Council of Academic Advisors
General Tempe Campus Meeting Minutes
Oct. 9, 2013
Introductions & Welcome
Executive Officers:
President: Sandra Voller (School of Politics & Global Studies)
Vice President: Reginald Miles (Barrett, The Honors College)
Secretary: Manisha Master (School of Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies)
Committee Representatives:
General Studies Committee Representatives: Kate Lehman (Provost’s Office) | Susan Kells (School of
International Letters & Cultures)
Orientation Representative: Cristina Hansen (School of Letters & Sciences)
Communications/Webmaster: Kimberly Jones (School of Life Sciences)
Videoconferencing: This meeting incorporated videoconferencing technology, which allowed advisors
from the West and Polytechnic campuses to hear the presentations and join in the discussion.
CAA Lunchtime Professional Development Series: VP Reginald Miles announced upcoming programs
in the CAA lunchtime professional development series, which features opportunities during the lunch
hour to network with your peers and learn about topics relevant to academic advising. Reggie announced
the Oct. 14th program for new advisors in their first year at ASU and the Oct. 31st program on advisor and
front desk collaboration. Please look for more information on upcoming programs in the CAA e-Digest.
New Academic Advisors:
Jonathan Myers (WP Carey)
Jeffrey Banner (CLAS Office of Student and Academic Programs)
Valerie Mazza (MLFTC-West)
Advisors Who Have Changed Positions:
Beth Volker (moved from CTI to School of Sustainability)
New Collaborative Partners:
Abby Dalpra (TRIO Disability Student Support Services)
Krystal Ostic (Study Abroad Office)
Standing Agenda Reports
General Studies Committee: Kate Lehman (Provost’s Office)/Susan Kells (School of International
Letters & Cultures): Many new courses were approved for General Studies. These will be published in
the CAA Digest. Please be aware that the decisions don’t take effect until at least the following semester.
Courses need to be reevaluated for General Studies every five years. Please keep a careful eye on the
TCG and don’t assume that courses will always carry the same General Studies designations; they can
change upon reevaluation.
Orientation Update: Cristina Hansen (School of Letters & Sciences): Cristina was not present at this
meeting, but instead gave her report in the Oct. 11th edition of the CAA Digest.
Communications/Webmaster Update: Kimberly Jones (School of Life Sciences) Previous editions of
the CAA e-Digest will be uploaded to the CAA website within a couple of weeks (update: they are now
available on the CAA website).
Career Services: Chris Helms: No report; Chris was on vacation at the time of this meeting.
UTO: Paul Stoll: Thanks to Paul Stoll for providing the summary below:
Three words:
TEACHING
Starting the week of Oct. 14, you will have a teaching tab on your MyASU page...
This page has a faculty spotlight, training calendars and information that we think will help you teach and
interact with our beloved students...
BRAINSHARK
You can narrate your PowerPoint presentation easily by signing up for a free account at brainshark.com.
This service is like Adobe presenter, allowing you to add narration to your presentation and then store it
in the cloud. Your presentation is always editable and you will have a link that you can put in your emails,
websites and blackboard shells. A couple of caveats.... This is a free service, which ASU does not have a
contract with. Since your narrated copy of your presentation is stored on their service, you should
consider what to do should their service go away.
If you don't have a microphone, we have super mics in CPCOM 202 that you can use, or you can check
out a headset for a week, so that you can narrate your presentation while sitting on your back porch, near
your chiminea.
LINKS
You have the ability to make a short URL that is easier for people to remember. Let's say you have
created a Google doc that you want folks to look at, and the URL is super long and complicated. If you
want to make a short, memorable URL out of it, you can go to http://links.asu.edu, login (if necessary)
then create a short URL that will lead people to your longer one. You can create as many as you like, as
long as the one you want doesn't already exist (First come first serve)... Oh! CapiTAliZation matters
(ASU and asu and AsU and aSu are all treated as different URLs in the system).
AAB and Other Items: Reginald Miles and Sandra Voller:

Change to the term processing calendar (thanks to Kate Lehman for the following summary):
After the discussion in the October 2 meeting of the Advising Administrator’s Board, a
committee met to discuss the possibility of changing the date on which courses are dropped for
disqualified students. That date has been moved back to Friday, December 27, 2013. The
process will begin about noon on that date and should finish by about 4 p.m. This addresses the
concern of advisors that students would lose their courses prior to being formally notified that
they have been disqualified from the university. We wanted to remain cognizant, however, of
other processing deadlines as well as the concern by departments that courses be freed up for
students who need to enroll. Colleges should notify disqualified students of their status by
Thursday, December 26.

