To:Advisory Committee on Academic Programs

Agenda Item 5

MEMORANDUM

From:Gail M. Morrison, Director of Academic Affairs and Licensing

Proposed “Dual Credit” Policy

Please find attached a second draft of a policy related to Dual Credit.

An earlier version of this document was distributed and discussed briefly at the April 2, 2003, meeting of the Advisory Committee. Subsequent to that meeting, comments and suggestions were received and considered for incorporation.

Staff also met with Dr. Sandra Lindsay, SDE, who has distributed the draft more widely including the Chamber of Commerce, for additional feedback which will be received in the future.

An additional area that the policy must address eventually pertains to the use of Lottery Tuition Assistance (LTA) grants. Since 2002, high school students have used LTA grants to pay tuition at the two-year institutions. Students have had to declare themselves as “degree-seeking” in order to meet the eligibility requirements. This has caused great concern because declaration of “degree-seeking” status has an impact on 1) other scholarships and grants; 2) cumulative GPA at the two-year institution; and 3) possibly NCAA requirements. The scholarship issues are not addressed in the attached draft.

GuPolicyidelines for Delivery and Transferability of

“Dual EnrollmentCredit” Coursework Offered in High Schools

The term “Dual Enrollmentcredit” as used in this document refers exclusively to sections of courses offered through an institution of higher education in a cooperative arrangement with a local school district (i.e., Local Education Agency or LEA) for the purpose of allowing high school students who have mastered or nearly mastered the relevant high school curriculum and who are capable of college-level work that is, by definition, more advanced that the regular high school curriculum to earn simultaneously both high school credit toward graduation from high school and academic course credit toward either an associate or baccalaureate degree in an institution of higher education. In such an arrangement, when the student successfully completes the course, the institution of higher education formally posts the earned credit to a student’s transcript for the collegiate experience and the high school posts the earned credit to a student’s transcript for the secondary experience.

Dual enrollmentcredit courses have been a feature in South Carolina high schools for at least a decade. The purpose of these courses is to provide an avenue through which highly talented high school youth can earn college credit while simultaneously meeting high school graduation requirements by taking courses in the high school setting that are offered by an institution of higher education. In this model both the high school and the college provider earn funding through the state, while the student pays tuition to the college.

Promoters of dual enrollmentcredit maintain that it helps students eliminate a small number of courses prior to entry into a college and assists the student to graduate earlier than (s)he might otherwise have done, while assisting the state to bring more productive workers into the economy at a faster rate. On the other hand, the mechanism for selecting faculty to teach dual enrollmentcredit course sections, the state’s full payment to both a LEA and an institution of higher education for offering the same course, and a perceived need for more definitive data on the value-added dimension for students who have completed these courses have been raised as concerns about this practice.

In any time for academic reasons, and especially in this time because of the current fiscal climate in the state of South Carolina, it is important to assure dual enrollmentcredit’s “good value.” The importance of academic development is highlighted in the Pathways to Prosperity report, and in related legislation which will be considered for the proposed legislation iin the next session of the General Assembly. This proposed legislation promotes expanded dual enrollmentcredit and its transferability to higher education institutions. The committee called has already been formed by the SDE to further examine articulation issues. In the spirit of trying to provide a basis for quality assurance and of meeting the intent of the authors of the Pathways to Prosperity report, the following draft guidelines are offered to institutions of higher education in the hope that they might be the basis for a model to be adopted as a statewide statement of “Best Practices for Dual Credit.”

Policy guidelines are important to assure the delivery of dual credit coursework offered in high schools by either high school faculty members, or full-time or adjunct members of the relevant higher education provider.

I. Purposes of Dual EnrollmentCredit

A. Dual enrollmentcredit courses should be made available only to those who have mastered or nearly mastered the complete high school curriculum and who are capable of college-level coursework which, by definition, is more advanced than the regular high school curriculum provides.

B.Policy guidelines are important to assure the delivery of dual credit coursework offered in high schools by either high school faculty members, or full-time or adjunct members of the relevant higher education provider.

