If you are a community member and do not wish to enter a degree program at Iowa State University but do wish to take courses in and/or complete the Education for Social Justice graduate certificate, you must apply for admission to the Iowa State University Graduate College. Please review the Graduate College application requirements. 

  • Note: If you have not previously been admitted to the Graduate College at Iowa State University (or if you have been admitted as a ‘non-degree seeking student’ as opposed to a certificate or degree-seeking program), you must complete the online graduate application through the Iowa State Admissions office. Please disregard any application acceptance dates that may be listed on the Iowa State University-wide admissions site and continue with your application as prompted through their website.

Applications are accepted year-round for this certificate program. Please disregard any application acceptance dates that may be listed on the Iowa State University-wide admissions site and continue with your application as prompted through their website.

If you are matriculated as a student in a graduate degree-granting program (e.g. master’s or doctoral program) at Iowa State University, regardless of field of study, you must submit a request to add a certificate to a degree program, and this request must be approved. You are strongly encouraged to add the certificate before you have completed more than 6 credits toward the certificate. This and other certificate forms (described below) should be submitted to:

Graduate Support Specialist
School of Education Graduate Programs
Iowa State University
1620 Lagomarcino Hall

After adding the certificate to your degree program, you must also submit a Program of Study for the certificate to show the coursework that you intend to complete to obtain the certificate. This must be done prior to the last semester in which you are taking certificate courses.

If any of the courses are independently arranged (e.g., ELPS 591, CI590F and CI690F), please adhere to guidelines on the list of approved courses.

When you have completed all requirements for the certificate, you should submit a certificate completed form. The Graduate College will then certify that all requirements have been met. The registrar will add a notation to your permanent record (transcript) indicating that the certificate was granted on a specified date and issue a printed ISU graduate certificate.

To summarize, certificate students must meet the following criteria to receive the Education for Social Justice graduate certificate: