BACKGROUND

Section 10-C of the South Carolina School-to-Work Transition Act (1994) stipulated that the Council of College and University Presidents and the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education, operating through the Commission on Higher Education, 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 86 courses which 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.

Act 137 directed the commission to adopt the following procedures for the transfer of courses from all two-year public to all four-year public institutions of higher education in South Carolina.

SOUTH CAROLINA TRANSFER AND ARTICULATION CENTER (SCTRAC)

All two- and four-year public institutions will publish information related to course articulation and transfer, including but not limited to items A through D mentioned above, on the South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center website (www.SCTRAC.org). Course equivalency information listing all courses accepted from each institution in the state (including the 86 courses in the Statewide Articulation Agreement) and their respective course equivalencies (including courses in the "free elective" category) will be made available on www.SCTRAC.org. This course equivalency information will be updated as equivalencies are added or changed and will be reviewed annually for accuracy. Additionally, articulation agreements between public South Carolina institutions of higher education will be made available on www.SCTRAC.org, will be updated as articulation agreements are added or changed, and will be reviewed annually for accuracy. All other transfer information published on www.SCTRAC.org will be reviewed at least annually and updated as needed.

STATEWIDE ARTICULATION OF 86 COURSES

The Statewide Articulation Agreement of 86 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.

TRANSFER BLOCKS, STATEWIDE AGREEMENTS, COMPLETION OF THE A.A./A.S. DEGREE

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
• Arts and Sciences, curriculum II: 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 course work
• 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 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.

Any “unique” academic program not specifically or by extension covered by one of the statewide transfer blocks/agreements 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.

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 course work 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 campus activities such as priority order for registration for courses, residence hall assignments, parking, athletic event tickets, etc., and not in calculating academic degree credits.)

ASSURANCE OF TRANSFERABILITY OF COURSEWORK COVERED BY THE TRANSFER POLICY

Coursework (i.e., individual courses, transfer blocks, and statewide agreements) covered within this transfer policy will be transferable if the student has completed the coursework with a "C" grade (2.0 on a 4.0 scale) or above. However, the transfer of grades does not relieve the student of the obligation to meet any GPA requirements or other admissions requirements of the institution or program to which application has been made. In addition, 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 will 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.

Any coursework covered within this transfer policy will 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.

RELATED REPORTS AND STATEWIDE DOCUMENTS

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 course work among two- and four-year institutions.

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

All claims from any public two- or four-year institution challenging the effective preparation of any other public institution’s course work for transfer purposes shall be evaluated and appropriate measures shall be taken to reassure that the quality of the course work 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.

Chief Transfer Officer
Ira Pace / Director of Undergraduate Recruitment
864-503-5808 / pacei@uscupstate.edu

STATEWIDE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION ON TRANSFER

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.”

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”:

1. Print a copy of this entire document (without appendices).
2. Print a copy of their entire transfer guide.
3. 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.

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”:  

1. Print a copy of this document (without appendices).
2. 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.

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

• provide information and other appropriate support for students considering transfer and recent transfers
• 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

D. Refer interested parties to the institutional Transfer Guide of the state’s four-year institutions