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CHE
Approved by the Commission
May 2, 1996
SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION
1333 MAIN STREET
Suite 200
COLUMBIA, S.C. 29201
May 2, 1996
FRED R.SHEHEEN
TELEPHONE
803/737-2260
FAX NUMBER
803/737-2297
TO: Fred L. Day, Chairman, and Members,
Commission on Higher Education
FROM: Mildred R. Williams, Chairman, Committee on Academic Affairs
Consideration of Regulations and Procedures for the
Transfer of Courses in Public Two-Year and Public
Four-Year lnstitutions in South Carolina
as Mandated by Act 137 of 1995
Enclosed for your review and consideration are recommendations on transfer regulations and procedures and accompanying documentation as appendices. These procedures represent the culmination of a process which began in 1989, shortly after the passage of Act 629, The Cutting Edge legislation. The process was re-initiated in 1991-1993 and entered its most recent phase of development with the passage of the School-to Work legislation in 1994 and Act 137 of 1995.
Four major objectives will be significantly advanced by the Procedures.The final draft will:
*provide more timely infomiation of significance for students considering transfer;
*assist students and campus personnel by permitting greater flexibility in processes and providing more accountability mechanisms;
*provide guarantees (transfer block and nursing statewide agreement) that transferred credit will count toward the appropriate degree; and
*remove artificial barriers which are wasteful of time, taxpayers' dollars, and students' and families' investment.
With these Procedures in place, our institutions wfll be pledged to carry out a large number of processes at a high level of interinstitutional cooperation. They have already expressed their desire to do this. While the regulations do clearly seek to assist students, as one of the appendices points out, students must still take appropriate responsibility for their own choices.
In crafting the Procedures and the accompanying appendices, the seminal work of the academic vice presidents who were members of the Transfer and Articulation Policy Committee was instrumental. Similarly, the thoughtful, creative efforts of the members of the Transfer Block Task Forces constituted the backbone for the essential curricular pieces. Without the input of these two groups, the final document and the appendices would not have been possible. A Transfer Issues Focus Group, assembled by the staff of the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education, provided valuable feedback for additional refining of ideas for clarifying the document and the processes envisioned in it. Finally, as the transfer initiative gained momentum, it was gratifying to hear spontaneous and affirming comments periodically from individual faculty members at the institutions, who were especially interested in the Transfer Blocks.
The collaborative nature of this process has been an important, positive statewide experience. Implementation of the Procedures will send a strong signal that our institutions are willing to respond quickly, accountably, and creatively with appropriate statewide action on behalf of the needs of the students and the taxpaying public whom we all serve.
Owing to the investment that South Carolina's public academic community has in the procedures, the presentation of this document at the recent Advisory Committee on Academic Program meeting of April 9, 1996, was greeted with great support. The institutions were unable to agree on only one point: that is, whether students who have completed the AA/AS degree should "automatically be entitled to junior-level status" upon transfer to a four-year institution. (See p.4 #7 on the attached report.)
Some institutions were of the opinion that the Commission should not issue such a procedure. The reasons for this opinion varied by institution. In some cases, the institutional representative argued that it is unfair to allow a transfer to be considered a junior with fewer than 60 credit hours which are acceptable at the institution toward a degree. One institutional representative stated that the Commission does not have the authority to require this as a procedure although the provisions of Act 137 suggest quite the opposite. Another representative argued that students might interpret "junior-level" status as meaning that they have only 60 semester hours of courses left to complete for any degree. The Citadel's representative argued that the "class" system in the Corps of Cadets meant that even if the Commission were to promulgate such procedures under the law, his institution would be unable to accept it, since it conflicts with the Corps' regulations.
The institutional representatives and CHE staff who were in favor of the proposal as written argued that "junior-level status" means nothing in terms of time remaining toward the degree, but means a great deal to students interested in receiving treatment consistent with upperclassman perquisites for such things as first choice in residence halls, automobile parking spaces, and so forth. They argued also that the policy established by the Commission (Appendix D) was meant to provide students who have completed the AA/AS transfer degree with some tangible recognition of their accomplishment upon transfer. One institutional representative stated publicly that his institution may choose to go forward with this kind of policy regardless of the outcome of the debate in the Commission because it is an equitable one.
