A minor is a set of courses that meet specified guidelines and is designed to allow a sub-major concentration in an academic discipline or a specific area within a discipline. Unlike a specialization or a concentration, the minor is recorded on the student's transcript providing the student has maintained a 2.0 minimum quality point average for all coursework required for the minor.

A minor shall be no fewer than 15 credits hours and requires six additional credits that are outside the student's major. A minimum of 9 credit hours must be upper division (300 or higher). Students must completed at least 6 credit hours in their minor at Slippery Rock University.

Ordinarily, a minor is a subset of some major. But a minor may concentrate on an area which involves two or more academic disciplines, each of which is related to the minor (for example, no major exists in journalism, but the departments of English and Communication jointly offer a minor in journalism which includes courses from each of the disciplines), or a minor may be offered in a discipline where no major is given (for example, Russian).

Students cannot major and minor in the same discipline/academic area. For example, they cannot major and minor in geography, but they can major in geography and minor in cartography.

Students may declare minors at any time by completing a Declaration of Minor form available in the Office of Academic Records and Summer School. Coursework in a student's minor may be used to satisfy the University's Liberal Studies requirements.