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Articulation & General Studies Committee

About

The AGSC stands for the Alabama Articulation and General Studies Committee. The AGSC was created in March of 1994 through State Legislation (ACT 94-202).

The AGSC was created to simplify the transfer of course credit between public institutions of higher education. To accomplish this task, the AGSC has developed and has implemented a statewide general studies and articulation program that facilitates the transferability of coursework among all Alabama public colleges and universities. The AGSC continues to serve as a monitoring committee for the articulation program. They oversee and maintain the program on an on-going basis. Finally, the AGSC works to resolve any student appeals related to transfer of coursework as it relates to the articulation program.

History & background

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, students who attended Alabama's Public Two-Year Colleges faced many obstacles when it came to transferring completed coursework from their two-year college to a public four-year institution in our state. Often the transfer of credit decision was left entirely up to the receiving institution.

Many of the institutions would not accept certain courses and thus force the transfer student to re-take similar courses after transfer on their campuses under their faculty. This created much confusion, misunderstanding, and mistrust between students, parents and representatives at the transfer institutions.

As a result of great losses in credit, time, and money, students and their parents begin to complain to their state representatives.

In March of 1994, a group of representatives drafted legislation, that if approved would force the two-year and four-year institutions to work together to resolve this transfer issue. As a result, Legislative Act 94-202 was passed and the AGSC & STARS Program was created. The Articulation and General Studies Committee (AGSC) was established and the Statewide Transfer and Articulation Reporting System (STARS) was implemented throughout the state.

AGSC meeting voting rules

There are ten voting members of the AGSC&STARS Committee based on the categories defined by the legislation, ACT 94-202. In addition, each appointing authority may appoint alternates equal in number to the number of votes that authority has (i.e., two alternates for regional universities, three alternates for ACCS, and one alternate for each of the others). Those entitled to vote at meetings are as follows:

  • The voting member when present.
  • If a voting member is absent, the alternate member from the absent member's category (e.g., regional universities or ACCS) votes in place of the voting member.
  • For regionals and two-year college representatives, when the number of voting members absent is less than the number of alternate voting members present, the alternate member(s) who will cast votes will be identified at the time of roll call such that there will be only three votes cast among the two-year institutions and only two votes cast among the regional universities.

Chairperson

Vice Chairperson

Secretary

Voting members

Alabama A&M University

1 vote from this group.

Alabama State University

1 vote from this group.

Auburn University System

1 vote from this group.

University of Alabama System

1 vote from this group.

University of South Alabama

1 vote from this group.

Regional Universities

2 votes from this group.

Alabama Community College System

3 votes from this group.

Non-voting members

Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE)

Statewide Transfer Articulation Reporting System (STARS)

Council of Chief Academic Officers

Alabama Association of Independent Colleges and Universities

Sub-Committees

ACHIEVE Conference

The ACHIEVE Conference Sub-Committee is formed ad hoc to plan and facilitate the annual ACHIEVE Transfer Student Success Conference.

The conference itself focuses on three things: (1) promoting transfer student success, (2) fostering collaboration between community colleges and universities to increase college completion rates in Alabama, and (3) discovering new ways to achieve seamless transfer.

Chairperson

Vice Chairperson

Members

AP Credit

The work of this committee is on hold until we receive a response back from the Council of Chief Academic Officers.

Background:

The AP Credit Scores Sub-Committee completed its work in July of 2020 with a recommendation to the full AGSC. The recommendations were as follows:

  1. Disciplinary experts at each institution should assess the appropriate threshold scores for AP exams in the same way that they assess courses for articulation.
  2. AGSC recommends that all state institutions set AP score expectations at “3” for all courses as a means to smooth transfer between state institutions.

State institutions should clearly report their AP credit awarding thresholds in their institutional materials (web/bulletin/etc.) and AGSC will link to these scores or provide a composite table for easy reference.

The sub‐committee’s report and recommendations were accepted without modification by the AGSC. In January 2021, AGSC chair, Dr. Pamela Arrington, shared the recommendations with the Council of University Chief Academic Officers. This council has not yet responded officially to the recommendation from the AGSC.

Chairperson

Members

Math Pathways

The purpose of the Math Pathways sub-committee is to explore possible issues related to the current math requirements in the state core, generate improvement ideas, and determine one or two actionable changes related to mathematics to recommend to the AGSC.

Chairperson

Members

Meta Major - General Education - Area I-V

The Meta-Major - General Education - AREA I-V Recommendation Sub-Committee is a committee established to take a "long-term / wholistic view" of the current transfer guide requirements. They are looking to answer the following questions: Can we make a move to a Meta-Major system? What can we do to change how we establish areas and general studies requirements? What can we do to make the entire transfer system better?

Chairperson

Members

Proposed UA Core Curriculum Impact

This sub-committee of the AGSC was created on March 23, 2023. The purpose of this committee is to look into the forthcoming general education core changes proposed by The University of Alabama and how it impacts transfer students and also how it conflicts or matches up with the 1994 legislation that created the AGSC and expanded STARS (now Alabama Transfers). It is the sub-committee's desire to work with UA, its provost office staff, and other institutional committees to make sure that transfer students who obtain official AGSC approved transfer guides are not adversely impacted upon transfer to the University of Alabama.

Chair

Vice Chair

Members

Support Courses

Support Courses (email from Dr. Coleman - USA) --- Many colleges have developed co-requisite course delivery models to existing, approved gen ed courses as we have moved away from developmental education. Often, these courses have a special designation (E.g., EH 101-S). I have maintained that we treat this course the same a undesignated courses because, in fact, it is the same course (EH 101 = EH101-S). The course may have different instructional delivery, but the course is the same. I'd be interested to hear if others have had to engage in similar discussions about the transferability of these courses. I'd also like the committee to consider whether the AGSC should development a statement about the transferability of these courses.

Chairperson

Members