Notes from Transfer Students Task Force
9/23/2011
Attending: Susan Arreguin, Debbie Beard, Sydney Beeler, Becky Bergman, Amy Cole, Angie Cottrell,
Jennifer DeHaemers, Sandy Gault, Ginny Miller, Whitney Molloy, Gene Pegler, Tom Poe, Lisa Power,
Kami Thomas, Kati Toivanen, and W.C. Vance
The notes from the August 12 meeting were reviewed and no additions/corrections were suggested.
Transfer Agreements Subgroup Report (W.C. Vance)
W.C. outlined the challenges that he saw in making transfer agreements and other pertinent
information readily accessible to prospective transfer students. On the pages with major maps on the
UMKC website, links to schools and departments are missing. Most academic department pages do not
contain links to admissions, inquiry links, or application links. Another challenge is that UMKC is lacking a
transfer agreement with Donnelly College, which sends a number of students to the University.
Additionally, the transfer equivalencies webpage is not program-specific, requiring that an advisor
become involved in interpreting and making determinations relating to transfers of coursework into a
specific program.
W.C. also discussed best practices in transfer agreements including the use of u.select. U.Select looks
like a degree audit. It is a program that UMKC is adopting, but it will require a great deal of work by our
staff. It builds on course equivalencies and will be used on all four campuses of the UM System.
Next Sandy Gault addressed articulation issues pertinent to the ISAO. Often memoranda of
understanding with international institutions are handshake agreements based on faculty exchanges.
Individual faculty can articulate with other institutions course by course. Even faculty teaching UMKC
courses abroad can articulate. Sandy noted that u.select will work for international students as well. This
is important because pipeline initiatives with international institutions seem to be growing.
Based on these considerations, W.C. put forward the following set of recommendations:
Issue 1 – Inquiry info from prospective students investigating UMKC online, is not being collected
effectively and online visitors are not easily able to navigate between helpful resources
Web Communication and Navigation: Major Maps and the UMKC web site
Current status: We have major maps, but some do not contain links to Departments are missing. Most
academic department pages do not contain and links to Admissions, requesting info, or applying to
UMKC
Action 1)
Add department links to all Major Maps
Timeline: March 31, 2012
1
Responsible party: Records and Registration
Resource implications: staff time
Action 2)
Add links to Admissions page for New Students, request Info link, and Apply to UMKC link from each
Department/College web page
Timeline: by March 31, 2012
Responsible party: Academic Units/Departments coordinated by Academic Unit Recruitment
Liaisons
Resource implications: staff time
Issue 2 – Transfer Articulation Agreements between MCC, JCCC, and KCKCC are not being regularly
updated
Current status: Articulation Agreements exist, but may become outdated without regular oversight
Action 1)
Create a strategy for regularly approving and updating articulation agreements
Timeline: Annually in conjunction with the University catalog updates. Deadline will be 2 weeks
after the deadline for all catalog updates
Responsible party: Academic Units/Departments approve or update. Process currently
coordinated by Admissions and should transition to Transfer Center once operational
Resource implications: A full-time person who has articulation as his/her sole responsibility is
needed. This staff member would also be in charge of aiding the process of creating new
articulation agreements
Action 2)
Add valid dates and catalog year to all articulation agreements
Timeline: Annually in conjunction with the University catalog updates
Responsible party: Verifying validity-Admissions, Update posted online agreements-Records and
Registration
Resource implications: staff time, preferably handled by a designated new articulation position
at UMKC
(Vice Chancellor’s Office sends a request to AU liaisons, these changes would be due after
catalog changes are due.)
Action 3)
Develop storage arrangement for prior Articulation Agreements
Timeline: by Dec. 31, 2011
Responsible party: Records and Registration
Resource implications: staff time
2
Action 4)
Review Course Equivalencies, course by course, in the database for UMKC’s Top 10 feeder institutions
Timeline: Annually in conjunction with the University catalog updates
Responsible party: Update equivalencies- Academic departments. Add updated equivalencies
into Pathway/U-Select-Records and Registration
Resource implications: Import into Pathway/U-Select will preferably be handled by a designated
new articulation position at UMKC
(This requires a great deal of effort. In a “dream world,” it would be possible to go through
catalogs of other institutions to keep equivalencies updated.)
