First Hand References

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As Director of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges, Dr. Brawer has performed and seen many studies regarding transfer and articulation. She finds that articulation between community colleges and universities in the same state is frequently strained. She has found that college staff members often reveal much mistrust and lack of communication between the institutions. Community colleges, often times, feel powerless working with universities because they reserve the right to decide what courses to accept and which students to offer admission to.

C

Dr. Cohen has been researching issues in higher education for 35 years. As Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges he has published many articles on transfer and articulation. Dr. Cohen opposes the "top-down" practice of articulation where the university system forces articulation agreements on its members. Rather, he feels that articulation can only work when it’s done department by department, with the people who teach the affected. He recognizes how difficult this is because faculty do not like to be "pinned down" and held accountable to these agreements but maintains that faculty will not completely honor a system in which they are not included. Dr. Cohen favors the use of common course numbering because it forces departments to work with and take students from departments and universities they previously would not.

F

Mr. Ferrando is Management Information Specialist for Univ. of California—Davis and also serves as a representative of the University of California System to the ASSIST Board of Directors. He also sits on the ASSIST Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) where he helps to develop and oversee the ASSIST Technical Plan. Mr. Ferrando maintains that one of the biggest barriers to transfer from community colleges is that students do not know where to go to get the appropriate information. Too often, they seek the advice of their own advisor rather than go to a qualified transfer counselor.

Dr. Floyd is the Deputy Director for Academic Affairs for the ADHE. His office oversees and tracks all transfer operations for all publicly funded universities in Arkansas. His office is responsible for guiding articulation efforts within the state. Dr. Floyd believes that the main barrier to articulation efforts in Arkansas stem from the fact that community colleges are very interested in working out agreements while the four-year institutions are less interested. He said that the four-year institutions would rather rely on their existing admissions policies to decide what students to admit than statewide articulation agreements.

Ms. Hall is a Board member for the Texas Common Course Numbering System. She helped to recruit colleges and universities into the voluntary TCCN system. She maintains that coaxing colleges and universities to join the system was difficult because many of them didn’t want to be held accountable for articulation guidelines established by other institutions. Now, Ms. Hall says the biggest hurdle is getting institutions to work together. They are willing to do so but need constant prodding to achieve workable agreements.

Ms. Fenna works in the field of technical education which, she maintains, is vastly different from the traditional community college education. Thus, the needs of technical school transfer students are different from other students who are interested in furthering their education. She feels that these technical students are less likely to seek out transfer guidance and information. Ms. Fenna completed an Articulation Program Update Report for NETEP in 1996 in which she found that the most positive outcome from articulation development was the increased collaboration between secondary and postsecondary institutions.

Dr. Hodges has been interested in the field of transfer and articulation for a number of years. She believes that the two most important steps for improving articulation in Arkansas are implementing information technology and ensuring teaching quality. She says that Arkansas is behind other states in taking advantage of new trends in technology to aid articulation but they are trying to catch up as resources allow.

J

Dr. Johnson chairs the Articulation and General Studies Committee for the State of Alabama. In that position he oversees, among other things, the flow of students from institution to institution. He said that Alabama has created the STARS system to help students transfer and it has been very successful. The STARS system works, he believes, because it lists comprehensive degree plan information for all public institutions in Alabama. Dr. Johnson said that Alabama does not have a common course numbering system yet but the AGSC is charged to do so by the State legislature.

Dr. Jones is the biannual Chair for the ASSIST Board of Directors, while also serving Chancellor of the California State University System. Dr. Jones views transfer and articulation as one of the most important issues facing higher education. As state monies continue to decline, universities and university systems will be forced to work more closely together and he feels that articulation is key to allow them to do so. He recognizes that working out articulation agreements between colleges and universities is difficult but feels that this hard work pays off in increased retention and graduation rates for the CSU System.

Ms. Leidig, besides her work at the THECB, sits on the Texas Common Course Numbering System Board. Her office tracks and reports statewide transfer rates for the State of Texas. Many of these data are available online, via the Internet. Ms. Leidig feels that the biggest barrier to articulation is getting colleges and universities to communicate with each other. She feels that they have conflict missions and thus do not view articulation comparably.

M

Ms. Morrow, has worked in the area of transfer and articulation for 34 years. She helped to set up the Texas Common Course Numbering System and still serves as its administrator. She believes the common course numbering system is critical in articulation because it guarantees transferability of courses to other universities. She feels that the main barrier to transfer is in advisement where advisors are ill prepared or students fail to seek transfer guidance.

N

Ms. Nettles helped to develop the Articulation and General Studies Committee when it was started in 1994. She said that the committee worked very hard to create the AGSC web site and believes that it could serve as a model for other states to follow. The AGSC web site combines transfer and degree plan data in one site that students can access 24 hours a day. She believes that this accessibility to information is the key to successful transfer because it empowers the students to make their own transfer decisions.

P

Ms. Parsoneault has been with the THECB for 11 years with most of them spent in the Universities Division. Her office collects transfer data from state sponsored colleges and universities and disseminates this to the legislature and the general public. Ms. Parsoneault maintains that it’s difficult to track transfer students because a significant number of them drop out soon after entering the university. She feels that the primary reason these students leave school is that they do not feel "connected" the students and university and thus are more likely to leave when faced with difficulty.

R

Mr. Ratliff serves as state governmental liaison to Project ASSIST (California). He sits on their Board of Directors and helps to guide strategic planning. Mr. Ratliff would like to see articulation in California focused more on technology than is currently the case. He feels that more automation would make transfer easier for students at the community college level. His office, along with the ASSIST Coordination Team, tracks and collects data on transfers in the state. He then reports these data to the state legislature.

S

Dr. Sundberg works for the Chancellors Office of the California Community College system. She represents that organization on the ASSIST Board of Directors. She sees ASSIST’s role in articulation as initiating and completing the transfer function. Students go to ASSIST when they are thinking about transferring, and then when the student does indeed transfer, ASSIST tracks them and follows their success. Dr. Sundberg echoes many of the complaints regarding articulation shared by other community college officials. She feels that the universities receive too much discretion regarding who they will and will not accept.

T

Mr. Taggart started with ASSIST, the articulation program run by California’s three major university systems, as a student worker in 1983 and now serves as its director. ASSIST does not engage universities to work out articulation agreements but rather, established transfer centers at 20 community colleges to identify and assist potential transfers, track them, conduct information workshops and organize study groups. Mr. Taggart feels that common course numbering would not work in California because of the large number of higher education institutions. He believes that the main barrier to student transfer is either inaccurate information or information inaccessible to the student.

Y

Dr. Yarbrough, while representing the University of Alabama System on the Articulation and General Studies Committee, also serves as its Vice-Chair. Dr. Yarbrough is encouraged by the progress the AGSC has made since it was created in 1994 (by the State Legislature). He said that the AGSC has been busy collecting and compiling recommendations on common courses statewide in order to create a common numbering system. Dr. Yarbrough noted that the biggest difficulty in creating the numbering system was to keep institutions from changing their minds about what would be accepted.

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