University of Wisconsin - Stout

Preamble

Every effort should be made to meet the general education and design for diversity requirements as they have been written. Due to the inequalities that occur between institutions regarding degree requirements, credit values for courses, etc., there are invariably circumstances that occur which require review for exceptions.

The following guidelines are being established to assist with initial and follow-up advisement for transfer students and to provide consistency in making exceptions (e.g., waivers, substitutions). Some of the guidelines clarify how transfer courses are being treated currently and the circumstances under which no exceptions are needed. Other sections explain possible situations where exceptions may be considered. Because there is considerable confusion regarding "associate degrees," all transfer advisors are encouraged to read the section at the end of the guidelines that differentiates between various types of "associate" degrees.

Program directors should send requests for deviations from the university-wide requirements (not program-specific) for GE to the Associate Vice Chancellor for approval. In certain situations, the Associate Vice Chancellor will consult with appropriate department chairs on the exceptions. These guidelines will be used in considering the requirements for exceptions.

UW Associate of Arts and Sciences Degree students

(No exception needed)

The following is based upon UW System policy ACIS 6.0 Undergraduate Transfer Policy.

A student with an Associate of Arts degree from a UW System school automatically satisfies the following university-wide GE category breadth requirements:

These requirements are satisfied whether or not students have the appropriate number of credits in each or whether they have the appropriate number of areas covered. This also means that a student might have only six credits in the Social/Behavioral Sciences, but the requirement will be met. It also means that a student might have only history courses but not courses from three areas in the Humanities and Arts, but the requirement would be met. A student might never have taken a Health or PE course or a course in the Technology category, but because they completed the Associate of Arts degree they would have satisfied all of these requirements.

The student must complete program-specific required GE courses (e.g., Economics is required in General Business Administration, or Modern World History is required in the teacher education program for certification purposes or a depth requirement needs to be satisfied in Manufacturing Engineering). Students must also complete the level of math required for their program and take SPCOM-100 Speech if it was not completed as a part of the Associate of Arts degree. Because of the structure of the UW-Associate of Arts degree students do satisfy the minimum English requirement (ENGL-101 and ENGL-102) required by UW-Stout.

MATC (Madison/Milwaukee) or NATC (Nicolet) Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree

(No exception needed)

The following is based upon UW System policy ACIS 6.0 Undergraduate Transfer Policy.

A student who has completed an Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree from any of the three liberal arts collegiate transfer programs and that is specifically aligned with the UW System Associate Degree has satisfied the following university-wide general education breadth requirements:

These requirements are satisfied whether or not students have th appropriate number of credits in each, or whether they have the appropriate number of areas covered. This also means that a student might have only six credits in the Social/Behavioral Sciences, but the requirement will be met. It also means that a student might have only history courses but not courses from three areas in the Humanities and Arts, but the requirement would be met. A student might never have taken a Health or PE course or a course in the Technology category, but because they completed the Associate of Arts degree they would have satisfied all of these requirements.

The student must complete program-specific required GE courses (e.g., Economics is required in General Business Administration, or Modern World History is required in the teacher education program for certification purposes or a depth requirement needs to be satisfied in Manufacturing Engineering). Students must also complete the level of math required for their program and take SPCOM-100 Speech if it was not completed as a part of the Associate of Arts degree.

Ethnic Studies/cultural diversity requirements are not automatically met unless the student has transferred in courses that equal any of UW-Stoutís approved courses to meet this requirement.

Minnesota Community College Associate of Arts Degree

(No exception needed)

The same rules would pertain for a student entering with an Associate of Arts degree from Minnesota as those with an Associate of Arts degree from a UW System school regarding the breadth requirements (except for the laboratory science requirement). We must verify that the laboratory science requirement was met. The university-wide six-credit writing requirement is met with completion of six equivalent writing credits. The diversity requirement would automatically be met.

