Sessions at AACRAO's 2012 Technology and Transfer Meeting

How Shifting into Reverse Can Drive Transfer Completion Rates Forward

 

Laura Doering and Marc Harding from Iowa State University and Cassandra Lachica from University of Texas at El Paso presented at the AACRAO Transfer Conference in Chicago on July 1, 2012, with their presentation, “How Shifting into Reverse Can Drive Transfer Completion Rates Forward.”  Reverse transfer—the process where credits are transferred from a 4-year institution back to a community college to attain an associate degree or certification from the community college—is a possible solution to increased degree attainment that is quickly gaining popularity.  Well-designed reverse transfer programs can improve student confidence, graduation rates, and relationships among institutions.

 

Doering and Harding discussed reverse transfer as a state-wide partnership recently developed by the Iowa Board of Regents and Iowa’s three regent universities in collaboration with Iowa’s 15 community colleges.  The opt-in program allows community colleges to communicate with students before and during the reverse transfer process.  The Iowa state transfer website also provides online articulation tools and other resources for reverse transfer.

 

Lachica presented University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso Community College’s institution-specific reverse transfer strategy.  Formed in 2006, the UTEP and EPCC reverse transfer program is built on a longstanding collaborative partnership between the two institutions—at any given time, about 70 to 80 percent of current enrolled students at UTEP have credits from EPCC.  UTEP and EPCC offer students incentives to encourage this partnership, such as scholarships and consistent student ID numbers between the schools.  The practice of shared student IDs alongside the use of CAPP degree audit system allows the reverse transfer process to be largely automated.  CAPP reports are run each semester to identify UTEP students eligible to receive degrees from EPCC.  EPCC receives a list of these students and awards them degrees.

 

Implementing a New Fair-use Scheduling Policy

 

Sarah Kussow and Nathan Meath from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus presented at the AACRAO Technology Conference in Chicago on July 1, 2012, with their presentation, “Implementing a New Fair-use Scheduling Policy.” The Office of Classroom Management faced a rapidly increasing number of offered course sections and class enrollment size along with a lack of adherence and enforcement of class scheduling policies.  A committee was formed in the summer of 2008 to define and implement a new class scheduling policy and develop a web-based report of class distribution.

 

The new class scheduling policy promoted fair-use of general purpose classrooms by distributing time and enrollment throughout day and week.  New standard time blocks were added, with a provision that departments should have a maximum of 3 percent of their classes scheduled in the same time block.  Departments may go over this 3 percent requirement if they coordinate peak usage with other departments.

 

The Office of Classroom Management created an in-browser, automated web class scheduling distribution summary organized by college and department.  The page displays the class scheduling policies and highlights time blocks where the department has exceeded the 3 percent recommended usage of classrooms.  Users may view a breakdown of classes scheduled in each time block.

 

The first batch scheduling process after implementation of the new class scheduling policy and web-based report caused a 60 percent reduction of departments scheduling classes above the 3 percent line.  In addition, classroom usage peaks above the 3 percent line were less drastic.

 

Shifting the Paradigm: Reconceptualizing Honors for Transfer Students

University of Michigan-Dearborn Associate Provost Francine Alexander and Executive Director of Enrollment Management Christopher W. Tremblay and students Neam Alazawi and Sandi Nguyen presented at the AACRAO Transfer Conference in Chicago on July 2, 2012 with their presentation “Shifting the Paradigm: Re-conceptualizing Honors for Transfer Students.”  Alexander and Tremblay discussed the need to create a transfer-friendly honors program at their institution.  Alazawi presented her experiences in helping to design the honors program in its preliminary year, and Nguyen presented her experiences as an honors transfer student in the following year.

 

The University of Michigan-Dearborn is seen as a transfer destination; about 60 percent of new students are transfers.  A faculty committee was formed in the summer of 2010 to create a transfer-friendly honors program.  The pilot program, titled “Honors Transfer Innovators,” took place that summer and recruited students from strong community college partners. 

 

The Honors Transfer Innovators focused on unique characteristics of transfer students was a hybrid of on-campus and virtual learning and programs could be as short as two months to as long as one year.  The transfer honors program was interdisciplinary and allowed faculty to propose internships for the Honors Transfer Innovators.  Classes were embedded into existing upper-level course requirements at no additional cost.  Projects for the Honors Transfer Innovators consisted of multimedia presentations, blogs and online portfolios, and student-led discussions.