Joint Boards Articulation Commission
Student Transfer Committee

Meeting Summary Notes
October 23, 2002
OIT Metro
Portland, OR

Members Present
Dave Phillips, Clatsop Community College, Chair
Jim Arnold, Oregon University System
Mary Brau, Lane Community College
Jim Buch, University of Oregon
Mickie Bush, Concordia University
John Duarte, Oregon Institute of Technology
Mike Morgan, Chemeketa Community College
Terry Rhodes, Portland State University
Glenda Tepper, Clackamas Community College
Diane Watson, Linn-Benton Community College
Elaine Yandle-Roth, Department of Community Colleges & Workforce Development
Dana Young, Blue Mountain Community College

Guests Present
Patrick Lanning, Lane Community College
Kimberly McConnell, Lane Community College
Martha Pitts, University of Oregon
Bonnie Simoa, Lane Community College

Dave Phillips called the meeting to order at 10:05 a.m.

1. Introductions, Announcements, and Suggestions for the Agenda

Members introduced themselves. Jim Arnold addressed a few housekeeping items and announcements, including:

• Updating of the Transfer Committee membership list and lunch details
• Explanation of the AACRAO policy memo distributed with the meeting agenda (i.e., the document was written for the national organization’s “Transfer Task Force” initiative)
• Reminder that the annual articulation and transfer conference will be held on December 6 at Marylhurst University
• A group photo will be taken at lunchtime

Phillips distributed a copy of the Operating Guidelines of the Joint Boards Articulation Commission (revised, July 2002) to remind everyone of the charge of that body, as well as orient new members to the work of the Student Transfer Committee.

Jim Buch announced that this will be his last STC meeting due to retirement. Martha Pitts, Director of Admission at the University of Oregon, will take Buch’s place and is a guest at today’s meeting.

Phillips added some items to the agenda, to be discussed at some point:

• “Arts & Letters” issues
• Conversational Spanish
• CIA/CSSA discussion of the AS/OT

Arnold reported that the discussion about an AS/OT in Education has been deferred at the request of those individuals from Clackamas Community College who had originally requested it.

2. Minutes of the June 5, 2002, Meeting

The minutes of the June 2002 meeting were approved as submitted.

3. Transfer Activity in Oregon Postsecondary Education, 1996-97 to 2000-01: Progress and Next Steps

Arnold invited discussion of the draft version of the upcoming report to the JBAC: Transfer Activity in Oregon Postsecondary Education, 1996-97 to 2000-01. He specifically requested for suggestions regarding typographical errors, other more substantive mistakes or misstatements of fact, and/or especially, any thoughts on policy recommendations arising from a reading of the report.

Comments included:

• When looking at the transfer rate from the perspective of all community college students enrolled in lower-division collegiate (LDC) courses (Table 5, p. 10), only about 14% transfer in any given year. This seems inordinately low. Why don’t more students go on?
• The suggestion was made to take a look at how the data were presented, in terms of order. When talking about transfer rates, it may be more appropriate to lead with the respectable numbers of AA/OT graduates who transfer, rather than the low percentage of LDC students.
• One possible recommendation in the policy area might be the encouragement for students to complete an associate’s degree, since a much higher percentage of these students go on rather than those just enrolled in classes.
• A missing piece to this puzzle is the number of students who go on to private colleges/universities.
• Are there data available from the National Student Loan Clearinghouse that speak to student movement in Oregon? Maybe that would be a good data source. How about the shared database available at the Oregon Student Assistance Commision?
• Additionally, students transferring to baccalaureate-granting institutions outside the state are not included. We know that many students do go out of state.
• Some version of this report should be produced in a form that is easily digestible for Board members and legislators.
• The observation was made that successful AAS graduates are those taken care of under articulation agreements. Could this lead to a recommendation in some form?
• There are a higher number of credits earned at graduation for community college students, compared to native OUS students. What are the implications of this? Could this lead to a recommendation?

Arnold will finish the report soon and submit it to JBAC. A streamlined version of the report, including some policy recommendations, will follow at some point prior to the legislative session.

4. Progress on the Associate of Science/Oregon Transfer Degree in Business (AS/OT-Bus): Report from the Business Chairs/Deans Task Force

Phillips gave a brief history of the genesis of the business degree proposal, which originated at the 2000 articulation and transfer conference, and was followed by extended discussions of the JBAC, Student Transfer Committee, and the statewide Business Chairs and University Deans group. At various stages, proposals for the AS/OT-Bus have been considered by the Council of Instructional Administrators and the OUS Academic Council, as well. In 2001, Arnold and Yandle-Roth took the concept of a statewide discipline-specific Associate of Science transfer degree to the Board of Education, which was enthusiastically received and supported. This summer, a task force appointed by the business chairs/deans group, headed by Arnold, held another work session on the degree proposal and the full statewide group will again review the proposal at their meeting later this week.

