Attention: Local Senate Presidents, AOs, CIOs, CSSOs, and Curriculum Committees

Subject:  Launching of First TMC Associate Degrees for Transfer (per SB 1440)

As you are aware, implementation of SB 1440 (Padilla, 2010), which is now California Education Code §§66745-66749, is being coordinated through the Academic Senate in collaboration with the Chancellor’s Office of the California Community Colleges (CCC) and California State University (CSU) and the CSU Academic Senate. We know that you have been patiently awaiting direction from the Chancellor’s Office and Academic Senate. We thank you for your patience and are now pleased to provide you with information you will need to comply with the requirements for the new associate degrees for transfer.

Attached to this message is a calendar, which contains essential information about upcoming events. We have just posted this calendar<http://www.c-id.net/docs/Calendar-TMC.pdf> and an array of other important documents to explain the processes for local implementation of new associate degrees for transfer. Please go to either www.c-id.net/1440.html<http://www.c-id.net/1440.html> or to www.cccco.edu/1440<http://www.cccco.edu/1440> and click on 1440 documents on the right. These documents will all be thoroughly explained in the webinars listed on the calendar.

The first finalized Transfer Model Curricula (TMC) are now available for your consideration. Psychology, Communication Studies and Sociology faculty from the CCCs and CSUs drafted and vetted these TMC, and they are ready to be the first degrees developed locally. Following closely behind these majors are others in various stages of development. We will send those to you as soon as they are finalized. Please ask your faculty to visit http://www.c-id.net/listserv.htmland sign up for their discipline listservs to ensure they receive information to participate in the development and vetting of degrees in their field. Group 2 TMC are Administration of Justice/Criminal Justice, Kinesiology/Physical Education and Mathematics. Please encourage faculty in those disciplines to go to http://www.c-id.net/degreereview.htmlto review the draft TMC.

Training Material

Training materials have been developed to inform you about the various tasks that need to be accomplished as you develop new degrees aligned with the TMC, as well as the documents necessary to complete the tasks, and the duties for individuals and groups at the college with specific responsibilities for compliance. Training will be available for you and other appropriate personnel via webinars and regional meetings beginning January 31, 2011 and continuing through the spring. We urge you to participate in the webinars before beginning any tasks or attempting to comply with the new law. Attached to this memo you’ll find dialing information and dates for the webinars. The Chancellor’s Office has worked diligently with the Academic Senate to ensure that the new degrees are created with integrity while meeting all requirements of the law. The required approval processes will be explained with guidance from both the Chancellor’s Office and the Academic Senate. Please see the attached calendar for details.

Name of the Degrees

The degrees are called, per the SB 1440 legislation, “An associate (in arts or science) in __x__(major) for Transfer”  and the short designations that will be used are “AA-T”  and “AS-T.”  In 2008, the Academic Senate recommended (resolution 9.03 F08) and the Board of Governors subsequently approved in July 2009 a change in degree names as follows: Associate in Science is for degrees in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines and most career technical education (CTE) programs and the Associate in Arts is for all others. (Certain CTE programs e.g., graphic arts might be in arts, and is locally determined.) While this recommendation was NOT put into Title 5, because the Department of Finance believed it would be an unfunded mandate, we are recommending that these new degrees reflect this change. It will lead to more clarity and uniformity in communicating to students, universities, the workplace and the public.

Some Things to do Immediately:

·         Read and share the attached calendar. Notice that it provides dates for upcoming TMC development, for the in-person Discipline Input Group meetings (DIGs) which we hope many of you will attend, (see C-ID DIG meetings<http://www.c-id.net/dig_mtg.html> for details), the targeted training sessions for various groups, and regional in-person meetings. Since C-ID is the structure for convening in-person meetings and online review of TMC, please visit the C-ID<http://www.c-id.net/> site often.

·         Distribute the first three TMC to the faculty in those departments for their discussion. You will see that there are expected core or required courses as well as local options. The options can be narrowed by your faculty to be requirements for the students or you may give students some options (e.g., to choose either course a or b). We assume your processes are such that you will work in conjunction with your curriculum committee and articulation officer. If the faculty in the department develop a degree that aligns with the TMC, there will be a number of benefits: you will get faster approval from the Chancellor’s Office with fewer requirements for transfer documentation; you will know that the content of the degree has had vetting by discipline faculty at both segments, students will have clearer pathways across the state and CSU faculty will be confident in having some level of curricular consistency.

·         Be sure that the senate or curriculum committee approves these degrees with NO local graduation requirements, which are forbidden (in these degrees only).

·         Your senate and curriculum committees will want to work closely with your office of instruction to ensure effective coordination. For example, senate and curriculum leaders may want to meet with your dean or vice president of instruction to work out a calendar and timeline that meets local process and approval requirements. Local senate/curriculum and/or Board policies may need to be modified to allow for approval of the new degrees in an expedited matter. Get this on your senate’s agenda immediately, if appropriate. Ask your Board for flexibility in its approval timeline to accommodate late development or approval of these degrees. Some Boards have decided to simply delegate authority to the administrators to approve these degrees.

If colleges concentrate on these three degrees first, and establish local processes to approve them, then developing additional degrees this spring and next year should be simpler. You can see on the calendar that using the TMC method, colleges will have sufficient degrees in place for the fall and can continue to add in more degrees as TMC are developed.

Documents Now Posted

C-ID Website<http://www.c-id.net/degreereview.html>

This cover letter<http://www.c-id.net/TMC_Launch_Cover_Letter.doc>

Calendar<http://www.c-id.net/docs/Calendar-TMC.pdf> (there will be updated versions as events are added)

Training and webinar access information<http://www.c-id.net/TMC_Training_Webinars_Information.doc>

TMC Overview<http://www.c-id.net/General_TMC_Overview.pdf>

The first three TMC: Psychology<http://www.c-id.net/Psychology%20TMC%20January%2021%202011.pdf>, Sociology<http://www.c-id.net/SOCI%20TMC%20January%2020%202011.pdf> and Communication Studies<http://www.c-id.net/Comm%20Studies%20TMC%20Jan%2025%202011.pdf>

Chancellor’s Office<http://www.cccco.edu/ChancellorsOffice/Divisions/StudentServices/TransferArticulationHome/SB1440StudentTransfer/tabid/1809/Default.aspx>

Instructions for AA-T and AS-T (from Chancellor’s Office)

We know you will have questions along the way, and the upcoming webinars, the C-ID website and appropriate listservs are the primary methods we will use to reach out to colleges. However, we will use other methods and venues to assist you and we can provide additional training sessions as needed. The volume of individual questions to the Chancellor’s Office and the Academic Senate might get difficult to manage, and we will do all we can to be responsive! Please send questions to sb1440questions@cccco.edu<mailto:sb1440questions@cccco.edu> rather than to individuals.

From all discussions at the state level with the community colleges and with CSU, there is a great deal of enthusiasm for the TMC method. We realize colleges had to wait for the systems to be established at the state level, and we appreciate your patience!  We hope these plans will result in the benefits for all parties that are envisioned. Good luck!

Jane Patton, Ed. D.

President