Change of policy regarding math courses for math-intensive majors: ASU will no longer approve
third time repeat petitions for math courses for students in math-intensive majors. Much more
detail on this policy was provided in the Nov. 15, 2013 edition of the CAA Digest.

In the catalog review process, majors can now be paired with 15 career groups. The O*NET
website is down during the government shutdown, but the Nov. 1st deadline still stands to have all
programs submitted to the Provost. ASU is making an effort to use verbiage in Degree Search
that is familiar to high school students.

A MyASU portal for parents and guests will be rolling out in March 2014. Students must grant
access for parents and guests to use this portal.

MCCCD Update: Supporting its “one Maricopa” philosophy, effective Sept. 23, 2013, the
Maricopa County Community College District is now sending all coursework on one transcript,
so students will not need to request a separate transcript from each college. The transcript still
lists the individual colleges and it is clear which courses were taken where. The GPA remains
separate to each college for both the term GPA and cumulative GPA. The transcript includes all
courses from all MCCCD schools; students may not opt out of sending grades from a particular
school in the District. Students can request a transcript sent from any of the MCCCD locations.
Transfer Credit Guide Panel
Lisa McIntyre (Director, Transfer Systems Development-TSD)
Please see Lisa’s PowerPoint Presentation (attached and also available in the Oct. 18th edition of the CAA
Digest) for much of the information from this presentation. Additional notes follow.






The purpose of the TSD office is to build university-wide systems that help students make a
seamless transfer to ASU. It is a “work-in-progress” and there is always room for improvement.
We are lucky in the state of AZ to have an Articulation Task Force (ATF) that meets to ensure a
smoother transfer process for students; this is something that isn’t done in most other places. We
also have MAPPs and TAGs.
The Transfer Credit Guide (TCG) helps to centralize, standardize, and simply the process for
transfer courses to be evaluated; there is one process for all students.
All lower division General Studies requirements are fulfilled by an out-of-state AA degree or a
previous bachelor’s degree, but an AS degree and other types of Associate degrees do not
automatically fulfill the General Studies requirements. This is because an AS degree doesn’t
always contain the necessary General Studies courses, whereas most AA degrees do.
Since ASU began this process, 1200 transfer students have had their General Studies satisfied
with an AA degree, and 600 with a previous bachelor’s degree.
The AA degree must be completed, not just in-progress, for the General Studies requirements to
be locked down as complete.




The TSD office is working on a guide to military transfer issues for advisors. Military coursework
may only be used toward requirements in a student’s major. AAB is currently discussing how to
designate major courses on the major map.
For the future, the TSD office is working to have coursework for new admits processed through
the TCG before the transfer work even goes to DARS.
They are also working on a degree audit for prospective students that will show what they have
left to complete at ASU after taking into account their transfer courses.
The TSD office is also working on a process for evaluating international credits.
Tray Geiger (Program Manager, Transfer Systems Development)
Please see Tray’s notes from this presentation (attached and also available in the Oct. 18th edition of the
CAA Digest). Additional notes follow.
Student View Screen:









If a student doesn’t have an asurite, he or she must sign up for an account to use the TCG.
Before submitting courses or directing a student to do so, be sure to search the database to make
sure the course isn’t already there. Note that you can check more than one institution within the
same state at a time (for example, within CA, you could pull results for both Ohlone College and
San Diego City College).
If a student submits a course with typos, it will be corrected. The information used in the TCG
comes from the institutional catalogs that are sent to ASU.
It is fine for a student or advisor to leave the “note” box blank; students do not need to paste in a
course description, as the TCG verifies this anyway.
A syllabus may only be uploaded in PDF format through the TCG website; if you don’t have a
PDF file and can’t convert it, e-mail the syllabus to articulation@asu.edu.
If submitting multiple courses, just click “add another course” instead of starting over.
At the top of the TCG form, there are multiple boxes a student can check if applicable, such as
“ASU Online student.” A new box for “none of the above” was recently added so students
wouldn’t stop there and think the form did not apply to them.
You can use the TCG database to see the rules for credit by exam. The database goes all the way
back to 1967 and so is the best way to check for test credits. This feature is available to all users
of the TCG.
There is also a “reverse lookup” feature, or ASU equivalency search, that is currently only
available to staff. You can use this to see if a transfer institution offers coursework that would
satisfy a particular requirement at ASU. For example, is there anything at Rutgers University that
is equivalent to MAT 117 at ASU?
Advisor View Screen:



Available here: https://webapp4.asu.edu/transfercreditguide/app/transfercourseadmin. In the
Advisor View TCG, make sure you select ALL (Archives) and not just ALL. Remember to click
the “go” button in order for the search to start. You may go ahead and enter search criteria down
below, while it is still loading more information. Click outside the box or tab over after entering
your search criteria.
If searching by asurite, this goes in the “Requested” box.
The notes column on the Advisor View screen is used by TCG staff. NTCG means “not in TCG,”
but advisors should ignore this note.
Allison Farina (Advisor, SEMTE)



