The following notes were taken by Marye Hefty (IFS Senator from OIT).

 

Notes of the Inter-Institutional Faculty Senate (IFS) sponsored “town hall” meeting at the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) campus on Tuesday October 19 at 2:00.

 

Purpose:  To present information, produce discussion, and solicit comments about the proposed general education transfer certificate developed by the Joint Boards Articulation Commission (JBAC).

 

In Attendance:  27 faculty and staff from OIT and IFS representatives

 

Presentation Summary:  Peter Gilkey, the President of IFS, presented an overview of the drivers motivating JBAC’s efforts to develop a system-wide model for facilitating the effective and efficient transfer of students between community colleges and OUS universities.

 

Maureen Sevigny, an IFS senator and OIT Professor, presented an overview of the proposed 1-year general education transfer certificate and how this compares to the current transferable AA/OT Degree.  The slides from her presentation are available at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ifs/dir04/GETM-OIT.html

 

Discussion Summary:

 

Question:  Why [in the model] are we going from 36 credits to 45?

Answer:  This is a technical requirement from the community colleges.  They requires 45 credits for a full year

 

Faculty/Staff Discussion:  We need to be clear about what we mean by general education requirements.  Effective advising is essential to making this work.  In fact, at a meeting at Eastern Oregon University, the faculty discussed the need for a system website that will show how the transfer module credits will fit with specific degrees.

 

Comment:  The order of the words in the title of the general education transfer module should be changed to put the emphasis on courses that can be transferred.  In other words, the title should be the “transfer general education requirements.”

 

Comment:  The public needs to be clear that if someone arrives at a university with this transfer module from a community college that it does not mean that the student has 3 years of study remaining.  The transfer module credits may not match the program requirements.  So, this module does not replace effective advising.

 

Comment:  In the Portland Area students “swirl.”  This means they take credits from many different campuses.  The student will not be able to pull together all these credits into a transfer module.  An issuing college must do this.

 

Comment:  So, the transfer module is like a mini-graduation certificate.

 

Question:  Why are we doing this if we have articulation agreements with colleges?

Answer:  There will never be articulation agreements with every college.  “Swirling” student would not be served by an articulation agreement.  The OUS State Board believes there is a “lost education” problem with transferring to another school.

 

Question:  What is the average credit hour package of students transferring with the AA/OT?

Answer:  Not sure

 

Comment:  This issue is about program requirements.  Often students will waste credits because they changed their minds after a year.

 

Comment:  It seems the model being proposed is the lowest common denominator.  I admire the curricular independence of the institution, but a common core at all schools might help.  I mean how we got general education at OIT is that is grew and changed over about 25 years, and we have not reviewed this.

 

Comment:  We are in the process of reviewing our common core now.  If we went to a common core, it would require students to take more credits. 

 

Comment:  The common core works well in California.

 

Comment:  We need to resolve the number of credits vs. number of courses issue.

 

Question:  Do all of our majors require this many classes for general education?

Answer:  At OIT, yes.

 

Comment:  I vote that we keep the credits/courses to a minimum in the model so that as we change general education requirements, we face as little of a problem as possible.

 

Question:  Should we look at outcomes?

Answer:  Outcomes, we hope, will not be part of this process now but later.

 

Comment:  This module will not have a financial loss or gain for the schools. It will be minimal.  We need to do what is best for the students.

 

Comment:  What is the mission of the community colleges?  Is it feeding colleges?  Is it adult education?  There is a reputation of “soft” at the community college level.  Do we want community colleges to be college prep institutions?

 

Comment:  At the University of Oregon we have studied this “soft” issue, and the students who transfer in from community colleges have an initial drop in GPA (“an impedance mismatch”), but after a few classes, we cannot tell the difference between these transfers and our own students.

 

Comment:  Not all  community college students go on for a higher degree.

 

Comment:  Curriculum is a faculty issue.