HIGHER education
Using a résumé for college credit
is helping adults return to school
and graduate sooner
t’s never too late to
finish what you’ve
started.
Ray Narvaez, 46,
proved this when he
decided to return
to school in 2011 to
complete his undergraduate degree.
After graduating high
school in 1985, Narvaez
attended Penn State as a marketing major but left without
a degree in hand in order to
pursue various employment
opportunities.
“At the time, I didn’t feel
like I needed to have a formal
degree,” says Narvaez.
Throughout his following
years in the financial services
sector, he matriculated at
other universities, changed
his major to business, and
earned about 120 academic
credits, or about halfway to
achieving his degree.
All well and good, until
three years ago, when the
financial crisis hit.
“It had never been a
problem that I didn’t have a
degree. But when everything
tanked, and when I started to
look for work, I realized that
without the degree I’d have
a really difficult time finding
employment. Despite the
fact that I had a robust background, primarily in human
resources, I realized that I no
longer had an edge. I really
had to do something about
it,” says Narvaez.
SCORING THE CREDITS
After relocating to his
native New York, Narvaez
enrolled in Mercy College’s
Executive Development and
Growth Experience (EDGE)
program, an accredited,
accelerated Bachelor of
Science in organizational
management completion
degree program designed for
working adults.
One of the selling points
of the EDGE program for
Narvaez was its career/life
experience component.
“I was still shy a few noncore classes, but by taking a
career/life experience assessment class (a three-credit
course), with the guidance
of a professor, I was able
to demonstrate how my
life experience as a human
resources professional
aligned to the requirements
of select courses, and receive
credit for it. I was able to
leverage my experience in
employee relations with
human resources, philosophy, information security
courses,” he says.
Through EDGE, “I was
able to do what would
normally take two years in
about 14 months. I saved
significantly by earning life
experience credits, but it
wasn’t about the savings for
me. I wanted to leverage the
accelerated component of
the program,” says Narvaez.
Deirdre Whitman, vice
president of enrollment management, admissions and
recruitment at Mercy, notes
Lorenzo Ciniglio
I
By Erika Prafder
Deirdre
Whitman from
Mercy College
was able to
help segue
Ray Narvaez’s
valuable work
experience into
credits.
LEARNING FROM
EXPERIENCE
that it is mostly working professionals who are coming in
to EDGE.
“We’re able to help them
complete their degree in one
How Narvaez’s work experience counted for credit
Experience listed
Credits
Counted as these classes
H/R, risk and compliance and ethics analyses
and report writing (Federal Reserve Bank of
New York, Citigroup and BlackRock)
3
HUMN 104 Critical reading and
analytical techniques
Developing relationships at levels of the
organization and executing work associated
with work roles
3
ECON 120 The world of business
Developing and presenting written briefs,
memoranda and presentations to clients
3
ECON 210 Business report writing
and presentations
Extensive experience with reserve bank
operations and subject matter expert on
banking (financial institution) structure
3
ECON 344 Money and banking
Member of a religious order and Archdiocese
of New York; seminarian studying for the
priesthood and staff member of the Chancery
3
ENG L 230 The Bible as literature
year,” says Whitman. “Students can qualify for up to
30 life credits, which cuts the
required number of credits
in half.”
Says John McGlaughlin,
director of strategic recruitment for Mercy: “We’ve had
[life experience credit] for
a number of years, but it’s
more sophisticated now as
we are continuously developing it.”
Those interested in pursuing this credit-bearing path
are assigned to an independent-study styled class.
“There’s a portfolio
requirement and meetings
with faculty. A student has
to be at least 25 years of age
and in the workforce for a
certain amount of years,”
says McGlaughlin.
Not every type of job
experience is applicable
to redeem course credit,
however.
“A student’s portfolio has
to demonstrate that their
life experience equates to
college-level work. For example, someone working in
business, accounting or management would be seriously
considered. A decade-long
volunteer for the American
Red Cross might qualify for
an education management
class credit. A police officer
may qualify for a credit in
criminal justice or legal studies,” says Whitman.
With Mercy’s tuition
costing roughly $17,000 per
year, the savings are also
considerable.
To guide students through
the life credit process, “We
have an entire transfer team
of 20 experts that helps
students maximize their
credits,” says McGlaughlin.
Mercy is not the only New
York college offering this
type of program.
“It’s absolutely a growing
trend,” says Shawn O’Riley,
Ed.D, dean of University College at Adelphi University.
“There are lots of different
models that schools nationwide are experimenting with,
but the essence is providing
different ways for students
to receive credit for competencies they’ve learned
outside of class, which focus
on knowledge gained and
assessing student learning
through portfolio-based
work and credentials.”
Adelphi uses what they call
a prior learning assessment.
