Operational Policies

1. Purpose of Committee: If a student takes a course at UK or elsewhere that is not a designated UK Core course the student can petition the UK Core Exceptions Subcommittee to grant an exception. Petitions for transfer work will not be accepted until the course in question is evaluated by the Transfer Center staff and the UK equivalent has been determined.

2. Structure of Committee: This a permanent subcommittee of the UK Core Education Committee (UKCEC). It consists of three to five professional staff academic advisors along with the Associate Registrar/ Director of the Transfer Center. As needed, UKCEC area experts will be available to provide training related to interpreting the Area outcomes for all ten areas and will be available for efficient consultations on petitions.

3. AP/CLEP/IB Credit: This mapping (to UK Core credit) has been completed at the University level and there seems to be no reason why any petition should come forward in this category unless the AP/CLEP/IB course under consideration was not mapped. If another AP exam were to surface unmapped, the appropriate department at UK should be consulted regarding rules for credit transfer.

4. Dual Credit: Students who complete Dual Credit work for high school and college work will be awarded the appropriate UK equivalency and UK Core credit as long as the work is posted on an official college transcript.

5. Study Abroad: These courses will be considered on a petition-to-petition basis. Students must work closely with their Education Abroad and Academic advisors to complete two steps of the Course Exception Request process, including: (a) the pre-departure request and (b) the post-return request. Please review the table below for the due dates. More detailed information of the steps can be found at https://myea.uky.edu/academic/core-exceptions. The Exceptions Committee will work in conjunction with the SUKCEC area experts to making these decisions.

6. GETA Transfers: All public institutions within Kentucky have mapped their general education courses to state-approved categories as part of the General Education Transfer Agreement (GETA), which was updated in fall of 2012. Under GETA, any student who transfers to UK from another institution within the identified state school is allowed by law to be able to transfer these courses to the corresponding General Education categories at UK, according to how these categories have been mapped from the UK Core.
   
   
   
   Hence, there is no reason to expect that any student falling under the GETA agreement (a “GETA Transfer”) would come in front of the Exceptions Subcommittee, unless there is some issue with a course counting in different areas of General Education, depending on which Kentucky school the transfer student has attended. For instance, it may be that UK has equated a transferring course as an Inquiry in Humanities course, but the student wants to use it as a course in Global Dynamics. The Exceptions Subcommittee would have to decide what to do in this kind of situation, utilizing UKCEC advice as needed.

7. Non-GETA Transfers: Students transferring from out of state, or from in state private institutions do not fall under the GETA guidelines (“non-GETA” students). The following guidelines should be followed:
   1. If the course in question has been equated (post 2010) to a course that completes an Area in the UK Core, then the transfer students get credit for having completed that Area.
   2. If the course in question has not been equated (post 2010) to a course that completes an Area in the UK Core
      1. If the course was counted for general education credit at the originating institution then it will count as general education credit in a similar area of the UK Core and an automatic exception will be granted. The only question will be which specific area it will fulfill at UK. Many courses will be obvious. For those that are not, the Exceptions Committee should be sufficiently trained to make these decisions, utilizing the help of UKCEC as needed.
      2. If the course was not counted for general education credit at the originating institution, then an automatic exception is not granted. These decisions will be made by the Exceptions Committee in consultation with UKCEC. The Exceptions Committee would prepare recommendations in all such cases, but UKCEC would have final approval.
   3. Any transfer student from a domestic institution who has not received GETA certification but has completed all their General Education requirements towards a four- year, AA degree, AS degree, or other two-year degrees (i.e., AGS) at their home college/university will be considered to have completed the UK Core requirements.  This DOES NOT include AAS degrees and technical degrees (e.g., Equine Studies, Radiology). In order to be considered, the two-year degree must require a minimum of 60 total hours and a minimum of 30 hours being completed in a general education curriculum similar to the UK Core. In all cases mentioned above the student is not required to complete the 60 hours that are necessary to complete the degree at the school in which they are transferring, only the 30 hours required to fulfill General Education curriculum requirements. NOTE: In all cases described above the student is responsible for providing pertinent documentation to demonstrate completion of the General Education requirements and petitioning through the normal process.

8. How students file petition requests: Students and Advisors should be directed to *http://www.uky.edu/UGE/exceptions.html* for more information and to file a petition for UK Core, the previous general education program ("University Studies Program") or the previous undergraduate writing requirement ("Graduation Writing Requirement").
   
    

Approved by Senate UK Core Committee March22, 2023