From: AS Degree Review Workgroup—Bill Bade, Barb Bernardi, Melissa Franzen, Angie Gum-Miller, Elaine Guthals, Carrie Henry/Amy Williams

This workgroup was created by the Academic and Admissions Standards Team at its Nov. 20, 2015 meeting to review the current AS degree requirements at LLCC in light of the new requirements which were just released by the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) at the end of September of this year.

Why the urgency? A few weeks ago ICCB indicated they will be asking all community colleges to begin operating under this new degree effective fall 2016. This will require us to amend our old AS degree requirements to meet the new AS degree requirements, as well as alter all our AS paradigms to conform to the guidelines of this new degree. With these new requirements, it is quite possible that some former AS degree paradigms, may instead opt to become AA degree paradigms. And, all of this deliberation and decision making must be accomplished over the next three Curriculum Committee meetings during the spring semester of 2016. Thus, this subcommittee is working on a short time frame to get a recommendation to the Academic Standards Committee to act upon during its Jan. 22, 2016 meeting.

View the new ICCB guidelines, in contrast to the old guidelines for the AS degree:  ICCB AS Degree Requirements.

The workgroup reviewed these new guidelines and is proposing LLCC adopt the AS degree requirements as reflected in ASSOCIATE IN SCIENCE – Dec 8 2015 which provides an outline of the catalog requirements for the AS degree with markups reflecting the proposals made by this workgroup.

We ask that you please review the proposed changes and provide feedback to the support person for this workgroup, Amy Williams, amy.williams@llcc.edu. All responses should be made by 5 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015.

For more in-depth information, please refer to the employee-wide email sent Dec. 8.