[Note: The revised proposal, arising from the October 25, 2002, meeting of the Business Chairs and University Deans group is online at http://www.ous.edu/aca/ASOT-Bus-Oct02.htm.]

5. Proposal for a “Generic” AS/OT

Phillips directed member’s attention to the documents dated August 6, 2002, that outline the current status of the proposal for a generic AS/OT. This proposal had been brought to the JBAC by Oregon State University (Michele Sandlin) in the spring of 2002 and has been discussed by a number of external groups in the meantime. Oregon State University currently has AS transfer agreements with the community colleges in the state of Washington and is in the process of finalizing an agreement with Hawaii; OSU is supportive of a move to an AS transfer degree statewide. The thinking is that the degree would work well in situations where the AA/OT does not currently meet student needs, and would have the same guarantees as the AA/OT (meeting lower-division general education requirements and allowing students junior standing for registration purposes). Sandlin and Bob Bontrager (OSU) presented this concept at a meeting of the Council of Instructional Administrators this summer, with the reactions varying from “enthusiastic” to “why would we do this?”

Glenda Tepper reported that the Chief Student Services Administrators of the community colleges had also discussed the proposal. The concerns of that group revolved around questions like: How is this different? What problem is this trying to solve? Is this proposal just trying to devise a work-around to the current AA/OT? Who would we be trying to help with this degree?

From the standpoint of advising and student services staff, questions also arise about administering this degree without a mandatory advising requirement.

If we move forward to endorse a proposal for a generic AS/OT, we need to identify how this degree would be different, and why it’s needed.

The question was posed: what if all the colleges adopted the current AA/OT “as written” (i.e., according to the general guidelines adopted by the Joint Boards) and did not require add-ons to the degree such as sequence requirements?

Yandle-Roth offered that about half of the community colleges have sequence requirements in their version of the AA/OT which may be interpreted as not having kept pace with the evolution of the general degree requirements as they now stand.

From the perspective of the University of Oregon, they would prefer that students concentrate on general education at the lower division then specialize in their majors at the upper division level. An AS degree that forces specialization early is not necessarily a degree that UO would favor. For example, in biology, transfer students come into UO with varying levels of preparation in certain areas. UO would support more faculty-to-faculty communication over the addition of another degree. UO sees how such a degree could serve OSU students much better, however. OIT may not see it helping students that much.

Are we trying to solve an “advising guide problem” with another degree?

Mickie Bush indicated that, from the perspective of private institutions, what works best is individual articulation agreements. Further, where does technology come into this? Many students are doing their own advising. Wouldn’t we be as well served with an AA/OT with multiple advising guides?

Would another degree add to the confusion on the part of students?

Phillips suggested that an “out of the box AA/OT” could better accommodate the needs of students compared to the ones we have now with all the add-ons. Perhaps the topic of the AS/OT keeps coming up because of the frustration over the current status of the AA/OT. Can’t we make the AA/OT more workable? But: how do we get there?

With respect to the evolution of the AA/OT, there was a time when OUS campuses required sequences in their general education requirements. Although OUS has moved away from that, many community colleges still have sequence requirements.

How about a top-down approach? For example, a mandate/dictum from the Joint Boards to colleges indicating that a streamlined version of the degree is required? (i.e., no “extras” in terms of institutional-specific requirements). This may be the appropriate time to pursue such a course. Admittedly, the AA/OT, as it is now implemented on some campuses at least, can be a barrier to student progress. The question remains: what would it take for all community colleges to have similar requirements for the AA/OT?

Phillips agreed to take these issues to the next meeting of the Council of Instructional Administrators for consideration.

6. Proposed AA/OT Guiding Principles and SP 111

Phillips referred members’ attention to the JBAC meeting minutes of May 15, 2002, which included a record of that group’s discussion of a proposed new set of “guiding principles” for the AA/OT degree. Yandle-Roth indicated that SP 111 is singled out in the proposed language for the guiding principles as being the desired type of speech course, to the exclusion of others. [“The Speech course is intended to focus on developing formal presentation techniques similar to those included in Fundamentals of Speech (SP 111). Courses such as Interpersonal, Intercultural, or Small Group Communications help students develop important skills but do not meet the intent of this requirement.”] Phillips indicated that the proposed language also would exclude other “skills courses.” [“Skills courses (e.g. studio art and music performance) do not meet the intent of this section.”]

