Tuesday, June 5, 2001

League for Innovation and Online Institutions Create Credit-Transfer Guidelines By DAN CARNEVALE A community-college organization is developing guidelines for its member colleges to forge agreements with distance-education institutions to make it easier for community-college students to transfer course credits toward earning an undergraduate degree. The League for Innovation in the Community College, an organization that promotes the use of technology in community colleges, is negotiating with Capella University, Florida State University, and the University of Maryland University College to create the guidelines. The organization announced new guidelines with United States Open University and Western Governors University in March and with the University of Phoenix in November. Although the League for Innovation in the Community College created the guidelines, each of its 750 members has to reach agreements with distance-education institutions for any student to benefit, says Edward J. Leach, the organization's vice president for technology programs. The league has made it easier for the colleges to enter the agreements by negotiating some of the terms beforehand, he says. Member colleges can simply accept the guidelines or customize their own agreements. "There are so many differences between our member colleges," he says. "They're in different states, and they have different guidelines." The guidelines call for students to easily transfer lower-division credits earned in community colleges to the universities, some of which offer only upper-division courses. Community colleges that form agreements would share counseling and advising services, access to online library resources, and tuition discounts and scholarships for faculty members, students, and staff members. Under the guidelines, a student could earn a vocational degree from a community college, then transfer those credits to a place like the University of Phoenix, take a general-education curriculum, and come out with a bachelor's degree with a special focus in the vocational field. Such arrangements are known as "upside-down" 2 + 2 programs, because students get two years of basic education at a university only after receiving specialized vocational training for two years at a community college. Karen Steinberg, vice chancellor of United States Open University, says few members of the community-college group are aware of the potential to form such partnerships. "It provides students with options," Mr. Leach says. "It may not be the best option for all students, but it will greatly benefit a few." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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