Policy gGuidelines contained herein apply only to general education and technical coursesofferings offered through South Carolina institutions of higher education, including the technical colleges. These Guidelines do not cover “Advanced Placement” courses or International Baccalaureate courses, which are an alternative methods (including a national or international, standardized examinations) for high school students to earn both high school and college credit.

Similarly, these Guidelines do not address those courses available for earning both high school and college credit in the technical colleges which are described as “technical” in nature, since the technical courses are covered by the Technical Advanced Placement policy of the State Technical Colleges system office and individual technical colleges, which developed from the South Carolina 1996 School-to-Work legislation.

II.Student Eligibility

All institutions of higher education offering dual enrollment credit courses should require students participating to have a minimum grade-point average of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) or the equivalent and require a recommendation by the high school principal or his/her designee for each student admitted to take these courses.

EIn addition, each student admitted to take dual enrollmentcredit courses must meet the same requirements for placement in an individual course as other college students of the offering institution.those for on-campus students. For example, competency in English or Mathematics for course placement of dual enrollmentcredit students must be assured at the same level of whatever assessment instrument is used (e.g., COMPASS/ASSET) as for on-campus students.

C.C. DBy virtue of the Purposes as stated in Section I above, dual credit enrollment should beis limited to junior and senior students in a high school. Exceptions may be made for, unless a freshman or sophomore students at the request of the high school principal, his or her designee, or the designee of the governing school association and with documentation provided by the school and retained in the student’s college file documenting exceptional ability to undertake college-level coursework. has been recommended by both the high school counselor and the appropriate subject matter chairperson of the academic department at the high school, based upon the student’s scoring at or above the 80th percentile nationally in either the ACT or SAT examination.

D. An individual college or university may establish additional criteria for entrance into courses.

Structure and Administration of Dual EnrollmentCredit Offerings

Dual enrollmentcredit courses must duplicate the particular course offerings delivered byon the higher education institution.campus to matriculated students.

Courses must be approved for dual enrollmentcredit status by the institution’s chief academic officer, or his/her designee.

TElements to be approved by the on-campus college faculty in the appropriate academic discipline include: the course syllabus, textbook(s), course content and requirements, teaching methodologies, and student assessment strategies must be comparable for all course sections..

C.Course content and requirements must be comparable to those used in the respective on-campus courses with the same titles.

D..The chief academic officer, or his/her designee, of the providing college/university will be responsible for involving full-time faculty in the discipline in selecting and evaluating all dual-enrollmentcredit faculty, using Southern Association of Colleges and Schools college-level criteria as minimal requirements for teaching in these sections.

The chief academic officer, or his/her designee,On-campus college faculty must ensure comparable standards of student evaluation and faculty evaluation in the dual enrollmentcredit courses comparable to those required of on-campus courses.

All students enrolled in a college course offered for dual enrollment must be enrolled in the class for college credit, e.g., students in a single class cannot have the option to receive either high school or college credit.

Dual credit students must be taught in sections entirely separate from regular high school sections of the particular subject matter

Students enrolled in dual enrollment coursescredit must adhere to the dates comparable to those specified on the college/university campus for registration, drop-add, withdrawal, or refund; and on-campus and dual enrollmentcredit academic calendars should be comparable with respect to registration, payment, drop-add, withdrawal, and refund processes.

Students enrolled in dual enrollment coursescredit must be guaranteed convenient geographic and electronic access to student and academic support comparable to what is accorded on-campus students, including access to library resources. S; and students in dual enrollmentcredit courses also must have reasonable access to the course instructor outside regular classroom hours either in person, via phone, or electronically.

Institutions shall not use tuition and fees as a means of competing for dual enrollmentcredit students (e.g., using lower tuition for dual enrollmentcredit sections than for other sections of the course) and shall cooperate in providing dual enrollmentcredit courses in a particular geographic area.

