Date: 28 May 2003
To: Linda Lade
Jerry Johnson
From: Linda Butenhoff
Re: Final Report
Per your request, please find below the final report for the Political Science Discipline regarding transfer issues. If you have any questions or would like any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Description and Chronology
Political Science faculty from across the MNSCU institutions met on several occasions in 2002 to discuss transfer issues. After the fall 2002 meetings, the group decided the work plan for spring 2003 would focus on the development of a template and database of political science courses. This database would then be available to all MNSCU political science departments to use as a tool in the evaluation of courses to be transferred into major programs.
In January as the Lead Faculty Facilitator, I met with Linda Lade and others at the MNSCU offices to discuss the development of the political science template. Once the template was finished and sent to me, I then sent it via e-mail to all members of the group. In the November 2002 meeting, the group decided that each member would input one course into the template. The group would review the template in order to assess whether or not there were any problems, comments, or suggestions about the template and database. Once the inputting was completed, the group agreed to meet for an additional face-to-face meeting during the spring 2003.
However,
only two institutions (
Not hearing from most of the two year institutions, I grew concern about the progress of the project. I called Linda Lade and we discussed some options. We agreed that it would be best for me to call the other group members in order to get a sense of what was happening. I called each of the other group members and reached a few of them by phone and left messages for the others. In my phone conversations, I asked these group members why they had not inputted anything into the template. Their responses included, not enough time, no computer, and having a problem with four-year institutions reviewing their courses. The last comment was particularly troubling to me because we had discussed this issue at the November meeting. The group concluded that this was a voluntary process and all agreed that academic freedom was to be protected.
After these phone conversations, I spoke with Linda Lade and expressed my concern over the state of the project. At that time Linda said she would be freezing the template.
Conclusions and Recommendations
While the Political Science Discipline group may not have completed all of the strategies in its work plan, I would argue that this has been a valuable learning process in several ways. First, through the face-to-face meetings, it became clear that the discipline of political science does not face many challenges in the transfer of courses between institutions. In particular, there seemed to be little division and disagreement over the transfer of introductory courses. This is good news. Based on the earlier survey of courses at two year institutions, the majority of course offerings were introductory courses. Second, based on responses and actions this semester, I would argue that the transfer of courses into the Political Science major does not appear to be a priority issue for most faculty. I must admit that I am not completely convinced that this will always be the case. But for now, it appears that most institutions involved in this project don’t see course transfer as a primary issue for their departments.
Finally, I would recommend the continuation of face-to-face meetings. These seem to be the most productive avenues for accomplishing transfer goals. Faculty members, especially at the November 2002 meeting, repeatedly commented on how productive they felt these meetings were. All members commented that it was one of the few times that two and four year institution faculty can sit down and discuss common interests and concerns.