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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.


Email Other AGSC Contacts

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.

  • Auburn University
  • Auburn University at Montgomery

University of Alabama System

1 vote from this group.

  • The University of Alabama
  • University of Alabama at Birmingham
  • University of Alabama in Huntsville

University of South Alabama

1 vote from this group.

Regional Universities

2 votes from this group.

  • Athens State University
  • Jacksonville State University
  • Troy University
  • University of Montevallo
  • University of North Alabama
  • University of West Alabama

Alabama Community College System

3 votes from this group.

Non-voting members

Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE)

Alabama Transfers

Alabama Association of Independent Colleges and Universities

Sub-Committees

ACHIEVE Conference

The ACHIEVE Conference Planning 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.

ACHIEVE CONFERENCE web page.

Chairperson

Vice Chairperson

Members

Alabama Transfers Staff Succession Plan

The current staff of the Alabama Transfers consists of 3 people:

  1. Keith Sessions - Executive Director (30 years)
  2. Shannon Nichols - Assistant Director (30 years)
  3. Anita Hermeling - Executive Assistant (Retired - works part-time)

Within the next 3-5 years these individuals will most likely retire. Therefore, it is important that the AGSC begin to think about a possible succession plan. This sub-committee has been established to work with Dr. Keith Sessions to come up with a 3-5 year succession plan for staffing the Alabama Transfers office. At some point in 2023-2024, this subcommittee will need to present a working plan to the AGSC for approval.

Chairperson

Members

General Studies Core

The General Studies Core 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?

At the 2023 Summer Planning meeting the following priorities and goals were established for this sub-committee:

Continue work of General Studies Core Sub-Committee with a goal of addressing the following: (Make recommendations as needed)
a) Identify what general studies should look in five years
b) Identify the mission of general studies in Alabama
c) Identify and address the challenges and/or barriers that prevent action on re-visioning the General Studies core

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.

Chairperson

Vice Chairperson

Members