Q&A
Transfer credit issues and curriculum alignment
0:31:19
·
7 min
Council Member Dinowitz raises concerns about transfer credits not counting towards majors. CUNY representatives explain their efforts to address this issue through curriculum alignment and faculty education.
- On average, 11 credits per student are not transferring for anything besides elective credit
- CUNY acknowledges this is unacceptable and is working to solve the problem
- The university is implementing a curricular alignment process across the system
- Faculty from different colleges are collaborating to identify core competencies for each major
- The goal is to ensure that community college courses seamlessly transfer to senior colleges as credits in the major
- CUNY aims to complete this alignment for 85% of majors by the end of 2024
- The process involves educating faculty about the importance of transfer in curriculum development
Eric Dinowitz
0:31:19
So I know this this committee, and I think even chairs performing have brought up particularly about transfer credits.
0:31:26
I keep doing that.
0:31:27
Particularly about transfer credits.
0:31:29
I mean, this has been an issue for as far back as I can I can remember, and council member have to whoever have testified at various hearings, they have constituents who go to a community college, and the the credits they may transfer as elective credits, and this is something you alluded to in your testimony, but it doesn't count towards their major?
0:31:50
And that is you know, one of the driving factors of students not staying in school.
0:31:57
So I was on average 11 credits.
0:31:59
It's a semester.
0:32:01
Of credits that students worked hard for and are not transferring for anything besides elective credit.
0:32:09
And so can you go over the steps being taken to address that?
Wendy Hensel
0:32:13
Sure.
0:32:14
First, let me say it's totally unacceptable to us that that could happened.
0:32:18
And we know that it's happened quite a lot in in large part because of the lack of coordination across academic programs across the system.
0:32:27
So you have consistent rules by individual colleges, but not with the intention of transfer even though our AA and AS degrees exist to transfer.
0:32:36
That is literally the function that they play.
0:32:39
And Alicia has Doctor.
0:32:42
Avero has headed up the and and also Doctor.
0:32:45
Bishop.
0:32:45
So I'll let them tell you about the specific steps where we've coordinated between the faculty.
0:32:50
And the administration to hopefully solve this problem once and for all.
Alicia Alvero
0:32:54
To EVC Henslow's point, as part of the transfer initiative, what we really uncovered is something that was alluded to by the Center for Urban Research.
0:33:04
It's educating the faculty So many of these decisions are unintentional.
0:33:09
Faculty and and I was was faculty for 20 years.
0:33:12
You evaluate transfer credit.
0:33:14
Think, oh, I'll give them elective.
0:33:16
It counts towards their 120.
0:33:17
So what's the difference?
0:33:19
But there is a huge difference and not understanding that.
0:33:22
And so I I wanna allow Doctor.
0:33:25
Bishop to talk a little bit about what's that educational campaign?
0:33:28
How have we been able to open up the conversation to in order to to help us in that.
0:33:36
And then you're probably gonna have follow-up, of course.
Eric Dinowitz
0:33:38
Yeah.
0:33:39
Yeah.
0:33:39
I just wanna make sure I'm hearing right because it's it's I wanna make
Wendy Hensel
0:33:42
The 10 second version, which is probably helpful at the front end.
0:33:46
Is we put together any the majors that crossed.
0:33:49
Right?
0:33:49
If you have accounting, then all of the accounting schools that had the major got together and identified essentially the first half of the major.
0:33:59
What are the core competencies that must be mastered by the students?
0:34:03
They came to an agreement on that, then went back to their own community colleges and said, what courses do we have that count for those competencies.
0:34:13
Once they've decided on that and we will have done that by the end of 2024 for 85% of the majors, they automatically transfer to wherever in the system, you take that major.
Sangeeta Bishop
0:34:28
Thank you.
0:34:29
I think the main main issue that both TBC and BC Alvaro are talking about is the curricular alignment piece.
0:34:40
And that's the piece that probably has been missing.
0:34:45
To some extent in in this whole transfer process.
0:34:49
And that's what we are trying to address.
0:34:51
Make sure that the curriculum for the community colleges aligns with the curriculum for the senior colleges so that whatever courses students take in the major at a community college can seamlessly transfer to that major in the senior college.
0:35:11
If there's a curricular alignment, you no longer have credit wastage.
0:35:15
You no longer have courses just going as elect give credits, but they're going now as credits in the major.
0:35:22
So that when the students transfer to the senior college, they transfer with junior status in the major.
0:35:29
That's the whole The idea
Wendy Hensel
0:35:30
is that every one of those credits counts toward degree completion.
Eric Dinowitz
0:35:34
Yeah.
Wendy Hensel
0:35:34
Right.
0:35:34
Right.
0:35:35
As opposed to sitting over here as it's nice that you took it and it's credit that doesn't really serve any purpose because you've already exhausted your electives.
0:35:43
Now you have 20 additional elective credits.
0:35:46
That's unacceptable.
0:35:47
And frankly, that is some of the distant,genuous conversations that you hear when systems say all of our credits transfer.
0:35:53
Oh, they they transfer, but they don't progress you toward completion of your degree.
0:35:59
The program that we've now implemented with the fact because the faculty must agree to this.
Eric Dinowitz
0:36:05
So this is this is what I I I need to ask about because it sounded by what you testified before that the faculty seem unaware of the graduation requirements or the requirements for the major I want to clarify what you said, please.
Alicia Alvero
0:36:22
So I'll give one example to to first illustrate.
0:36:26
If I am at a community college, John, I'm a department, and the faculty create a major in accounting with a specialization.
0:36:35
But the conversation is not Well, if the purpose of this degree is to prepare students to transfer, and the students then transfer to a school that doesn't offer accounting in that concentration, but it's the major feeder.
0:36:50
That that's fundamentally the problem.
0:36:52
I've created a degree with the specialization, which might be fantastic.
0:36:56
Plastic, but if it is not aligned to that same major at a senior college, so the curriculum is developed in isolation.
0:37:05
Each school creates their own curriculum, and they're not having the conversation about, well, if we are preparing a student to transfer, where are we preparing a transfer student to go in the development of the curriculum?
0:37:18
So they create these specialized courses that might not have an equivalency at that senior college.
0:37:24
So then the faculty at the senior college say, well, that's a great course.
0:37:28
We we don't offer that.
0:37:29
Course.
0:37:29
So therefore, it must transfer to elective because we just don't offer that course.
0:37:33
And so with the competency approach, what we did is, what must a student learn?
0:37:38
I might pack it this way, and I might package it this way.
0:37:41
But can we agree that combining our 1st 2 years of credits and your 1st 2 years of credit the students have the fundamental information that they need.
0:37:51
Forget about all the this chapters, you know, covered in this chapter is covered in week 14, and I cover something else.
0:37:58
Doesn't matter.
0:37:59
I might cover it in a different course.
0:38:01
So it's about the information and providing students and then assuring that they've learned the same information regardless of how it's packaged at a community college versus a senior college.
0:38:12
So that's what's created that fundamental.
0:38:15
And that was not something that we really even realized until we started really looking at why is there Why aren't these credits transferring?
0:38:23
Why are these things happening and discovering that it's because this curriculum alignment conversation is not being had?
0:38:31
And that's our role at central is how are we ensuring that we are really functioning as one system versus curriculum being developed.
0:38:39
In isolation of transfer.
Eric Dinowitz
0:38:41
Thank you.
0:38:41
I want to turn it over to Council member Brewer.
0:38:44
For some questions.