Q&A
Efforts to improve transfer credit acceptance and curriculum alignment
0:49:03
·
6 min
CUNY officials discuss their efforts to improve transfer credit acceptance and curriculum alignment between community colleges and senior colleges. They explain the process of creating faculty groups to review and align curricula across institutions.
- CUNY is working on creating a system of rules with faculty cooperation to ensure consistency in credit transfer
- The goal is to have 85% of community college students benefiting from automatic transferability of course-aligned credits by December 2024
- The process includes creating faculty committees to review curriculum changes and ensure alignment between community and senior colleges
Eric Dinowitz
0:49:03
Essentially, now now it's acknowledged the problem, let's say, for transfer credits, exists with schools, I guess, aligning curricula or finding things elements in a course that can align with one of their courses.
0:49:22
And I'm interested to know how much of that is pressure from central to ensure that that happens.
0:49:28
And how much is left up to each senior college to determine on their own?
Wendy Hensel
0:49:34
Yeah.
0:49:34
Well, up till now, most of it's been left up to the senior college.
0:49:37
On their own.
0:49:38
And that's why you see a patchwork of results.
0:49:41
Right?
0:49:41
And frankly too many people making decisions individually.
0:49:46
And so that's why we determine not just that we need to have more central control, but we need to do that in partnership with the faculty because they are the experts in the curriculum.
0:49:57
And and that's why we think that this this approach is unique and will work.
0:50:02
As opposed to being lip service to to fixing the transfer problem.
0:50:06
Because ideally, I mean, the way that we will set this up, and then we will code it on the back end to ensure that this happens once that agreement is in place, it is in place.
0:50:16
There is no more discretion that comes in at the senior colleges say we are not going to accept those credits because the faculty agreed as a group that they would.
0:50:27
The other additional piece, of course, is that it that does have to evolve over time, and so that will change, but it will be a controlled change so that whatever rules were in place at the moment that the person transferred are still operative by the time the person graduates.
0:50:42
So they're not subject to going back and forth as the faculty meets and may make new decisions on that meeting.
Eric Dinowitz
0:50:49
And and just what is what does that pressure or incentive look like for a senior college to really dig in and find those those transfer courses to apply to the major?
Wendy Hensel
0:51:04
The the incentives to
Eric Dinowitz
0:51:07
To the senior colleges, to the professors, to the schools themselves.
Wendy Hensel
0:51:11
I think these are in the vast majority of cases.
0:51:14
These are good faith determinations by faculty that in their opinion, it is not an equivalent.
0:51:20
Now whether that is a fully informed decision or not, we we we question from time to time.
0:51:26
For example, we often have arguments now over whether the same class isn't transferable because it was taken in a remote setting versus an in class setting.
0:51:36
Those are things that we should need we should decide together administratively and then have consistency because students should shouldn't be in the position.
0:51:45
Of having to advocate for each of these courses when they make these transfers.
0:51:50
We will create the system of rules with the cooperation of the faculty and agreement of the faculty, and then we will administer it to ensure consistency.
Alicia Alvero
0:52:00
I wanna add, I don't wanna say pressure, but what has definitely helped to open up the door of conversation is the student success metrics.
0:52:09
Sharing the data of what is happening to the students as a result of these decisions has been extremely eye opening.
0:52:17
For faculty, seeing what percentage of the students, and this is one of the features of transport has been fantastic that shows how do our students fare once they transfer.
0:52:27
What percentage of the students in my department are transfer students?
0:52:31
That information has not been as transparent as it needs to be in order to enable these conversations.
0:52:37
And once by and large, as faculty see, what is happening in the challenges student transfer students are facing.
0:52:43
It's gained buy in from the faculty.
Eric Dinowitz
0:52:46
And was this did you say the timeline for this is 2020 this year or 24?
0:52:52
So by December, there will be, I guess, a map of all courses at CUNY that that can or do transfer for credit from from associates to bachelor's.
Wendy Hensel
0:53:05
Well, that's already in.
0:53:07
In Transfer Transfer Explorer, but the automatic transferability of course aligned credits will be in place by the end of December for 85% of our community college students.
0:53:19
Once we hit go past the 85%, we're talking about small majors with small numbers of students, so it will take us a little bit longer to complete that last piece.
0:53:28
But even though students will benefit tremendously, from the additional work and transparency through the technology.
Eric Dinowitz
0:53:34
Is there a timeline for the that other 15%?
Sangeeta Bishop
0:53:38
They're happening as we go.
0:53:40
Yeah.
0:53:40
We're doing it along with the 85%, which are the 6 big majors.
0:53:45
So we work as continuing on that.
0:53:48
At the same time, we also have work continuing at some of the other majors.
0:53:52
So I have somebody who's working on math.
0:53:54
I have another person who is working on biology.
0:53:57
So they are being tackled, and the hope is that some of these other majors will It will just not stop at 85, but maybe we might have 90 by the time it's the end of December.
Wendy Hensel
0:54:09
So they're on their way.
0:54:10
So they're not they're not on.
0:54:11
Away.
0:54:12
It's that we prioritize the same time with our resources.
Alicia Alvero
0:54:15
And as new majors are created, I think this has to be continuous.
Eric Dinowitz
0:54:18
Well, so that was my next question.
0:54:20
Even within a major, there are new courses that pop up all the time or or even a curriculum changes slightly.
0:54:27
And so what is the process for adapting to either new courses or courses that change their syllabus?
0:54:35
Even a little bit?
Alicia Alvero
0:54:36
That's a great question.
0:54:37
And that's that's exactly what we're doing.
0:54:39
We're gonna be creating faculty groups that will be looking at request to make changes because curriculum has to evolve and it has to change.
0:54:48
But what we don't want is it changes at a senior college and doesn't then change when it needs to change at the community college.
0:54:55
So if changes are being recommended at a community college, senior college, there will be a faculty committee that reviews that to identify Well, if this change happens here, then it needs to happen at a community college to see where is so to continue that curriculum alignment.
0:55:11
And so that will be a process.
0:55:12
We have that with general education.
0:55:14
We have a a committee that anytime there's a proposal for a new Gen Ed course, that reviews these things to ensure that we have that transfer guarantee, and we'll be creating it for every discipline.
Eric Dinowitz
0:55:25
I already testified that our cela by literacy.
Jen Gaboury
0:55:29
Yeah.
Eric Dinowitz
0:55:29
Hearing.
0:55:29
And I was actually shocked that this faculty has to meet for nationally recognized exams like AP courses that they still have to meet.
0:55:39
And that and so there's no automation there for even nationally recognized.
0:55:43
There's no automation currently within your own system that if a syllabus exists, so they have to review every single one manually.