By Ratliff                                             S.B. No. 181
       74R942 SMH-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to college or university credit in government or political
    1-3  science and in American or Texas history through advanced standing
    1-4  examination.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Sections 51.301 and 51.302, Education Code, are
    1-7  amended to read as follows:
    1-8        Sec. 51.301.  Government or Political Science.  Every college
    1-9  and university receiving state support or state aid from public
   1-10  funds shall give a course of instruction in government or political
   1-11  science which includes consideration of the Constitution of the
   1-12  United States and the constitutions of the states, with special
   1-13  emphasis on that of Texas.  This course shall have a credit value
   1-14  of not less than six semester hours or its equivalent.  No college
   1-15  or university receiving state support or state aid from public
   1-16  funds may grant a baccalaureate degree or a lesser degree or
   1-17  academic certificate to any person unless he has credit for such a
   1-18  course.  The college or university may determine that a student has
   1-19  satisfied this requirement in whole or in part on the basis of
   1-20  credit granted to him by the college or university for a
   1-21  substantially equivalent course completed at another accredited
   1-22  college or university or on the basis of the student's successful
   1-23  completion of an advanced standing examination administered on the
   1-24  conditions and under the circumstances common for the college or
    2-1  university's advanced standing examinations.  The college or
    2-2  university may grant as much as three semester hours of credit or
    2-3  its equivalent toward satisfaction of this requirement for
    2-4  substantially equivalent work completed by the student in the
    2-5  program of an approved senior R.O.T.C. unit.  <Credit for the
    2-6  advanced standing examination referred to above shall never exceed
    2-7  three semester hours.>
    2-8        Sec. 51.302.  American or Texas History.  No college or
    2-9  university receiving state support or state aid from public funds
   2-10  may grant a baccalaureate degree or a lesser degree or academic
   2-11  certificate to any person unless he has credit for six semester
   2-12  hours or its equivalent in American History.  A student is entitled
   2-13  to submit as much as three semester hours of credit or its
   2-14  equivalent in Texas History in partial satisfaction of this
   2-15  requirement.  The college or university may determine that a
   2-16  student has satisfied this requirement in whole or part on the
   2-17  basis of credit granted to him by the college or university for a
   2-18  substantially equivalent course completed at another accredited
   2-19  college or university, or on the basis of the student's successful
   2-20  completion of an advanced standing examination administered on the
   2-21  conditions and under the circumstances common for the college or
   2-22  university's advanced standing examinations.  The college or
   2-23  university may grant as much as three semester hours of credit or
   2-24  its equivalent toward satisfaction of this requirement for
   2-25  substantially equivalent work completed by a student in the program
   2-26  of an approved senior R.O.T.C.  unit.  <Credit for the advanced
   2-27  standing examination referred to above shall never exceed three
    3-1  semester hours.>
    3-2        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    3-3  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    3-4  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    3-5  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    3-6  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    3-7  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    3-8  passage, and it is so enacted.