After considerable debate on this sole topic of contention, the Advisory Committee on Academic Programs passed an advisory resolution with no negative votes received requesting that the language of the document be changed on procedure #7 from "shall automatically be entitled to junior level status at whatever public senior institution to which the student might have been admitted" to "shall be accorded the rights and privileges commensurate with the number of credit hours transferred to the public senior institution." Upon passage of this advisory amendment, one institutional representative stated that in her opinion the amendment would render the entirety of procedure #7 "meaningless" because the revised language removes the special perquisites (e.g., on-campus housing preference, course registration advantages, and so forth) that transfer students who have completed an AA/AS degree have come to expect in many other states. To that extent the revised language also becomes a disincentive for students to complete the AA/AS.
In their discussion of Recommendation #7, the members of the Committee on Academic Affairs stated in their meeting of April 22, 1996, that there is a need to assure that transfer students be treated with fairness at four-year institutions. In their deliberations, all members present stated in different ways that Recommendation. #7 is important to achieve equity by assuring transfer students who have completed an AA/AS degree receive the same treatment with respect to campus activities as students who began at those four-year institutions and now hold junior status. "Junior-level" status is meant to provide completers of the AA/AS degrees with appropriate recognition for their accomplishment by allowing them to register for courses, be given residence hall assignments, select parking assignments, and receive cultural/athletic ticket offerings before underclassman. For all these reasons, the Committee voted unanimously to sustain the staff position on Recommendation #7.
In addition, Mr. Charles Brock, Assistant Academic Dean at Furman, who served as Director of Admissions at that institution for 22 years, addressed the Committee generally about the proposed document on transfer. He stated that after this document had been presented at the April 12, 1996, meeting of the Tri-County Technical College Advisory Committee on Transfer, he and other members of that group had studied the document at length. The group included academic program officers from Furman, Southern Wesleyan University, Anderson College, Bob Jones University, and Erskine College. Mr. Brock said that the group found the document to be "well thought out" and that, if it is adopted by the Commission, he and others believe it will be received well by all the independent colleges in the State. Given the reception the document received from the independent colleges' representatives on April 12, Mr. Brock said that the independent colleges may wish to adopt the document as their standard. He stated that after having served for 26 years in higher education, he was delighted to see such a document now being discussed for adoption as policy. Specifically addressing the issue of Recommendation #7, he stated that the independent colleges represented at the April 12 meeting were fully in accord with the position of the staff of the Commission about the desirability of such a provision for the very reasons mentioned in the staff transmittal accompanying the mail-out to the Committee on Academic Affairs.
In summary, acceptance of these procedures by the Commission and their implementation will usher in an era of expanded and facilitated transfer opportunities for students while safeguarding academic quality and promoting interinstitutional cooperation. For the Commission to approve these procedures will afford it the opportunity of reporting back to the General Assembly one the most significant advancements in transfer processes ever.
RECOMMENDATION
The Committee recommends that the Commission approve the proposed regulations and procedures as presented in the attached document entitled "Regulations and Procedures for Transfer in Public Two-Year and Public Four-Year Institutions in South Carolina as Mandated by Act 137 of 1995.
Regulations and Procedures for Transfer in Public Two-Year and Public Four-Year Institutions in South Carolina is Mandated by Act 137 of 1995
BACKGROUND
Section 10-C of the South Carolina School-to-Work Transition Act (1994) stipulates that the Council of College and University Presidents and the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education, operating through theCommission on Higher Education, shall develop better articulation of associate and baccalaureate degree programs. To comply with this requirement, the Commission upon the advice of the Council of Presidents established a Transfer Articulation Policy Committee composed of four year institutions' vice presidents for academic affairs and the Associate Director for Instruction of the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education. The principal outcomes derived from the work of that committee and accepted by the Commission on Higher Education on July 6, 1995, were:
*An expanded list of 72 courses which will transfer to four-year public institutions of South Carolina from the two-year public institutions;
*A statewide policy document on good practices in transfer to be followed by all public institutions of higher education in the State of South Carolina, which was accepted in principle by the Advisory Committee on Academic Programs and the Commission;
*Six task forces on statewide transfer agreements, each based in a discipline or broad area of the baccalaureate curriculum.
In 1995 the General Assembly passed Act 137 which stipulated further that the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education "notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, shall have the following additional duties and functions with regard to the various public institutions of higher education. " These duties and responsibilities include the Commission's responsibility "to establish procedures for the transferability of courses at the undergraduate level between two-year and four-year institutions or schools." This same provision is repeated in the legislation developed from the Report of the Joint Legislative Study Committee, which is now moving through the General Assembly during the 1996 session.