Issue 3 – UMKC Articulation Agreements for international Memorandums of Understanding need
regular updates
Current status: Articulation agreements for international Memorandums of Understanding are not
regularly updated
Action 1)
Set a standard for updating and approving international MOU’s at least every five years.
Timeline: Update every 5 years, beginning in 2012, in conjunction with the University catalog
updates. Deadline will be 2 weeks after the deadline for all catalog updates.
Responsible party: Academic Units/Departments, coordinated by ISAO
Resource implications: staff time
Action 2)
Add valid dates and catalog year to all articulation agreements
Timeline: Annually in conjunction with the University catalog updates
Responsible party: Verifying validity-ISAO, Updating online agreements-Records and
Registration
Resource implications: staff time
Action 3)
Develop Storage arrangement for prior Articulation Agreements
Timeline: by Dec. 31, 2011
Responsible party: Records and Registration
Resource implications: staff time
Issue 4 – New Articulation Agreements and necessary mid-year updates to Articulation Agreements
are not always handled as a University Effort
3
Action 1)
New and updated Articulations should be coordinated by Admissions, and eventually the new Transfer
Center, as part of a university effort
Timeline: As needed. Community College or AU will notify admissions of new agreement or
update to existing agreement. Admissions will check across the university to update other
articulation agreements and see if additional AU’s would like to create any new agreements
when opportunities to do so arise
Responsible party: Admissions, transitioning to Transfer Center once open
Resource implications: This effort would be best handled by a full-time person who has
articulation as his/her sole responsibility and is able to collaborate across AU’s to handle as a
university effort.
In conjunction with the discussion of the subgroup’s recommendations, several additional points were
made:







An initiative is underway to get transfer agreements in place with Donnelly College as well as
with Fort Scott Community College.
Jennifer DeHaemers noted that staffing and resources for carrying out some of these tasks are
limited because there is a campus-wide staffing shortage, including in the academic units. The
maintenance of transfer agreements will be written into the job description of the lead person
in the Transfer Center, but additional support staff would help. Should we as a task force
recommend X number of staff to assist in this effort, with multiple academic units being covered
by each staff person?
Jennifer also noted that it made sense to identify course equivalencies for the institutions where
we get the most transfer students. There are 25-40 institutions from which most of UMKC’s
transfers come. Perhaps a 3-year cycle relating to updating course equivalencies makes sense.
Susan Arreguin indicated that it is very easy for her staff to do a catalog change summary each
year, and that could be sent to the Transfer Center Director for updating. If all community
colleges could do that, the system for updating could work well.
A suggestion was that if the Director of the Transfer Center maintained transfer equivalencies
and made recommendations to faculty for changes, that would be an efficient system.
More discussion followed about developing transfer agreements with Donnelly College. It was
recommended that the effort be campus-wide rather than by academic unit. Apparently a 12year-old document with Donnelly is already on record.
Finally, with regard to storage arrangements for prior transfer agreements, they are now being
stored in electronic files by Robin Hamilton. Registration & Records would be happy to story
them in ImageNow.
Reporting Format
4
A clarification was provided regarding the reporting format for subgroup reports. There is a need to get
consistency among the reports so they can be combined easily. It is important to set priorities on issues
and also to provide timelines for different actions so that the sequence and timing of actions are clear.
Updates from Other Subgroups
Other subgroups gave brief updates and indicated that their work is proceeding without difficulty. It was
noted that groups shouldn’t be concerned about duplication of recommendations because overlap can
be worked out in the final report.
The next full task force meeting will be on October 21, 2011, at 8 – 9:30 am when the Transfer
Orientation and Policies & Practices subgroups will present their reports.
5