By Luna                                                S.B. No. 446
       74R3281 JSA-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the courses required in a degree program operated by a
    1-3  higher education medical or dental unit under contract with the
    1-4  United States Army.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Section 51.301, Education Code, is amended to
    1-7  read as follows:
    1-8        Sec. 51.301.  GOVERNMENT OR POLITICAL SCIENCE.  (a)  Every
    1-9  college and university receiving state support or state aid from
   1-10  public funds shall give a course of instruction in government or
   1-11  political science which includes consideration of the Constitution
   1-12  of the United States and the constitutions of the states, with
   1-13  special emphasis on that of Texas.  This course shall have a credit
   1-14  value of not less than six semester hours or its equivalent.  No
   1-15  college or university receiving state support or state aid from
   1-16  public 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        (b)  The requirement of Subsection (a) that the required
    2-9  course must include special emphasis on the Texas Constitution does
   2-10  not apply to a degree granted on completion of an academic program
   2-11  offered by a medical and dental unit, as that term is defined by
   2-12  Section 61.003, to a student who is a member of the armed forces of
   2-13  the United States, including the reserves or national guard, if:
   2-14              (1)  the program is operated by the medical and dental
   2-15  unit under contract with the United States Army;
   2-16              (2)  the program requires less than two years of
   2-17  residency in this state; and
   2-18              (3)  the principal participants in the program are
   2-19  military personnel stationed outside of this state.
   2-20        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-21  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-22  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-23  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-24  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-25  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-26  passage, and it is so enacted.