Act 137 directs the Cormiission to adopt procedures for the transfer of courses frotn all two-year public to all four-year public institutions of higher education in South Carolina. Proposed procedures are listed below. Unless otherwise stated, these procedures shall become effective immediately upon approval by the Commission and shall be fully implemented, unless otherwise stated, by September 1, 1997.
STATEWIDE ARTICULATION OF 72 COURSES
1 . The Statewide Articulation Agreement of 72 courses already approved by the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education for transfer from two- to four-year public institutions (See Appendix A) shall be applicable to all public institutions, including two-year institutions and institutions within the same system. In instances where an institution does not have synonymous courses to ones on this list, it shall identify comparable courses or course categories for acceptance of general education courses on the statewide list.
ADMISSIONS CRITERIA, COURSE GRADES, GPAS, VALIDATIONS
2. All four-year public institutions shall issue annually in August a transfer guide covering at least the following items:
A. The definition of a transfer student and requirements for admission both to the institution and, if more selective, requirements for admission to particular programs.
B. Limitations placed by the institution or its programs for acceptance of standardized examinations (e.g., SAT, ACT) taken more than a given time ago, for academic coursework taken elsewhere, for coursework repeated due to failure, for coursework taken at another institution while the student is academically suspended at his/her home institution, and so forth.
C. Institutional and, if more selective, programmatic maximums of course credits allowable in transfer.
D. Institutional procedures used to calculate student applicants' GPAs for transfer admission. Such procedures shall describe how nonstandard grades (withdrawal, withdrawal failing, repeated course, etc. ) are evaluated; and they shall also describe whether all coursework taken prior to transfer or just coursework deemed appropriate to the student's intended four-year program of study is calculated for purposes of admission to the institution and/or programmatic major.
E. Lists of all courses accepted from each technical college (including the 72 courses in the Statewide Articulation Agreement) and the course equivalencies (including "free elective' category) found on the home institution for the courses accepted.
F. Lists of all articulation agreements with any public South Carolina two-year or other institution of higher education, together with information about how interested parties can access these agreements.
G. Lists of the institution's Transfer Officer(s) personnel together with telephone and FAX numbers and office address.
H. Institutional policies related to "academic bankruptcy" (i.e., removing an entire transcript or parts thereof from a failed or underachieving record after a period of years has passed) so that re-entry into the four year institution with course credit earned in the interim elsewhere is done without regard to the student's earlier record.
I. "Residency requirements" for the minimum number of hours required to be earned at the institution for the degree.
3. Coursework (individual courses, transfer blocks, statewide agreements) covered within these procedures shall be transferable if the student has completed the coursework with a "C" grade (2.0 on a 4.0 scale) or above, but transfer of grades does not relieve the student of the obligation to meet any G.P.A. requirements or other admissions requirements of the institution or program to which application has been made.
A. Any four-year institution which has institutional or programmatic admissions requirements for transfer students with cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) higher than 2.0 on a 4.0 scale shall apply such entrance requirements equally to transfer students from regionally accredited South Carolina public institutions regardless of whether students are transferring from a four-year or two-year institution.
B. Any multi-campus institution or system shall certify by letter to the Commission that all coursework at all of its campuses applicable to a particular degree program of study is fully acceptable in transfer to meet degree requirements in the same degree program at any other of its campuses.
4. Any coursework (individual courses, transfer blocks, statewide agreements) covered within these procedures shall be transferable to any public institution without any additional fee and without any further encumbrance such as a validation examination, "placement examination/instrument," "verification instrument," or any other stricture, notwithstanding any institutional or system policy, procedure, or regulation to the contrary.
TRANSFER BLOCKS, STATEWIDE AGREEMENTS, COMPLETION OF THE AA/AS DEGREE
5. The following Transfer Blocks/Statewide Agreements taken at any two-year public institution in. South Carolina shall be accepted in their totality toward meeting baccalaureate degree requirements at all four year public institutions in relevant four-year degree programs, as follows:
*Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences: Established curriculum block of 46-48 semester hours
*Business Administration: Established curriculum block of 46-51 semester hours
*Engineering: Established curriculum block of 33 semester hours
*Science and Mathematics: Established curriculum block of 48-51 semester hours
*Teacher Education: Established curriculum block of 38-39 semester hours for Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education students only. Secondary education majors and students seeking certification who are not majoring in teacher education should consult the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences or the Math and Science transfer blocks, as relevant, to assure transferability of coursework.
