ARTICULATION- FOUR YEAR AND HIGH SCHOOL
I.
Background and Analysis:
a. Description of area and function
Articulation is the process whereby universities formally agree to accept
community college courses in lieu of their own for lower division credit in specific
majors or as general education. The Articulation Office works closely with
Cabrillo instructors as they develop transferable courses. Articulation agreements
support the transfer mission of the College by ensuring that transferring students
will be granted credit for community college work and thus progress efficiently
toward earning a baccalaureate degree. Sound articulation practices are the
foundation of a successful transfer program. The Articulation Office works with
university articulation officers to develop these agreements which are referred to
as “course-to-course-articulation” and/or “major preparation articulation.”
Cabrillo College also initiates and supports agreements with the local high
schools allowing high school students to petition for credit by exam for specific
Cabrillo courses based on faculty-approved criteria, streamlining the pathways
from the high school to college in the areas of career and technical education.
The outreach coordinator, Articulation Office staff and the partnering college and
high school faculty develop these agreements together.
b. Relationships with other college components
Major Roles and Responsibilities: Four-year Articulation- Articulation Office:
 Serves as a facilitator in all aspects of the articulation process
 Manages, updates, and disseminates current, accurate articulation data
to counselors, faculty and students (ASSIST, UC, CSU)
 Initiates processes for establishing articulation, timely follow-up, and
works collaboratively with faculty at Cabrillo as well as the receiving
campuses
 Serves as a consultant to the Curriculum Committee
 Is a resource, advocate, and liaison to all faculty and students, as
appropriate
 Maintains all transfer information in the databases for the College which
produce the course schedule and college catalog
 Produces all transfer and degree worksheets and degree petitions for the
College
 Supports and advises Admissions and Records personnel regarding
general education certifications
 Created and maintains the website of Articulation information for use by
students, instructors, college and high school counselors, including
counselors from other community colleges
 Programs and maintains the Degree Audit system for the College as
follows:
College courses, course sections, equates and programs are entered
by the instructional department. Articulation then reviews the data at
the College program level (i.e. AA in Anthropology) and updates all
the requirements for the degrees, certificates, skills certificates and
specializations; programs in the print text language and layout for the
resulting report output that the student and counselor read.
Articulation also assists in maintaining equates and TOP codes
Major Roles and Responsibilities: High School Articulation
Prior to spring of 2006, the Outreach Coordinator was responsible for 1, 2 and 3
below. As of spring of 2006, these responsibilities have been placed under the
college’s Articulation Office to improve systems, communication, and outcomes.
The improvements include a better way of disseminating information on how to
petition for credit, and the processing of petitions has become more closely
monitored by this Office, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of
students receiving articulated credit from 5 in ‘04-‘05 to 25 in ‘06-‘07.
The High School Articulation role:
1. Generates and maintains the articulation agreements with the ROP and area
high schools. These agreements are reviewed and updated every other year or
more frequently as needed.
2. Maintains the School-to-College-to-Career website and web pages for high
school students on the main Cabrillo website.
3. Tracks and processes the petitions for credit from area high school students.
4. Serves as committee member for the Cabrillo Connection for Student
Success, which presents trainings and workshops once a year for high school
counselors and administrators. The training provides crucial information and
updates to counselors about Cabrillo programs; provides opportunities for small
group interaction with Cabrillo teaching faculty and high school counselors; and
utilizes lab and teaching space, as appropriate, so counselors’ receive a real
world experience of what high school students will encounter when they come to
Cabrillo. Two successful events have been produced and the 3rd annual is in the
planning stages.
5. Designs and implements training for Cabrillo faculty and high school
instructors to create articulation agreements (matching curriculum and rubric
design,
c. Costs
The Cabrillo College Articulation Office is under Instruction but does not generate
FTES because both Articulation Office faculty members do not teach classes.
