Call AAA: Advising Using Articulation Agreements

1. Call AAA:Advising Using Articulation Agreements Bronx Transfer Affinity Group Transfer Advising Summit 3/22/19

2. Why Are We Here? Wouldn’t it be great if there were detailed roadmaps that outlined all of a student’s course requirements from the associate degree to the bachelor's degree? This session focuses on how to use articulation agreements as an advising tool to help students avoid the detours, potholes, and roadblocks that may prevent them from completing their academic journey. Preliminary Learning Outcomes: • Participants will gain a working knowledge of articulation agreements with Lehman College. • Participants will learn best practices for using articulation agreements when advising transfer students.

3. What’s BTAG Again? • Eighty-seven percent of students who enroll in a CUNY community college intend to continue on to complete their bachelor’s degree but only 11% actually achieve that goal in 6 years. • Bronx, Hostos, Guttman, and Lehman College have united via the Bronx Transfer Affinity Group (BTAG) to improve graduation rates for all of our students by creating and/or improving: • Guaranteed Admission Agreements • Articulation Agreements

4. Guaranteed Admission Agreements Key features: • Formalizes relationship between institutions • Student completes Associate degree and meets CUNY admission criteria • Guaranteed transfer credits • Other details can vary from institution to institution Positives: Provides specific information or benefits applicable to students at THAT community college, total transfer credit guarantees, etc. Negatives: This sort of agreement is typically too general to be meaningful for students. (It’s often something of a marketing tool for the senior college). Usually restates existing policies and procedures.

5. Articulation Agreements—huh? Let’s break it down… • What does “articulate” mean? • Intelligible, understandable, clear • What does “articulation” mean? • “1a: a joint or juncture between bones or cartilages in the skeleton of a vertebrate” • “2a:the action or manner of jointing or interrelating” • What is an agreement? • “a negotiated and typically legally binding arrangement between parties as to a course of action” So let’s put it together: “An Articulation Agreement is a formal, written joining together of two colleges or programs in an intelligible/understandable way.”

6. What Does BTAG Hope to Accomplish with Articulation Agreements? Seamless Transfer and Admission: Barrier-free admission and increased awareness of transfer opportunities. Inclusive treatment/access Transfer and Pre-Transfer Advisement: Provide tailored transfer student advising and prioritize transfer student success Program Pathways: Highly structured program alignment and clear program pathways Strengthening Relationships: Joining institutions and improving transfer through cross-institutional relationships between faculty and staff

7. Types of Articulation Agreements • Program-to-Program Agreements • Comprehensive/Blanket Agreements

8. Program-to-Program Articulation Agreement Key features: • Aligns one program at the community college with one program at the senior college. • Provides detailed transfer credit equivalency information. • Provides a listing of the remaining courses at the senior college. • Includes some general language similar to a Guaranteed Admission Agreement. • Requires signatures of department chairpersons and provosts/presidents. Positives: Detailed transfer credit information, faculty involvement. Negatives: Time consuming to construct, confusing to communicate/advise, can become quickly outdated.

9. Comprehensive/Blanket Agreement Key features: • The Comprehensive Agreement between institutions • Appendix with Program Alignment table • Appendix with Transfer Advising Worksheets for programs • This is the agreement that BTAG has been developing and implementing Positives: Only one need for signatures (Comprehensive agreement); easy to see alignment of similar programs (Program Alignment Table); detailed but “friendly” course level information (Transfer Advising Worksheets); appendices can be updated without new signatures when curricula change. Negatives: Maintaining appendices is still a manual process, but we hope that Transfer What If in Degree Works will become a more efficient automated alternative.

10. Sample - Program Alignment Table

11. Using an Articulation Agreement in Advisement • Comprehensive/Blanket Agreement • Read it and know it! • Program Alignment Table • Use it to find your student’s current major/interest and corresponding or best fit major at Lehman, but remember that other options may still work. • Transfer Advising Worksheet • Use the correct worksheet to advise students on which courses to take at the community college to optimize transfer credit when they get to Lehman.

12. Articulation Agreements – Best Practices • Use them. • Use them early. • Advise students in the context of transfer from the moment they start at the community college. • Use them correctly. • To use them correctly, advisers need to understand them well. That is, a general agreement is different from a program-to-program agreement, which differs from a comprehensive/blanket agreement. Questions after the summit? Ask the transfer professional(s) on your campus, or a representative of the senior college.

13. Contact Information Hostos Community College Amaris Matos amatos@hostos.cuny.edu Theresa L. C. Hammonds thammonds@hostos.cuny.edu Lehman College Ronald Banks ronald.banks@lehman.cuny.edu Emily Denham emily.denham@lehman.cuny.edu Bronx Community College Thomas Bracken thomas.bracken@bcc.cuny.edu Edwin Roman edwin.roman@bcc.cuny.edu Guttmann Community College Diana Zechowski diana.zechowski@guttman.cuny.edu

14. www.cuny.edu/btag