Articulation Agreements in Action!

AACRAO 2021 Session: Articulation Agreements in Action! How CSM is transforming Articulation Agreements into Customizable Electronic Student Plans

Institutions have different course requirements and criteria. To help ease the transfer planning woes, the College of Southern Maryland (CSM) has created transfer plans within Student Planning software. This enables students/advisors to load complete 2-year transfer and graduation plans for partner institutions. Students can access these plans from any device.

Presenters Jacqui Rogers, Coordinator of Transfer & Academic Articulation, and Amy Carney, Director of Operations, discussed their process for translating articulation agreements into customizable student academic plans.

The unique role of the Coordinator of Transfer & Articulation

Presenter Jacqui Rogers outlined her unique role at the College of Southern Maryland and why creating this role was necessary for Transfer & Articulation success at her institution. The Coordinator of Transfer & Articulation at CSM is responsible for:

• Creation, implementation, and (if needed) renewal and updating of articulation agreements.

• Providing college leadership on the development and renewal of general and program-specific institutional partnership agreements and memoranda of understanding.

• Coordinate and facilitate meetings with representatives from four-year institutions & other programs.

• Working with CSM program faculty to negotiate details of pathway agreements.

• Reviewing and analyze data, outcomes, and other variables to guide improvements in the program.

• Managing Transfer webpages

The CSM Transfer Agreement Website and Course Planner

CSM has created a robust platform for students and faculty to understand their Transfer & Articulation program. This portion of the CSM site is maintained by the Coordinator of Transfer & Articulation rather than the CSM marketing team to ensure that information is up-to-date and easy to understand.

As new Transfer agreements are made they are committed to putting these agreements onto the CSM site within one week after signing. As many states require a PDF of the agreement to be posted, this is included on the site as well. In addition to the PDF, the Coordinator also includes an easy-to-read summary of the agreement with key information so students can avoid the necessity of reading through a lengthy legal document to find the information they need.

Another important tool is the Course Planner - this tool gives students an outline of the courses they need to take to meet requirements for specific degree tracks, and works to ensure that students are not taking unnecessary courses. A few of the guiding principles used when creating this tool included:

• Instituting a Student Planning Department for Programs and Courses 

• Creating Programs for Articulated Degrees

• Advertising Articulated Programs with “Related” Programs

• Building Curriculum Tracks so students/advisors can load course track for articulated degrees 

• Each track is assigned yearly to ensure the agreement is audited

The elegant design of this tool allows students and advisors to load the recommended sequence of courses for a specific program. By keeping all of this data “in-house” CSM can quickly and easily determine the effectiveness of specific articulation programs (student interest, completion, and transfer) and ensure planned courses are offered when students need them.

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