1-1  By:  Luna                                              S.B. No. 446
    1-2        (In the Senate - Filed February 3, 1995; February 6, 1995,
    1-3  read first time and referred to Committee on Education;
    1-4  February 22, 1995, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas
    1-5  7, Nays 0; February 22, 1995, sent to printer.)
    1-6                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-7                                AN ACT
    1-8  relating to the courses required in a degree program operated by a
    1-9  higher education medical and dental unit under contract with the
   1-10  United States Army.
   1-11        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-12        SECTION 1.  Section 51.301, Education Code, is amended to
   1-13  read as follows:
   1-14        Sec. 51.301.  GOVERNMENT OR POLITICAL SCIENCE.  (a)  Every
   1-15  college and university receiving state support or state aid from
   1-16  public funds shall give a course of instruction in government or
   1-17  political science which includes consideration of the Constitution
   1-18  of the United States and the constitutions of the states, with
   1-19  special emphasis on that of Texas.  This course shall have a credit
   1-20  value of not less than six semester hours or its equivalent.  No
   1-21  college or university receiving state support or state aid from
   1-22  public funds may grant a baccalaureate degree or a lesser degree or
   1-23  academic certificate to any person unless he has credit for such a
   1-24  course.  The college or university may determine that a student has
   1-25  satisfied this requirement in whole or in part on the basis of
   1-26  credit granted to him by the college or university for a
   1-27  substantially equivalent course completed at another accredited
   1-28  college or university or on the basis of the student's successful
   1-29  completion of an advanced standing examination administered on the
   1-30  conditions and under the circumstances common for the college or
   1-31  university's advanced standing examinations.  The college or
   1-32  university may grant as much as three semester hours of credit or
   1-33  its equivalent toward satisfaction of this requirement for
   1-34  substantially equivalent work completed by the student in the
   1-35  program of an approved senior R.O.T.C. unit.  Credit for the
   1-36  advanced standing examination referred to above shall never exceed
   1-37  three semester hours.
   1-38        (b)  The requirement of Subsection (a) that the required
   1-39  course must include special emphasis on the Texas Constitution does
   1-40  not apply to a degree granted on completion of an academic program
   1-41  offered by a medical and dental unit, as that term is defined by
   1-42  Section 61.003, to a student who is a member of the armed forces of
   1-43  the United States, including the reserves or national guard, if:
   1-44              (1)  the program is operated by the medical and dental
   1-45  unit under contract with the United States Army;
   1-46              (2)  the program requires less than two years of
   1-47  residency in this state; and
   1-48              (3)  the principal participants in the program are
   1-49  military personnel stationed outside this state.
   1-50        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-51  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-52  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-53  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-54  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-55  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-56  passage, and it is so enacted.
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