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.

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