and staff in the schools, colleges, and programs to support the determination and disclosure process. In addition, with the new federal requirement to definitively determine if the program meets or does not meet the educational requirements for licensure/certification in each state, the university has partnered with UW System to purchase a software solution to support making the determination. The database product is called The Bookmark and it maintains state-by-state certification/licensure requirements for more than 60 license types. Program staff will be able to access The Bookmark directly, review state-by-state requirements for licensure, and compare those requirements to the degree requirements to make the determination. 

Determination Process to Be Undertaken by Faculty Staff in the Academic Programs (for June 2024 publication in Guide)

Following are the steps faculty and/or staff in the academic programs should take to make the determinations and publish/disclose the results in Guide, as required by the federal regulations. The deadline to complete this work and submit the Lumen Program change proposal to DAPIR so it will be reflected in the June 2024 Guide publication is 8 March 2024.

1. Review the list of academic programs in your school/college for which it has been determined that they lead to professional certification/licensure.
   1. If you believe a program is erroneously included in or missing from the list, please contact Karen Mittelstadt in DAPIR (mittelstadt@wisc.edu).
2. Check the list of the 60+ license types included in The Bookmark database to see if collected information is included in The Bookmark for your program/license type.
   1. If yes, log into The Bookmark (https://www.higheredlicensurepros.com/the-bookmark). Enter Username: lumen@provost.wisc.edu and Password: 4GPoxUq*MY. In the "License Type" field, select the appropriate license and leave the "State/Territory" field set to All, and click "Search." You will see the "Download Data" text; click that and indicate if you would like the dowload as a CSV or PDF. It will be each user's preference which format is prefered. Move onto Step 3 below.
   2. If your program's license type is not included in The Bookmark database, you will have to review each states/territories requirements as you have done in the past. Refer to the NC-SARA Professional Licensure Determination Support Tips and Resources KnowledgeBase page for helpful tips and resources.
3. For each program that you oversee, review the certification/licensure requirements for each state and territory.
4. Compare those requirements to your degree requirements to determine if your program meets or does not meet the requirements for professional certification/licensure in each state/territory.
5. Once you have made the determination for each state/territory, initiate a Lumen Program change proposal to update the existing disclosure information. This disclosure information is contained on the Certification/Licensure tab in Guide. To make the edit, navigate to the existing section headed "Professional Certification/Licensure Disclosure (NC-SARA)," move the name of each state/territory into the appropriate "meets" or "does not meet" section, and elimiate the "not yet determined" section.
   
   1. For additional help with formatting and manipulating Guide's Certification/Licensure tab, refer to the Lumen/Guide: University Guidelines for Specific Tabs KnowledgeBase document.
6. In addition to updating the Guide state-by-state list, add your name and the current date following the NC-SARA section. This is temporary text so DAPIR knows who did the update and when. It will be removed prior to publication.

Ongoing Maintenance of State-by-State Disclosures

Looking ahead and following this 2024 update, to maintain the state-by-state list in Guide:

• DAPIR will receive a notification from The Bookmark software if/when a state changes its certification/licensure requirements for a particular program. In this case, DAPIR will initiate a Lumen Program change proposal for the impacted program, noting in the abstract the details of the change (e.g., which state, which requirement, etc.). Through standard Lumen workflow processes, the program will then be prompted to review the change and make any necessary updates to the state-by-state list for subsequent update/publication in Guide.
• If the program/license type is not included in The Bookmark, DAPIR will issue a reminder to the school/college/program in December of each year to review the state-by-state requirements and make any necessary updates in Guide.
• If/when the program changes its degree requirements via a Lumen Program change proposal, DAPIR will remind the program to check if the change impacts state requirements for certification/licensure, and if so, to update the disclosure.