Equivalent of An Associate of Arts Degree

Transfer students who have earned "the equivalent of" an Associate of Arts degree will have satisfied the UW-Stout GE breadth requirements. The conditions for determining the equivalence of an Associate of Arts degree are:

  1. A minimum of 60 transfer credits.
  2. A minimum of 40 credits from the following categories:
    1. Humanities and Fine Arts (HumArt) (9 credits)
      No more than 6 credits in the Fine Arts or a total of 15 credits in the HFA can be applied to the breadth requirements.
    2. Natural and Mathematical Sciences (12 credits)
      A minimum of 8 credits in two areas of Natural Science and a lab; a minimum of 3 credits of math; no more than 16 credits in this category can count toward the 40 credits.
    3. Social/Behavioral Sciences (9 credits)
      No more than 15 credits can be applied to the 40 credits; at least 2 areas must be covered.
    4. IV. Integrated Studies (0-6 credits)
      No more than 6 credits in this category may be applied to the breadth requirement of 40 credits.
  3. The equivalent of ENGL-101 and ENGL-102 to satisfy the minimum English requirement.

This evaluation would be done through the degree audit program and would be entered into the student's record. No action would be needed by the advisor/program director.

Diversity Generalizations

The diversity requirement is met for any student with an Associate of Arts degree from a UW institution. Students with an Associate of Arts degree from another institution would only have the requirement met if it was required as a part of their Associate of Arts degree. The requirement is not met by an A.S., A.A.S., A.A.A., or A.A. degree from a non-UW or non-Minnesota institution.

Electives

(No exception needed)

Often transfer students bring in courses not comparable to our own, and these are listed as history elective, literature elective, biology elective, etc. These can be treated as general education courses and meet an area requirement. There also will be courses that come in as Humanities electives or Science electives. These should be treated as an "area" under that category. This means that if a student has taken a history course, a literature course, and has another course noted as a Humanities elective, then the student would have satisfied the "areas" requirement under the Humanities and Arts. Science courses that had laboratories are usually designated on the equivalency evaluation. Physical geography courses are to be counted in the Natural Science category and those with a "L" in the course number reflect a laboratory. Cultural geography courses are to be counted in the social/behavioral science category.

Math Electives

(Exception needed)

Since all math courses must met a minimal level of mathematics content to be considered for general education, and since students often have to take a sequence of math courses, students with "math electives" should have the course evaluated by the chair of the mathematics department. The chair should issue an exception verifying that the math course is at an appropriate GE level. The mathematics chair should also advise the student of the next level math course to take in our sequence.

Credit Distribution Exceptions

(Exception needed)

There are occasions when the number of credits required within a category is not met, but an exception might be warranted. Some examples are as follows:

  1. A student completes a five-credit composition course (e.g., from UW-Eau Claire) or meeting the "proficiency" level in writing from the sending institution (e.g., ENGL-101 from the UW Centers). In these cases, the typical ENGL-101, ENGL-102 or ENGL-111, ENGL-112 requirement would be met, even though the students only have three or five credits in writing.
    The student meets the requirement for that area but must still make up the credits to make up the needed GE total. The student may request an exception from the Associate Vice Chancellor.
  2. A student completes the equivalent of College Math I for three credits (e.g., River Falls) rather than four credits. The student should be advised to take a 3-credit course if possible to satisfy the 6-credit requirement. If the student, for some reason, takes a 2-credit statistics course and is one credit short of the requirement, the student may request an exception from the Associate Vice Chancellor.
  3. A student completes 1.5 credits of Health and PE and is unable to take a .5 credit PE course to complete the requirement may request an exception from the Associate Vice Chancellor. Students must still make up the credits to achieve the needed GE total.
  4. A student meets the distribution requirement for a category (i.e., 3 areas) but not the credit requirement (i.e., 8 credits rather than 9), because some courses transferred as 2 credits rather than 3 (converting from quarter credits) may request an exception from the Associate Vice Chancellor.

Area Requirement

(Exception needed)

If the student does not have an Associate of Arts degree and does not meet the distribution requirement across areas listed under either the Humanities and Arts or Social/Behavioral Sciences categories, then the full range of courses taken by the student should be reviewed. An exception would usually be considered only for transfer students. Students should have at least two areas in each category and an overall "strong" liberal arts background as evidenced by depth in at least one area to be considered for an exception.

GE at Transfer Institution but not Stout

(Exception needed)

There are occasions where courses were GE at a transfer institution but do not have that designation at UW-Stout. In some cases this is because the course had not been taken through our approval process for GE courses rather than an intentional exclusion. Examples of this would include PHYS-255 Meteorology or PHYS-254 Earth Physics. In other cases, there are courses specifically excluded from this list (e.g., CS-140 Computer Concepts). To determine under which circumstance a transfer course belongs, exceptions would be sent to the Associate Vice Chancellor who will review them with the appropriate department chairs.