Mary Brau introduced faculty members from Lane in attendance today (Patrick Lanning, Kimberly McConnell, and Bonnie Simoa) and distributed a letter addressed to the JBAC and STC, from faculty at Lane Community College, on the matter of the possible exclusion of skills courses from the AA/OT. At Lane, a committee was asked to formulate a response to the proposed guiding principles language. The letter notes that some OUS campuses allow studio art in their baccalaureate core and MANY community colleges allow studio art in their AA/OT degrees. The proposal of the committee was to suggest a definition for “academic rigor” that courses must meet, rather than eliminating skills courses altogether.

Brau encouraged reading of the letter from Lane, which outlines the totality of their case. The discussions at Lane leading to the development of the letter were extremely passionate. Their belief is that the courses referred to demonstrate part of our cultural heritage and represent a legitimate way of knowing.

Other comments on this issue included:

• The term “experiential” may be preferred over “skills.”
• In terms of dance, you can only “know” by “doing.”
• The clarification was made that these studio/skills/experiential courses would not be banned from the degree, under this proposal, but rather would be allowed to count as electives (not included in the “core”).
• There are differences in skills courses, in that some meet the criteria (of engaging theory and principles) and some do not (for example, a keyboarding course).
• It may be appropriate to define what kinds of outcomes we expect from general education courses. If a course deals with technique only, it would likely be excluded. If the course is more substantive, it is likely to be included.
• There must be material in our archives that would speak to the what courses were originally intended to be core courses and those that would not.
• We talk much more in “outcomes language” today, and coming up with criteria for the gen ed core based on an outcomes model would not be foreign territory.
• The AA/OT, as originally conceived and implemented, was a compromise for everybody.
• We can’t start with a list of courses that are acceptable, we need to establish criteria for how courses may or may not fit into the aims of the degree. That is, is doesn’t matter, particularly, if a course is a “studio” course, rather: what does the course do?
• We have never had a definition of how courses first it into various categories. (For example: what is an “Arts & Letters” course? The answer to this question is that that is defined by the campus offering the degree.)
• In the “budget times” we are currently experiencing, elective courses are the ones to go when sections must be eliminated. Required courses are the ones that stay. Phillips indicated that a discussion of this is happening currently at Clatsop Community College: what are the criteria for “shrinking” course offerings?

Buch and Yandle-Roth were charged with going back to old meeting minutes and other archival material that may shed some light on this discussion. Phillips agreed to carry this discussion to the Council of Instructional Administrators.

7. Miscellaneous Articulation and/or Transfer Issues

Conversational Spanish. Phillips reported that Clatsop Community College is currently considering a proposal to add Conversational Spanish to the list of approved courses for Arts & Letters in their AA/OT. Chemeketa Community College reportedly offers this course on their approved list. This course does NOT focus on grammar and culture, but rather, almost exclusively, on use of the spoken language. Student outcomes in these courses are different than those courses which include the cultural aspects.

How does this transfer to OUS campuses? At UO, the course would transfer, but Buch was not sure how it would be applied to a student’s program.

Yandle-Roth indicated that the original intent of including 2^nd year foreign language in Arts & Letters was to encourage foreign language study.

Other comments on this topic included:

• In evaluating and deciding on whether or not to include these courses on the list of approved one, we should ask, “What are the outcomes?” “What are the expectations coming into the course?” “Is culture included in the first year?”
• In an even broader sense, we should be asking, “What are we trying to do with the 10+ credits in Arts & Letters? “What are the expected outcomes of the AA/OT?”
• We did NOT define Arts & Letters, Science, Social Science in constructing the AA/OT.
• We need to figure out what we desire of students rather than just making lists of courses that fit into categories.
• Does this suggestion that we go back and “look at history” seem reasonable (see discussion above)? Yes, we would like to consider the prior context as well as the present times.

In sum: we ultimately need to figure out what we are expecting to achieve with the AA/OT degree.

Unwrapping the AA/OT. Phillips inquired of the group whether or not the move from three credit courses to four credit courses has been an issue. This topic was not pursued, but Dana Young brought up the practice of UO unwrapping an AA/OT degree if a student had first matriculated at UO then subsequently earned an AA/OT. Buch pointed out that that practice was initiated to discourage use of the AA/OT merely to avoid completion of the UO’s prescribed general education requirements. However, there is an appeals process, and a student need only contact Martha Pitts to initiate the appeal.

8. Adjournment and Next Meeting
The meeting was adjourned at 2:05 p.m. The details of the next meeting are as follows:

Wednesday January 29, 2003
10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
OIT Metro, Room 139

Prepared by Jim Arnold
OUS Academic Affairs
November 25, 2002

http://www.ous.edu/aca/10-23-02.htm