Advisors prepare for their appointments beforehand by pulling up DARS reports. If they notice
unarticulated courses, they explain the TCG process to students and have them submit the courses
that may fulfill specific requirements. They do not submit the courses on behalf of the students
because only the person who submits the request receives e-mail notification about the evaluation
results. Students can also click on “My Saved Transfer Courses” to check the status of their
evaluation requests.
When in the Advisor View TCG, always set the search criteria to ALL (Archives). Another good
tip is to search by asurite rather than by ID because the ID is not always attached to the record
(older submissions will not be tied to an ASU ID). You can find the student’s asurite ID on
MyASU in the Student View.
Once transfer courses have been evaluated through the TCG, the lead advisors receive a list.
Allison identifies who each student worked with and routes the information to the appropriate
advisor. That advisor then places any necessary exceptions in DARS for the major. The advisor
also checks the “big picture,” which includes looking for items such as sciences from quarter
schools that may be able to be combined, duplicate courses, and any other issues that might not
be caught through the TCG process.
Martie Fowles (Student Support Specialist, Sr., CLAS Office of Student and Academic Programs)






Martie places exceptions in DARS for all General Studies and College requirements that have
gone through the TCG for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS). The advisors in each
unit check for transfer courses that fulfill major requirements.
Once Martie receives an articulation spreadsheet, she runs a new DARS audit for the major and
also runs the transcript U audit to check for upper division courses that need to be designated in
DARS. She then checks the exceptions tab to see what has already been placed.
Martie also receives lists of newly admitted ASU Online students. In the interest of time, she
places General Studies courses for these students, with the exception of first-year composition
and math courses, which are evaluated through the TCG.
CLAS has a College requirement for math proficiency that is not automatically satisfied by an
out-of-state AA or previous bachelor’s degree, so for these students, she checks to see if there is a
transfer math course that satisfies this requirement.
Martie also checks if the student has a transfer course to satisfy the upper division HU/SB
requirement, as these are not placed through the TCG.
Martie evaluates coursework that is more than 15 years old, as well as international coursework.
Students can submit a request for these courses to be evaluated through the CLAS website.
Trouble-shooting Strategies and Question and Answer




The “View As Student” view allows you to see exactly what the student sees (see top left of
standard view screen to access “view as student”).
The TSD office prioritizes math and first-year composition courses. Evaluations of first-year
composition courses run about 1-2 weeks, while evaluations of math courses usually take 2-4
weeks.
If a student needs math or English equivalencies in order to enroll in classes right away, please email articulation@asu.edu and they will prioritize the evaluation.
E-mail notifications are sent out automatically as courses are evaluated. Students are being
notified on a daily basis.





Ignore the age of first-year composition and math transfer courses; all of these are evaluated
through the TCG, even if they are more than 15 years old. Math courses require a syllabus for
review. First-year composition courses from the 70’s and 80’s may be routed to Writing
Programs for review by the TSD, but they should all go through the TCG.
A question was asked about the study abroad box that appears on the standard view TCG page
and when this should be utilized. If courses are part of an ASU Study Abroad program, then those
courses go through the Study Abroad Office, not the TCG. However, if students have study
abroad courses that are not affiliated with ASU, they should check this box.
Q: If a course is in the TCG, but the course is not placed accordingly in DARS, what should an
advisor do to get the course placed correctly? A: Notify the TCG if the course in question is math
or first-year composition. Otherwise, contact your College or place the course yourself,
depending on the process in your College or School.
Q: What if a student’s course is already in the TCG database, but the student took it outside the
date range that is in the TCG? A: Please e-mail articulation@asu.edu. It takes a fraction of the
time to extend the date range that it would to have the course submitted and reviewed through the
entire process again.
Q: If a student has separate lecture and lab science courses that together could fulfill a General
Studies requirement for SQ or SG, does the TSD office check for this? A: Yes, they check, but if
you find one that was missed, please e-mail them. They cannot, however, combine courses taken
at two different institutions; this would be up to the academic unit or the advisor.
Closing Remarks/Announcements:


The CAA Best Practices event is coming up in the Spring, so please consider putting together a
presentation or panel. This is a great opportunity to try out a presentation that you might later take
to NACADA.
The next CAA meeting will be the All-CAA meeting at the Downtown Phoenix campus on Tues.
Nov. 19th from 10AM-4PM. More information and a request to RSVP will be forthcoming.
Adjournment