Yuba College has established local policies and procedures that permit students to request course substitutions for degree major requirements. These substitutions allow students to complete their local and CTE degrees without being required to repeat or complete additional coursework. However, the creation of Associate Degrees for Transfer (ADTs) has complicated the policies and procedures related to course substitution. To facilitate the substitution process, transfer model curriculums (TMCs) were intersegmentally developed, with the goal of establishing statewide consistency in major preparation and thereby simplifying transfer. TMCs identify statewide commonalities while still allowing local CCCs to develop degrees that best work for their populations’ specific transfer needs. Course restrictions on the TMCs are intended to ensure that degrees “work” for transfer. As such, TMCs should form the basis of all ADTs, but they should also allow for all possible logical local options – emphasis on logical and local.
With the above in mind, the curriculum committee recommends the following procedure with regards to all course substitution for ADTs:
- The student submits a completed course substitution petition to the Director of Counseling after consulting with a counselor.
- The primary discipline faculty of the ADT evaluates the extent to which the content of the substitution course is substantially similar to the content of the course listed on the TMC (e.g., Psychology faculty are responsible for reviewing Psychology courses on the Psychology ADT).
- If the primary discipline faculty determine that the content of the substitution course is substantially similar to the content of the course listed on the TMC, the student’s petition may be granted. NOTE: If the TMC course has a lab or activity, the substitution course must demonstrate corresponding lab work or activity.
- If the primary discipline faculty do NOT teach the course in question, the appropriate discipline faculty will be consulted (e.g., Psychology faculty will consult English faculty for reviewing English courses listed on the Psychology ADT).
- If the primary discipline faculty does NOT teach the course in question, course substitution will be granted only if BOTH disciplines agree on the substitution. The non-primary AND primary discipline faculty members are responsible for determining if the substitution course is substantially similar to course listed on the TMC. (e.g. A student petitions to substitute English 37 Women’s Voices for English 1B Critical Thinking and Writing about Literature, on the Psychology TMC. English AND Psychology faculty must together determine if English 37 is substantially similar enough to English 1B to warrant the substitution.)
- If a course is regularly submitted for substitution, it is the responsibility of the primary discipline faculty to submit the course for C-ID approval so that it can be included on the TMC, thus eliminating the need for student petitioning for substitution.