1. (a) The department shall accept as meeting licensure requirements baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate degrees and course work received from United States colleges or universities which held accreditation, at the time the degree was conferred or the course work was taken, from accepted regional educational accrediting associations as reported by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
2. (b) Degrees and course work received at foreign colleges and universities shall be acceptable only if such course work could be counted as transfer credit from accredited colleges or universities as reported by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
3. (c) Persons applying for licensure must possess a baccalaureate or post-baccalaureate degree with a major course of study in human nutrition, food and nutrition, nutrition education dietetics, or food systems management.

4. (d) In place of the requirements in subsection (c), a person may have an equivalent major course of study defined as either:

   1. (1) a baccalaureate or post-baccalaureate degree or course work including a minimum of thirty (30) semester hours in the following areas:

      1. (A) twelve (12) semester hours must be specifically designed to train a person to apply and integrate scientific principles of human nutrition under different health, social, cultural, physical, psychological, and economic conditions to the proper nourishment, care, and education of individuals or groups throughout the life cycle;
      2. (B) six (6) semester hours must be from human nutrition, food and nutrition, dietetics, or food systems management; and

      3. (C) twelve (12) semester hours must be from four of the following three-hour courses:

         1. (i) upper-division human nutrition related to disease;
         2. (ii) upper-division food service systems management;
         3. (iii) bio- or physiological chemistry, or advanced normal human nutrition;
         4. (iv) food science; or
         5. (v) upper-division nutrition education; or
   2. (2) a baccalaureate or post-baccalaureate degree, including a major course of study meeting the minimum academic requirements to qualify for examination by the Commission on Dietetic Registration.
5. (e) The relevance to licensure of academic courses, the titles of which are not self-explanatory, must be substantiated through course descriptions in official school catalogs or bulletins or by other means acceptable to the department.
6. (f) In the event that an academic deficiency is present, an applicant may have one year in which to complete the additional course work acceptable to the department before the application will be voided and the applicant will be required to reapply and to pay additional application fees.
7. (g) The semester hours may be part of a degree plan or in addition to a degree.

Source Note:The provisions of this §116.20 adopted to be effective October 1, 2016, 41 TexReg 4481; amended to be effective July 1, 2018, 43 TexReg 4173.