Curriculum Committee 07/08-2
Date: October 3, 2007
To: The St. Olaf Faculty
From: The Curriculum Committee
Subject: Catalog Revisions to Transfer Credit Policies Pertaining to Pre-College Credit
A. At the October 11, 2007, Faculty Meeting, the Curriculum Committee will move that the faculty adopt the following changes, clarifications, and additions to the college policy on pre-college transfer credits:
- A provision that in order to be accepted for St. Olaf credit, PSEO courses must be taught on the campus of a regionally accredited college or university. (Current policy specifies simply “ through an accredited college or university.”) CIS courses, on the other hand, may be (and typically are) taught through an accredited college or university, but not on its campus.
- Elaboration of the policy on PSEO and CIS to make it more specific (e.g., to specify that only courses appropriate to a liberal arts education are considered) and to exclude certain types of credit (e.g., courses taken via distance-learning methods). (Current policy does not allow us to exclude certain types of courses that we routinely exclude in accordance with post-matriculation transfer credit policies.)
- A limit of a total of 6.00 pre-college credits of any type, and a maximum of 4.00 via PSEO/CIS, to be applied for St. Olaf credit. (Current policy stipulates a maximum of 5 PSEO/CIS, and no limit on the total number of pre-college credits.)
- A provision that double credit is not given for equivalent PSEO courses and AP credits. (Current policy inadvertantly allows this double-counting.)
- No reduction in graded course credits for credits accepted via PSEO or CIS. (Current policy allows these types of pre-college credit to reduce the number of required graded course credits.)
- A limit to one each on the number of HBS, HWC, NST (for current students), or SED/IST (for students entering in 2008 or later) credits students may earn via pre-college credit. (Current policy allows students to fulfill both through this type of credit. This is less restrictive than our policy governing our own off-campus programs.)
- The addition of language concerning new natural science requirements (SED, IST) that will become effective in the summer of 2008 for students entering in 2008 or after.
- Addition of a clarification that the maximum number of credits for an off-campus semester program is 4.5 credits.
B. The Curriculum Committee will also move that the faculty adopt an edited version of policies concerning transfer credit and credit received through off-campus programs, in order to incorporate the policy on foreign language transfer credit, approved by the faculty on April 5, 2007, to include current but hard to find policies governing transfer of credit from off-campus programs, and to make the wording of the whole policy clearer.
Rationale :
As noted above, the policy on transfer credit, including the policy on pre-college credit, has not been edited in many years. In the meantime, our quite lenient pre-college credit policy has placed us in the position of having to accept credits that are allowed by that policy but that are inconsistent with our general policy on post-matriculation transfer credit. Furthermore, the number of credits we currently accept in pre-college credit is unduly generous given the academic profile of our students. The proposed changes are endorsed by the Office of Admissions.
Links to current policies appear below:
http://www.stolaf.edu/catalog/academicregs/entering-stolaf.html and
http://www.stolaf.edu/catalog/academicregs/transferring.html
http://www.stolaf.edu/catalog/academicregs/specialreg.html (section on Off-Campus Programs)
The new statement of policy in its entirety, which substantially reorganizes the existing statements, is available here.