Faculty Eligibility and Support

TInvolving the appropriate higher education institution’s full-time teaching faculty and , the chief academic officer, or his/her designee, of the offering higher education institution shall assure that any faculty member teaching in dual enrollmentcredit offerings meets all relevant SACS criteria.
Orientation and evaluation for teaching of dual enrollmentcredit instructors rests with the appropriate academic department of the respective institution of higher education. The chief academic officer, or his/her designee, shall assure consistency and comparability of both orientation and evaluation across the institution.
DContinuing dual enrollmentcredit instructors must participate in relevantthe same professional development and evaluation activities of the offering institution of higher education that are expected of all adjunct instructors.
For purposes of assuring comparability of dual enrollmentcredit offerings with on-campusother offerings, college academic departments must provide instructors of dual enrollmentcredit courses with support services, including a designated on-campus faculty liaison.
Whether the course is offered by traditional means or by distance learning technology, the providing higher education institution must provide on-site evaluation and supervision of dual enrollmentcredit faculty members in the high schools. Traditionally-delivered dual enrollmentcredit coursework should only be offered within reasonable commuting distance of the offering institution to facilitate on-site evaluation and supervision.
The higher education institution must demonstrate clear control of each dual enrollment course, to include control of the faculty either through a direct employment contract or through a statement signed by the faculty agreeing to comply with all college course requirements.

Assessing Student Learning

The same methods of assessment should characterize dual enrollmentcredit courses in relationship to on-campus and other offerings of the same level and subject matter to assure quality and comparability.

B.When available, nationally normed examinations are recommended to demonstrate comparability of learning outcomes (e.g., ASSET/COMPASS).

The college faculty in the relevant department must approve both formative and summative assessment strategies and tools.
The chief academic officer is responsible for the review of student performance prior to the continuation of both the course and the instructor.

Both formative and summative assessment strategies and tools must be approved by the on-campus college faculty in the relevant department.

C.Annual reports of student performance must be submitted to the chief academic officer for review and consideration prior to the continuation of both the course offered and the instructor.

Limitations on Credit Earned and Transferability of Credit

Dual credit offerings are meant to enrich the academic experience of high school students who have mastered or substantially mastered the secondary school content of the curriculum in certain subject areas. The number of college-level courses completed in these dual credit offerings will vary according to the student’s ability and work ethic.
Students receiving credit for dual enrollment coursesdual credit from institutions in compliance with these policy guidelines are guaranteed to transfer credit for up to the up to the equivalent of eight courses toin all public institutions of higher education offering the courses, providing that those dual enrollment courses are selected from among those identified on. The course list is found online as the List of 86 Transferable Courses in the Statewide Transfer and Articulation Policy. Additional course credit must be articulated directly with the receiving higher education institution.
“Eight courses” shall mean “eightseparate courses,” regardless of the credit-hour value of those courses.

D. It is the responsibility of the institution offering the dual enrollment course(s) to advise students in writing before students register for a dual enrollment course that it is their responsibility to contact other institutions to determine the transferability of individual courses to institutions other than the offering institution.

Students seeking to transfer any of these courses to private colleges either in South Carolina or elsewhere, or to public institutions outside South Carolina, should take care to receive written assurances in advance of taking the course(s) that such course(s) will be accepted at that institution.

Demonstration of Policy Compliance and Reporting

Each institution shall develop an annual report on dual credit offerings which demonstrates compliance with these policy and procedurewith each of these guidelines for each high school site atdual enrollment course offered to high school students.

T which an offering or set of offerings has occurred.

This annual report shall be submitted to the Division of Academic Affairs and Licensing of the Commission on Higher Education by SeptemberJuly 1 of each year for the prior academic year.. Each technical college will send its annual report to the State Technical College System office which will assemble all 16 institutional reports, and prepare a summary report for the technical colleges and submit it to the CHE.
The Commission on Higher Education, in consultation with its Advisory Committee on Academic Programs, shall annually provide the standardized format for the institutional reports.

The Commission and shall issue annually aa unified report oneach fall which reflects the composite reality of dual credit offerings of the prior year by public institutions of higher education in South Carolina