COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION TRANSFER POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

The Commission on Higher Education for the State of South Carolina coordinates postsecondary education in public-supported institutions, including policies and procedures for students and their course credits transferring among these institutions. The Commission has established transfer policies and procedures that all public institutions must follow. These procedures are published below:

Procedures

The Chief Transfer Officers at Francis Marion University are located in the Office of the Registrar in Stokes Administration Building room 118, 843-661-1175; FAX 843-661-1177. The officers administer and coordinate the advising of transfer students. All students may consult the College Transfer Credit Guide in this office.

For further information regarding transfer, students may access on the Internet the Commission on Higher Education's Home Page at http://www.che400.state.sc.us or Francis Marion University's Home Page at http://www.fmarion.edu

1. The Statewide Articulation Agreement of 87 courses already approved by the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education for transfer from two-to four-year public institutions 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, GPA's, 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' GPA's 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 87 courses in the Statewide Articulation Agreement) and the course equivalencies (including "free elective" category) at the home institution for the courses accepted.

F. Lists of all articulation agreements with any public South Carolina two-year or other institutions 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 addresses.

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. Courses (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 GPA requirements or other admission 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 "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.

6. Any "unique" academic program not specifically or by extension covered by one of the statewide transfer block/agreements listed in number 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/Mathematics block by September, 1996. The institution at which such program 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 in Arts or Associate in 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 at whatever public senior institution to which the student might have been admitted.

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.

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.

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 timely 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 of 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 their entire document.

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.

B. Provide to the Commission 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 minimum shall:

A. Publish these procedures in their entirety.

B. Designate a chief Transfer Officer at the institution who shall

• provide information and other appropriate support for students considering transfer and recent transfer
• serve as a clearinghouse for information on issues of transfer in the State of South Carolina
• provide definitive institutional rulings on transfer questions for the institution's students under these procedures
• work closely with feeder institutions to assure ease in transfer for their students

C. Designate other programmatic 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 Page on the Internet for further information regarding transfer.