Subject: Comments in regard to the Transfer Modules
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:01:41 -0800
From: "Shannon Valdivia" (valdivis@mhcc.edu)
To: (gilkey@darkwing.uoregon.edu)

Peter,

First, thank you for coming to our campus and allowing us all to take shots at you. You were the trooper.

However, the real purpose of this email is to outline some concerns that I have after listening to the presentation this afternoon.

  • 1) Although I understand the political climate that seems to have driven this proposal. I ask myself a question - What is the real problem here? A cynical Legislature that we feel we have to appease..or a simple breakdown at each institution (in either our marketing or advising) that has caused 2/3 of our students to fall through the cracks and be ill equipped when they get to the OUS because they lack the AA/OT?

    At MHCC, we have our advising office is fighting for it's life. That is not the fault of the AA/OT but the institutional conventional wisdom that exists in the status quo that seems to feel that advising is something that we don't need an office for and that responsibility is falling in the laps of faculty. I don't feel comfortable trying to advise a speech pathology student when my area is speech and mass communication.

    If this proposal goes through, the institutions will have to step up to the plate and GUARANTEE that there will be sufficent quality advising on campus to serve the students. Also, to make this work it will require outreach to every new student who comes to campus. I think that the existing weaknesses in advising, lack of good marketing to students, and the continuing drop in State funding that currently exists will only be exacerbated with this new idea. Based on what I see at my institution, this is a train wreck just waiting to happen.

    So, are we adding to the problem?

  • 2) This proposal assumes that we will focus our students in the "Transfer" mode by giving them this one year option to reach 45 credit hours. I think that this doesn't address most community college students. Most of our students, due to a lack of direction coming out of the K-12 system (no disrespect to those folks), haven't a clue as to what they want to do and will spend sometimes a quarter or two exploring different classes and areas of study. Then, they will focus.

    I fear that this will be a retention issue if we burn them out or bore them to death by not letting them explore and only keeping them in this narrow vein. Also we are assuming that we have students that will finish this in one year. With rising tution costs, this is causing our students to take more time to finish their AA's or whatever they are doing.

    While this proposal claims that it's not a replacement of the AA/OT...then what the heck is it? The fact is that students WILL THINK this is going to be all the GER's they will have to do, and will be quite upset when they hit the OUS and find out that they have a lot more work to do for their chosen majors.

  • 3) Are we going to cause more hemorraging to the other areas of our core since there is nothing in the proposal that tells us what classes are considered for the "Intro to Disciplines?" Will I be cutting the throats of others in other parts of the institutions, if I advise my students to take the the module option, but they choose for example to take all of the Social Science Classes in Political Science? That will then take students away from History, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology and such. MHCC is already struggling with low enrollment course cancellations. Will this new option perpetutate this problem? I have seen no evidence to the contrary that a student could limit their options in this initial 45 credit first year module, only to realize they don't want to study Political Science, but want to be a history major?

    What classes will be considered transferrable? and by whom? Will this be resolved as well?

    Another issue is that this could cause classes which are not necessarily considered "transferrable" to die on the vine regardless of what academic benefits it would bring to our students because they feel forced to fit into this box so they can get their module req's.

  • 4) What does this do for Pro-Tech students who might want to consider transferring for a 4 year degree? They may be really hurt because they are missing basic requirements that desired by the 4 year schools, but over 2 years of a Pro-Tech degree....didn't get speech, or something similar that could help them seamlessly transfer to the OUS.

    When I look at what bothers me about this proposal, I view it through the lens of a cost/benefit analysis.

    Is it more beneficial to look at the weaknesses in the institutional convention wisdom and the attitudes/decisions that impact the quality of advising and # of advisors we can provide our students to make sure that they are working with prospective institutions they wish to attend and design their educational plan to that. This way we can maintain and perhaps streamline the current AA/OT or even modify it so that it could be better streamlined.

    OR...

    Is it better to adopt yet another options that 1) Students won't understand, 2) There won't be advising support which then falls to the faculty to pick up the slack, and 3) may cause us to lose more students.

    I wish I had the answers. But these are some issues that I do believe need to be explored and researched before we try to go to the legislature.

    I know action should come from us. But i'd hate to have a Strike 2 against us and the Legislature then backlash because this great idea didn't work.

    Thank you again for your visit and your willingness to listen to our concerns.

    My best to you,

    Shannon Valdivia Speech Communication/Director of Forensics Mt. Hood Community College

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