*Nursing: By statewide agreement, at least 60 semester hours shall be accepted by any public four-year institution toward the baccalaureate completion program (BSN) from graduates of any South Carolina public associate degree program in nursing (ADN), provided that the program is accredited by the National League of Nursing and that the graduate has successfully passed the National Licensure Examination (NCLEX) and is a currently licensed Registered Nurse
(For complete texts and information about these statewide transfer blocks/agreements, see Appendix B.)
6. Any "unique" academic program not specifically or by extension covered by one of the statewide transfer blocks/agreements listed in #4 above shall either create its own transfer block of 35 or more credit hours with the approval of CHE staff or shall adopt either the Arts/Social Science/Humanities or the Science/Mathematies block by September, 1996.
The institution at which such prograrn is located shall inform the staff of the CHE and every institutional president and vice president for academic affairs about this decision.
7. Any student who has completed either an Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree program at any public two-year South Carolina institution which contains within it the total coursework found in either the Arts/Social Sciences/Humanities Transfer Block or the Math/Science Transfer Block shall automatically be entitled to junior level status or its equivalent at whatever public senior institution to which the student might have been admitted. (Note: As agreed by the Committee on Academic Affairs, junior status applies only to carnpus activities such as priority order for registration for courses, residence hall assignments, parking, athletic event tickets, etc. and not in calculating academic degree credits.
RELATED REPORTS AND STATEWIDE DOCUMENTS
8. All applicable recommendations found in the Commission's report to the General Assembly on the School-to-Work Act (approved by the Commission and transmitted to the General Assembly on July 6, 1995) are hereby incorporated into the procedures for transfer of coursework among two-and four-year institutions. (SeeAppendixC.)
9. The policy paper entitled State Policy on Transfer and Articulation, as amended to reflect changes in the numbers of transfer blocks and other Commission action since July 6, 1995, is hereby adopted as the statewide policy for institutional good practice in the sending and receiving of all course credits to be transferred. (SeeAppendixD.)
ASSURANCE OF QUALITY
10. All claims from any public two- or four-year institution challenging the effective preparation of any other public institution's coursework for transfer purposes shall be evaluated and appropriate measures shall be taken to reassure that the quality of the coursework has been reviewed and approved on a tirnely basis by sending and receiving institutions alike. This process of formal review shall occur every four years through the staff of the Commission on Higher Education, beginning with the approval of these procedures.
STATEWIDE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION ON TRANSFER
11. The staff of the Commission on Higher Education shall print and distribute copies of these Procedures upon their acceptance by the Commission. The staff shall also place this document and the Appendices on the Commission's Home Page on the Internet under the title "Transfer Policies."
12. By September 1 of each year, all public four-year institutions shall on their own Home Page on the Internet under the title 'Transfer Policies":
A. Print a copy of this entire document (without appendices).
B. Print a copy of their entire transfer guide.
C. Provide to the staff of the Commission in satisfactory format a copy of their entire transfer guide for placing on the Commission's Home Page on the Internet.
13. By September 1 of each year, the staff of the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education shall on its Home Page on the Internet under the title "Transfer Policies":
A. Print a copy of this document (without appendices).
B. Provide to the Comission staff in format suitable for placing on the Commission's Home Page of the Internet a list of all articulation agreements that each of the sixteen technical colleges has with public and other four-year institutions of higher education, together with information about how interested parties can access those agreements.
14. Each two-year and four-year public institutional catalog shall contain a section entitled "TRANSFER: STATE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES." Such section at a minimum shall:
A. Publish these procedures in their entirety (except Appendices)
B. Designate a chief Transfer Officer at the institution who shall
C. Designate other programatic Transfer Officer(s) as the size of the institution and the variety of its programs might warrant
D. Refer interested parties to the institutional Transfer Guide
E. Refer interested parties to the institution's and the Commission on Higher Education's Home Pages on the Internet for further information regarding transfer.
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Statewide Articulation Agreement: Technical College Courses Transferable to Public Senior Institutions 7/95
Appendix B: Statewide Transfer Blocks/Agreements (6)
Appendix C: Report to the General Assembly 7/6/95
"Recommendations Concerning Compliance with the 1994 South Carolina School-to-Work Transition Act (Section 10- C) "
Appendix D: State Policy on Transfer and Articulation