|
Introduction
Background
The Intersegmental Major Preparation Articulated Curriculum
(IMPAC) project originated in the Intersegmental Committee
of Statewide Academic Senates (ICAS) of the California Community
College (CCC), University of California (UC), and California
State University (CSU) systems. IMPAC is a unique faculty-designed,
faculty-run project designed to assist the student transfer
process from the community colleges to the UC and CSU systems
for the baccalaureate degree. In June 2000, the Chancellor
of the California Community College system awarded the first
of five $550,000 annual grants to fund the work of IMPAC.
Goals and Purposes
of the Project
IMPAC is expected to continue as long as articulation is needed
among the higher education systems. The goal of IMPAC is for
faculty in the disciplines, through regional and statewide
meetings, to come to a common understanding of lower-division,
major preparation that serve as prerequisites to upper-division
work at UC and CSU campuses. Faculty review, revise and update
prerequisite and lower-division course requirements for the
major and seek to define the content areas, competencies,
skills, and experiences transferring students must have to
compete successfully at the upper division level. Resultant
course descriptions will serve as the basis for articulation
among UC, CSU, CCC and other institutions so that students
may smoothly transfer in a manner that assures both full preparation
and complete credit for courses completed. The goals of the
IMPAC project include:
· Reaching intersegmental consensus
on the required elements to be included in the lower division
preparation for the major;
· Working with other intersegmental transfer efforts:
the California Articulation Numbering (CAN) project, Articulation
System Stimulating Inter-institutional Student Transfer (ASSIST),
Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC),
GE-Breadth/IGETC, the CSU Regional Core Alignment Project,
and the community college organizations of counselors, articulation
officers, and transfer center coordinators;
· Increasing transferability of students between system
campuses and between the three higher education systems; and
· Decreasing the time to degree for students.
IMPAC also seeks to increase intersegmental
faculty collaboration, strengthen the alignment of curriculum
and the rigor of its delivery, build trust among faculty of
the three segments, and better serve students whose education
is a shared mission of both the sending and receiving institutions.
As a result of IMPAC, ICAS hopes to improve
student transfer through increased awareness and involvement
of faculty and ensure that all students are well prepared
for upper-division work. Students should be able to avoid
unnecessary course work prior to transfer, assure that all
required courses are taken before transfer, and not have to
repeat courses taken successfully at the community college
in preparation for the major.
Process
The IMPAC project over the next five years will create an
effective infrastructure within and between academic disciplines.
IMPAC has grouped the range of available transfer majors into
five broad areas or "clusters" of disciplines. These
five discipline areas are listed below. Each year additional
disciplines will be added until all disciplines are included.
These grouped clusters of disciplines generally reflect the
overlap of prerequisites for a given major. Thus, in Science
Cluster I, students majoring in physics commonly will need
pre-transfer work in mathematics to be eligible for the major.
Biology majors need mathematics, as well as some chemistry
and physics, to be successful as biology majors. Majors in
Applied Sciences (Cluster 2) build upon the core courses of
Cluster I. Thus, the interdisciplinary discussions cross clusters
as well as disciplines.
2000 Sciences (Cluster 1): biology,
chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
2001 Applied Sciences (Cluster 2):
agriculture, computer science, earth sciences, food science/nutrition,
and nursing.
2002 Business and Government (Cluster
3): computer information systems, criminal justice, business,
economics, and political science. In addition, the Steering
Committee has determined that the engineering and geography
disciplines should commence discussions in year 2002.
2003 Social & Behavioral (Cluster 4): anthropology,
history, psychology (including human development), and sociology.
2004 Language (Cluster 4): English, ESL, foreign languages,
communications/speech, and journalism.
2005 Arts & Humanities (Cluster 5): art/fashion/interior
design, theater arts, humanities, music, and philosophy.
To be considered prior to 2005, pending completion of CSU's
internal review: teacher preparation/liberal studies.
In our pilot year, project participants came
to understand that, to capture the full range of coursework
needed for successful transfer, it is essential that we facilitate
both discipline and cross-discipline faculty dialogues. In
fact, we have found that such interdisciplinary discussions
can have immediate and lasting effect when faculty come to
understand the reality and impact of given requirements on
student transfer chances. For example, upon discussion and
reflection, faculty from biology and mathematics concluded
that the historical practice of requiring calculus-based physics
for biology transfers is more tradition than necessity. The
conversations between physics and biology can lead to a more
flexible articulation of the algebra-based physics as appropriate
for bioscience transfers. This outcome will be of immediate
benefit to students, particularly those who want to transfer
from smaller or more rural community colleges unable to offer
such advanced courses on a regular basis.
