By Jones of Dallas                              H.B. No. 3098

      75R5788 JSA-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to providing for courses in community service at public

 1-3     institutions of higher education.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Subchapter F, Chapter 51, Education Code, is

 1-6     amended by adding Section 51.309 to read as follows:

 1-7           Sec. 51.309.  COMMUNITY SERVICE COURSE.  (a)  The governing

 1-8     board of each general academic teaching institution, as defined by

 1-9     Section 61.003, shall establish at least one undergraduate elective

1-10     course that requires a student to perform community service as part

1-11     of the course curriculum.

1-12           (b)  The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board shall

1-13     establish standards for courses offered under this section and

1-14     shall ensure that courses offered under this section comply with

1-15     those standards. The coordinating board shall establish standards

1-16     to ensure that a sufficient number of sections of the course are

1-17     offered at each institution to allow each undergraduate student who

1-18     desires to take the course to do so at least once.

1-19           (c)  The governing board may offer the course for any number

1-20     of semester hours and may offer different sections of the course

1-21     for different numbers of semester hours.  The course may be offered

1-22     for credit toward satisfaction of a particular course requirement

1-23     in a degree program if the course curriculum includes an

1-24     appropriate academic component.

 2-1           (d)  The governing board may offer different sections of a

 2-2     course or different courses with various curricula designed for

 2-3     different degree programs or areas of concentration.

 2-4           SECTION 2.  Each general academic teaching institution must

 2-5     offer the course required by Section 51.309, Education Code, as

 2-6     added by this Act, not later than the fall 1998 semester.

 2-7           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-8     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-9     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

2-10     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

2-11     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

2-12     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

2-13     passage, and it is so enacted.