Their work ensures that the classes students take are transferable to four- year
universities and satisfy general education and major preparation. The Articulation
Office is staffed by two faculty members: the Articulation Officer at 70% and the
second counselor at 60%
Articulation Expenditures
OBJECT Total
Academic Salaries
Articulation Officer
Articulation Specialist
Employee Benefits
Supplies and Materials
05-06
06-07
07-08
$59,218
$25,620
$32,238
$63,128
$26,314
$33,988
$64,575
$28,895
$35,583
$1,800
$1,800
$1,871
$3,025
$4,150
$5,135
Other Operating Expenses & Services
$121,901 $129,380 $136,059
Total
d. Student Success
The Articulation Office addresses Core Competencies #2 (Critical Thinking and
Information Competency) and #4 (Personal Responsibility and Professional
Development) as follows:
 Assists students in meeting admission, general education and major
preparation requirements—students apply the skills of analysis and research
and problem solving to formulate their educational goals. (Competency #2)
 Creates a smooth and seamless transfer for students pursing transfer to fouryear colleges — students must take initiative to make sure they have the
most current information available for a seamless transfer and must show
personal responsibility for meeting with a counselor and/or making sure they
have the information needed for a seamless transfer. (Competencies #2 and
#4)
 Requires high school students to demonstrate personal responsibility in going
through the process of applying to the college and petitioning for articulated
credit. (Competency #2)
e. Results of internal survey
The Cabrillo Articulation Website was developed as a one-stop page for use by
counselors, students and instructors (to aid in curriculum development). It is the
most effective way to get current information to counselors and students. The site
was developed as part of Articulation Officer’s sabbatical project in spring, 2000.
It is updated on a weekly basis as needed. A survey with 21 Cabrillo counselors
was conducted by PRO during Spring 2008 on the use and effectiveness of the
Articulation website. Results are as follows:
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95% of respondents indicated that they use the Transfer and Articulation
website on a regular basis during the work week
62% of respondents have the Transfer and Articulation page as their
home page
95% of respondents find the information (Cabrillo, CSU and UC) on the
page very helpful or somewhat helpful. One respondent found the
information not helpful
The top five links used by the respondents are:
o Architecture
o ASSIST
o ASSIST by University
o ASSIST for majors
o ASSIST shortcut
The Transfer and Articulation page for students is accessed by about 50%
the counseling faculty respondents (11) in a typical week, but 75% of
respondents direct students to the site for their own research purposes.
An additional survey was conducted in Spring, 2008 on the use and effectiveness
of the School-to-College-to-Career Website (for high school
students/counselors). A brief outline of the results includes:
 83% of respondents utilize the website on a regular basis with
their students and also direct parents to the site
 Of those who use the site, 80% found the information provided
helpful, accessing it for information on Running Start, College &
Career Night, enrollment , high school articulated courses, and the
Career Pathways and the Career Quiz
 86% of respondents download Cabrillo forms via the site
(Application for Admission, High School Release form, etc.)
 33% of respondents felt the site was difficult to find. As a result,
the Articulation Office has made the information more accessible
by improving the “high school students” link from the main Cabrillo
website. We will continue to work with the web migration team to
insure that high school students and their parents can readily find
the information they need.
f. Results of external data research
Four Year Articulation
The Articulation Office continues to work with four-year articulation officers in the
new initiatives at the two public university systems. The California State
University has developed a new pathway for student transfer in the Lower
Division Transfer Pattern (LDTP). The LDTP project is projected to begin as early
as Fall 2009. The Lower-Division Transfer Patterns (LDTP) by Major project is
one of several ways that California Community College (CCC) students may
prepare for study at the California State University (CSU). We have submitted the
first three submissions. The LDTP project presents a challenge in that it is
unclear how acceptance or denial for an LDTP course descriptor will affect how a
course articulates to individual campuses.
The UC system is working on a similar project that identifies common course
requirements for each of their campuses for the 20 top majors.
High School Articulation
There is a strong statewide movement to improve the linkages and careertechnical pathways between high school and California community colleges. As a
result, in 2006 the Dean of Instructional Development initiated the discussion
within the Articulation Office to expand our vision and leadership in addressing
the changes in career technical education and Tech Prep partnerships.
The Articulation Office works closely with Career and Technical Education and
the Santa Cruz County Tech Prep Consortium with the goal to increase awards
of articulated credit. The five-year plan includes meeting the new definition of a
tech prep student (a student who has taken 2 CTE courses while in high school
and registers for a 3rd class in the pathway at a CCC); conforming to the State
Career Pathways forms for articulation agreements; making the sequences of
courses from high school to CCC available on the web, and improving and
streamlining the process of awarding articulated credit to high school students.
This has prompted us to begin the redesign of processes for credit-by-exam for
high school students taking Cabrillo-articulated courses. This continues to need
attention as the paperwork is cumbersome (4 forms to be filled out; one requiring
3-4 different parties’ signatures), and the process is difficult for high school
students to navigate.
Additionally, through the evaluation of our High School Articulation services, we
have actually ended one agreement between Cabrillo’s Business Department
and a local high school business course and redesigned our communication and
training agreements.
