General Education (GE) Reciprocity Among California Community Colleges

Spring
2010
Resolution Number
09.02
 
Assigned to
President
Category
Curriculum
Status
Completed
Status Report

Rostrum article by Johnnie Terry was published in Fall 2010.

Whereas, Title 5 §55063, Minimum Requirements for the Associate Degree, outlines and defines four general education subject areas that each college must include for the associate degree;

Whereas, Many students attend more than one California community college, and the courses that are locally approved for a particular GE area vary among the California community colleges (i.e., comparable courses may be approved for different areas and/or a given college may approve a course for a GE area for which there is no comparable course at another college);

Whereas, Honoring the GE courses a student has completed from other colleges prevents a student from having to repeat a GE course and thereby accrue unnecessary units (e.g., a student completing British History at College A which fulfills a social science GE requirement for the local associate’s degree transfers to College B, and although College B does not teach British History the student is awarded social science GE credit for College B’s associate degree); and

Whereas, Local control of a college’s curricular offerings and of mechanisms for determining the GE applicability of courses is not violated when a college opts to honor the determinations made by another community college, particularly given the similar practice of “pass along” general education certification for CSU GE and IGETC;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges encourage colleges to honor general education courses from any California community college.

MSC Disposition: Local Senates