District, UTA agree to ease transferability
by Connie Yu, Reporter

    TCC and the University of Texas at Arlington signed a joint memorandum yesterday, outlining the steps to improve the process for TCC students to transfer to UTA.
    Under the plan, officials from both colleges will increase their cooperation in identifying potential transfer students, minimizing the loss of credits during transfer and broadening student accessibility to up-to-date information from both colleges.
     "This is part of a continuous list of our articulation agreements with other four-year colleges," Dr. Tahita Fulkerson, TCC dean of instruction and accreditation services, said.
     "TCC has been working on a number of fronts to ensure that when our students leave, they understand what is involved with their transfer," she said.
     The plan calls for TCC to identify its potential transfer students earlier in the process. UTA will also have access to information on prospective students at TCC to increase the efficiency in locating and assisting the students.
     Both colleges will expand their recruiting and transferring activities. Prospective students can participate in more campus visits, informative forums and presentations. UTA will also offer more frequent visits on TCC campuses, officials said.
     "It's going to create new opportunities for the university to come to our campuses to promote their transfer scholarships," Mark Escamilla, TCC associate director of student enrollment services, said. "It's going to focus on those students who are completing their two years here."
     Following the guidelines from Texas lawmakers, TCC officials have cooperated with other universities in Texas to encourage its students to continue their higher education in four-year universities.
     One of the most substantial agreements prior to the memorandum was the Texas Two Step agreement last year, allowing public universities in Texas accept many Associate in Applied Science degrees. A March articulation agreement with UTA ensures TCC students in the Cornerstone honors program can be accepted in the honors programs at UTA when they transfer. The memorandum is a further step to ensure that students complete their core-curriculums before they transfer, Fulkerson said.
     "If they complete their core, they are way ahead in the game," she said.
     "If they complete the degree successfully, they can get scholarships," the college's dean said.
     To further the two colleges' partnership in the Texas Two Step agreement, the plan also calls for continuous efforts to prevent students from unknowingly taking courses that cannot be transferred.
     "This is a substantial move," Escamilla said, citing UTA's efforts in the Texas Two Step agreement. "UTA has been a forerunner in this."
     Required by Texas laws, course credits from TCC's core-curriculum are already transferable to all public universities in Texas. Nevertheless, UTA and TCC have worked together in recent years to make a number of non-core courses transferable as well.
     Since September, TCC officials and two former students, now attending UTA, met with UTA officials to negotiate how to better facilitate the transfer process.
     Some faculties from both colleges, especially in the school of nursing, engineering and business, have also worked together to build a common understanding on how to prepare the students during transition.
     About 800 students transferred to UTA last fall, comprising a substantial majority of the proximate universities including the University of North Texas and Texas Christian University.
     "There is a huge interest on the [TCC] administration's part to have this agreement," Escamilla said, "because we are right in each other's backyard."
     For that reason, advisors from both colleges will work together more closely, and new policy changes regarding transferring students will be shared more efficiently via improved Web sites.
     "If we are able to keep updated information at all times, that's what's going to help our students the most," Richard Vela, NE academic advisor, said.
     Advisors largely rely on the universities to update their latest changes, but some do it less frequently than others, he said.
     TCC officials hope the memorandum will be a first step toward a more efficient collaboration with other schools.
     "I think it certainly can be," Fulkerson said. "We have measurements that are built into [the plan] that we can evaluate for its success, and we will definitely use it as a model to work with other colleges in the future."
     Evaluation results for the plan will be published next year, Fulkerson said.