“We typically do a sitdown intake session with a
See LIFE CREDITS on Page 48
Higher Education
CREDIT CRUNCH
W
ant to make
the switch to
another college, but dread
all the red tape?
To help transfer students
more seamlessly navigate
this process, some New
York-area higher-education
institutions have begun
to implement Ellucian’s
Degree Works, an innovative web-based degree audit
and articulation system.
“For us, the State University of New York (SUNY)wide initiative started as a
discussion on the subject
in 2008,” says Diane Bello,
university registrar for
Stony Brook University.
“Within the last year, we’ve
gone full speed ahead. All
64 SUNY campuses have
received training already.
Our target date is fall 2014
to roll this out to incoming
freshmen.”
In the past, college
employees in the transfer
office and faculty would
manually review individual
course descriptions and
student transcripts to
determine if a feeder
school’s course credits
met university and/or
departmental requirements
and could be transferred (a
process that often requires
multiple assessments).
“This process worked,
but was slow, redundant
and inefficient,” says
Richard J. Gatteau, Ph.D.,
assistant provost and faculty director for the higher
education administration
program at Stony Brook
University.
With a technology-powered credit evaluator, the
benefits are plentiful.
“Faculty and students
can cross-check a student’s
electronic transcript and
quickly generate lists
of probable equivalencies between institutions
and courses,” he says. “It
streamlines the process
tremendously. It’s much
faster. No one has to do
data entry anymore.”
Using the system’s
Transfer Finder feature,
“If a Stony Brook student
decides after two years
here that math isn’t his
nature, but political science at the University of
Albany is, he can find out
whether his math courses
fulfill the general education
requirements at Albany,”
says Bello.
“We’ve already scribed
course listings from 200
Robert Kalfus/Robert Miller/Lorenzo Ciniglio
At SUNY, technical improvements are making
credit transfers quicker and easier
Transferring into the State University of New York system just got easier.
feeder schools into our
database, and will continue
to build it up,” says Dr.
Gatteau. As the credit
audit database grows, “The
maintenance required is
a lot. For example, as Suffolk County Community
College adds a new course,
we’ll need to know that so
we can update our system.
The new system won’t be
EXPERIENCE COUNTS
LIFE CREDITS from Page 43
student as they apply and
enroll. We ask for their
résumé and any credentials
or certifications they’ve
earned on the job or in other
training situations. Students
may bring in work they
think may be equivalent to a
course. We look at the skill
sets to see if there may be an
applicable course to apply
to it. Then, we connect them
with professors on campus
to demonstrate that they
have the same level of skills.
We work off of the American Council on Education’s
credit recommendations to
apply credit for things that
are directly transferrable,”
says the administrator.
If you’re considering
applying for life-experience
credit, a 30-credit limit for
associate degree candidates
and a 60-credit limit for
bachelor degree candidates
applies.
“It works out to be a
significant amount of time
and monetary savings,” says
O’Riley.
Several institutions are
actually moving to nearly all
competency-based classes,
according to O’Riley. “It’s the
idea of moving away from
assessing how many hours
you’ve sat in a class versus
proving what you know,” he
says. “I don’t see a downside.
As long as a school has a
well-established, independently vetted process, it’s
another way to help an adult
who already has a million
other challenges in front of
him to complete his degree.”
Over at New York
University’s (NYU) School
of Continuing and Professional Studies Paul McGhee
Division, they are offering
portfolio and prior learning
assessment credits, says
Steven Hubbard, director
of career education and life
planning for the school.
“We’ve been doing it for
over a decade, and have seen
steady interest in this,” he
says.
To pursue this avenue at
NYU, students take a twocredit course in which they
learn how to “challenge”
potential courses for credit.
“They reflect on their
life experience, use a syllabus, write a portfolio and
assess what they’ve learned.
They submit a portfolio to
the faculty member who
teaches the course they’re
challenging for evaluation,”
fully effective until we can
handle the volume, but
nationwide, this is the trend
for schools of our size. The
investment makes so much
sense.”
— Erika Prafder
says Hubbard.
A maximum of 64 credits
can be applied toward core
or elective courses.
“We see a wide variety of
people do this. I’ve seen students with real estate background challenge courses
in real estate. Also, those
with information systems
management experience, or
public speaking skills, will
challenge,” says Hubbard.
Hubbard predicts a
continued trend toward lifecredit evaluation.
“People realize that
experiential learning is
beneficial. In trying to
help students get credit for
courses, the real life skill
is being reflective in what
they’ve done and the knowledge they’ve gained in their
experiences. It’s not just
beneficial for their portfolio,
but for life in general,” says
Hubbard.
For those considering
following in Narvaez’s footsteps, he has this advice.
“Be mindful of the prize at
the end of the road,” he says.
“At times, it seems insurmountable. Take one class at
a time. Do well in that class
and move on to the next.
Leverage the people in your
cohort. These are people in
similar circumstances who
will support you.”