Cabrillo is completing a 2+2 and 3+1 agreement with Bethany and JFK
Universities. Bethany would like to begin a cohort on the Cabrillo campus this fall,
which to date, has high interest from Cabrillo staff.
Challenges:
 See Staffing below
 See Space below
II
Program Directions and Recommendation
a. Description of what is needed for service area to address challenges identified
in Section I.
Staffing
The functions of the Articulation Office have expanded dramatically over the past
13 years. In 1995, the Articulation Officer was 100% and had a full-time
assistant who also did high school outreach, as outreach and articulation were
under the same area. The current Articulation Officer is 80% (currently on a preretirement contract of 70%). Listed below are some of the major responsibilities
added to the office since 1995:
 The ASSIST Articulation System has become our primary source for
disseminating articulation information, and as a result the duties of the
Articulation Officer in regard to that system have increased. The
Articulation Office maintains Cabrillo College course information in
ASSIST and also submits courses for the UC Transferable Course List,
CSU General Education/Breadth, IGETC (Intersegmental General
Education Transfer Curriculum) and CSU LDTP (CSU Lower Division
Transfer Project) through OSCAR (Online Services for Articulation and
Review system) which is also maintained by the ASSIST staff.
 Degree Audit was added to the Office responsibilities in 1999, and now
requires workload throughout the academic year to program and
maintain. The workflow is dictated by the completion of the curriculum
process in Fall and Spring and the creation of the catalog.
 The Datatel system which was implemented in 2000, and drives the
schedules of classes, works as a separate database for course
information from the Fiesta database (2001-2007) and the current
Curricunet system (which drives the college catalog). The input and
maintenance of the transfer information in this system, and the MIS data
monitoring for TOP codes and other college functions in conjunction with
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IT, have been added to the responsibilities of the Articulation Office.
Auditing these two systems to maintain the correct transfer and
articulation information requires work to be completed in the summer and
winter sessions, again dictated by the completion of the curriculum
process and the articulation responses we receive from the transfer
institutions.
High School Articulation functions were added to the Office in 2006, to
include agreement maintenance and website upkeep, as well as assisting
the in planning of the annual Cabrillo Connection for Student Success
workshops. For the past several semesters, the time allotted for high
school articulation functions has been insufficient each semester, and has
been “borrowed” from the other required articulation duties.
Below is a summary of the units required to complete the annual
workload of the Articulation Office. These are in addition to the
Articulation Officer’s position and responsibilities:
Semester/Session Four Year
Artic.
Work
Fall
5.0
Wintersession
1.0
Spring
5.0
Summer
Annual Total
Needed
High School
Artic work
Degree
Audit
1.0-2.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0-2.0
Catalog
1.0
7-8
2
7-8
2
18-20 units/year
Space
Currently, the two Articulation Office (AO) faculty share space in the 100
Building where they can easily interface with A&R evaluators and counselors.
Since evaluators and counselors consult with the AO multiple times per week,
easy access is essential to ensure that students receive answers in a
reasonable time. In the event that the Counseling Division moves to the 200
building, we feel that it is important to remain accessible to the A & R
evaluators and so we would recommend that the Articulation Office remain in
the 100 building, assuming that is where A & R will be located. This location
would allow us also to remain accessible to the Counseling faculty.
b. Proposed plan for next 6 years addressing all aspects needed to institute
recommendations.
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The Articulation Office requests a 60% tenure track position be added
to the office to support the maintenance and growth of:
- Four Year Articulation (61%)
-Increase in High School Articulation agreements (11%)
-Degree Audit (22%)
-Catalog accuracy and currency (6%)
At present, each year the units are scrambled for and added on requiring time
and energy on the part of all involved. The current VPI has recognized the
need for increasing units, but they are asked for by year and the uncertainty
from year-to-year does not allow for confidence that the required work for the
catalog and degree audit will be accomplished, as required.
c. Description of plan for ongoing evaluation of functions and services
Since 2000, the Articulation Office has maintained a website for counselors,
which keeps the most necessary information for working with students right at
their fingertips. We update this site on a weekly basis with new or changed
information or information requested by the users. The Office also maintains
a webpage that helps faculty developing transferable courses—this part of
the site is updated as needed. The content of the student site is similar to that
of the counselor site with added information on how to use the site. The
Articulation Office will be redesigning the Articulation website as the collegewide web migration happens. We have begun editing and adding to the site
as a result of the survey we conducted with users. As we update the student
site we plan to get feedback directly from students.
The Articulation staff will continue to work with CTE staff and programs and
initiate and respond to changes in the high school and career technical
education movement in the State.