Credit for Military Service

If the student has served in the military, that person will receive credit for health and physical education. Credit will be awarded according to time in military service. The DD-214, Ace Registry Transcript, or other military documentation will verify the time of active duty. Additional credit may be awarded based on documentation received.

Students earning a second bachelor's degree

(no exception needed)

  1. Students who hold a bachelor's degree from any institution are exempt from the diversity requirement.
  2. Likewise, they meet all breadth requirements, but proficiency requirements, i.e., Communication Skills and Analytic Reasoning, must be met, and all program specific GE requirements must be met.

Diversity Requirement

Records of transfer students should be reviewed in their first semester regarding the diversity requirement. Advisement plans should determine how a student will meet the requirement as written. If after review it is determined that to meet the requirement as written will increase credits to degree, an alternative plan may be suggested. This plan must be reviewed and approved by the Associate Vice Chancellor.

  1. Transfer courses that have course equivalents carry the same diversity designation as the UW-Stout courses (no exception needed).
  2. Students who have completed an Associate of Arts degree from a UW institution meet the diversity requirement for UW-Stout (no exception needed).
  3. Transfer students who have met the diversity requirement from a sending UW institution meet the diversity requirement at UW-Stout.
  4. Transfer courses that are not equivalent to UW-Stout courses but have diversity content are reviewed by the Associate Vice Chancellor and categorized for student exceptions (exception needed)
General criteria for granting exceptions:
  1. To avoid unnecessarily increasing credits to degree (some increases may be necessitated by student choices)
  2. To verify that proficiency/competency is met but credit requirement is not
  3. To correct serious advisement errors that would add credits to degree and/or additional cost
  4. To minimize any negative impact caused by the exception towards achieving the overall goal of GE or diversity requirements
  5. To adjust for curricular changes made at Stout which hamper students from satisfying the requirement within the credit limitations.

Clarification of "Associate Degrees"

There are four basic types of "associate degrees" that transfer students coming to UW-Stout possess: Associate of Arts (A.A.); Associate of Science (A.S.); Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.); and Associate of Applied Arts (A.A.A.). For A.A. degrees offered within the University of Wisconsin institutions, there is a standard structure. Earning this degree automatically waives university-wide breadth requirements for a bachelor's degree offered in UW institutions.

The A.A. degree in Minnesota has a structure similar to the one in Wisconsin. Both require a minimum of 60 semester credits. All have credit requirements by category that equal or exceed ours for HumArt, SBSci, Natural Science, and Writing.; All but one has a credit requirement at least equal to ours in the category of Health/Phy Ed (Austin C.C. only requires one credit). The main area of variance is in requiring depth rather than breadth in the SBSci. They usually require two areas rather than three. In most instances, students would have taken three areas because of the electives. In the Humanities/Arts, about half require a breadth (i.e., minimum of three areas). The remainder require two but because of the electives it generally results in breadth being an outcome. There are no restrictions on accepting the GE credits.

The Associate in Science (A.S.) degree is 60-64 semester credits and is usually offered by community colleges in Minnesota. It differs from the A.A. degree in that there are about 40 credits in the general education area and 20-24 in a technical/vocational area. The distribution of the credits in the liberal studies area are about two-thirds math/science and one-third English, Social Science, Humanities/Arts, and Health/Phy Ed. There are no restrictions on accepting the GE courses from Minnesota institutions.

The Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degree is offered by the Wisconsin technical colleges and requires a minimum of 60 credits, 15 of which are in general education and 45 in a technical/vocational area. The general education component includes courses in Writing, Speech, Psychology, Economics, and Sociology. There generally are no Humanities/Arts or Health/Wellness in the GE component. Math/Science requirements parallel the level of need required for the technical area. Technical/vocational courses are accepted on a course equivalency basis or by articulation agreements.

The Associate of Applied Arts (A.A.A.) degree is offered by the Wisconsin technical colleges and requires a minimum of 60 credits. It has the same structure as the A.A.S. but less math and science are included in the degree. The GE component includes Writing, Speech, Psychology, Sociology, and Economics. Technical/vocational courses are accepted on a course equivalency basis.