In first and second year (2000-01 and 2001-02),
ICAS, through its Steering Committee, identified lead faculty
in each of the nine disciplines in the Science Cluster. Work
began by these lead faculty on developing matrices showing
major-preparation requirements at each UC and CSU and summarizing
the courses offered in a given major at every community college.
These major prep matrices served as the basis for preparing
tables of course descriptions using information from on-line
catalogs. Work then began on determining the extent of articulation
of major prep courses. Matrices for each UC and CSU for each
major was constructed to show numbers for courses already
articulated from each community college. Information from
the state repository for articulation agreements, Articulation
System Stimulating Interinstitutional Student Transfer (ASSIST),
was used to create these articulation matrices. Tables of
course descriptions and the articulation matrices were put
together by the staff of the Academic Senate for the California
Community Colleges.
The next step in this process was to hold
regional meetings (see Appendix A dates, locations, and attendees).
Lead Faculty members representing UC, CSU, and CCC facilitated
these four regional meetings. Private colleges and universities
were invited to attend as well. Articulation Officers, as
well as representatives from the CAN System and ASSIST, were
present as resources. Also attending were observers from ICAS,
and from the three system offices.
Like the statewide meetings, regional meetings
schedule time for both disciplinary and interdisciplinary
discussions. The discipline faculty begin their discussion
with an evaluation of the IMPAC matrices and descriptions
and review the status of their existing articulation, identifying
potential new agreements that might be fostered. It is anticipated
that these discipline-based faculty discussions will lead
to increased curriculum alignment across all the segments.
The interdisciplinary discussions that follow
later in the day remain essential in building cohesive and
coherent programs in the major and in easing what are perceived
by students and segments alike as barriers to effective transfer.
From these interdisciplinary discussions have come significant
recommendations and new understandings among disciplines and
their faculty.
Regional meetings are also designed to seek
and secure several agreements among departments in the region.
Commitments are sought from faculty at four-year institutions
to notify community college faculty of impending curriculum
changes and to collaborate on those changes to the extent
feasible. When major preparation requirements are changed,
receiving departments will be asked to establish a one-year
period during which community college students will be accepted
under previous requirements. Community college faculty will
in turn invite a representative from a four-year department
to participate in the program review now required under the
six-year accreditation cycle.
After each regional meeting is concluded,
the Lead Discipline Faculty member prepares a report summarizing
statements of the competencies and preparation expected of
students entering upper-division work in the major. These
reports are posted on the IMPAC website and widely circulated
for comment by the field. Steering Committee members presented
material and commentary for review to ICAS. Using Web site
resources, professional organizations, and internal structures
for distribution, ICAS then further disseminates to affected
faculty of UC, CSU and CCC those reports containing the core
competencies and preparation for each discipline as determined
thus far.
These feedback loops, as well as the alternating
regional and state meetings, are extremely important steps
in generating sufficient dialogue and building consensus among
discipline faculty. The perceived legitimacy of the products
is critical in securing widespread "buy in" by faculty
across all the institutions.
In these first years, IMPAC has made considerable progress
in forging mutual understanding and appreciation among faculty
in the three segments; this level of trust, candor, and exploration
is essential to crystallize the pre-transfer, lower division,
major preparation needed for each undergraduate major. These
understandings are being concretized in matrices and articulation
agreements. An infrastructure of discipline committees, agreements,
and contacts is being established.
Further, the infrastructure and collaborative
efforts with ASSIST and CAN provide solid foundations for
institutionalizing IMPAC--locally and statewide to enable
the necessary, ongoing review and cyclic renewal of those
agreements. By linking these reviews to the ongoing work of
articulation officers, using CAN to formalize these course
descriptions, and publishing and maintaining the articulation
agreements in the ASSIST database, these dynamic agreements
about undergraduate major preparation will constitute a considerable
advance for students negotiating transfer among the segments
of higher education in California. We have seen remarkable
progress to date; we expect the IMPAC project to foster continued
progress throughout the duration of this initial grant.
|
