Department/Discipline:  Psychology

Facilitator Name:  Lisa Duse

Transfer issue/problem one:

Students who transfer between institutions (technical, 2 year, and 4 year)  find that the receiving institutions won’t accept some of their classes as direct  equivalents to classes listed in their specific psychology major programs.

Strategy One:

Develop an awareness of the transferability or non-transferability of major curricula in receiving institutions (primarily 4 year institutions).

Action Item

Timeline*

Who is Responsible

1. Sending institutions to maintain a current list of contacts at each receiving college/university to facilitate communication.

Ongoing

Sending institutions

2. Sending institutions are to gain an awareness of what will transfer directly as major required classes versus major electives versus general electives. 

Ongoing

Transfer Specialists at sending and receiving institutions/Facilitator

3. Meetings of counselors, advisors, departmental faculty, and transfer specialists within each two-year and four-year college to determine the status of transfer and identify any problems in the discipline of psychology.

Ongoing

Counselors, advisors, transfer specialists, and departmental faculty

4. Periodic meetings of in-field faculty from all institutions to determine progress and exchange information and discuss problems surfacing in transfer.  (This may also foster faculty ownership of transfer plans.)

• Urge sending and receiving institutions to assign courses to upper or lower division status on the basis of level of difficulty and content, rather than for non-pedagogical reasons.

Annually

In field faculty representatives / MnSCU Office of Program Collaboration and Transfer

5. Communicate information to students on an ongoing basis while being specific as to which courses may not fit into specific majors at the time of transfer to individual institutions. 

• Help students recognize that schools which accept courses in transfer do so on the basis of course content and that         even though a particular course has the same name as another, it may not transfer as an equivalency if the content  or level of difficulty is not comparable.
• Utilize a commonly accepted  80% level of course content coverage for equivalency determination.

Ongoing

Sending institutions for local publicizing (departmental advisors and transfer specialists)

6. Utilize existing public information systems (ie: mntransfer.org, DARS, CAS) to disseminate a psychology transfer equivalency guide.

Ongoing

Transfer specialists in consultation with counselors, advisors, and departmental faculty

7. Improve online resources to have total MnSCU institution inclusion.

Ongoing

MnSCU Office of Program Collaboration and Transfer (continuing efforts to make this website comprehensive)

8. Address differences arising from the organic structure of individual psychology departments (such as an Introductory course offered in 2 semesters rather than one) and find solutions to facilitate transfer in articulation agreements.

• Recognize that the transfer agreements currently in place result from negotiations over a number of years and while it is not as uniform as one might wish it to be, it reflects a complexity that enables the institutions involved to fashion their curricula in ways to maximize their unique strengths.

Ongoing

Sending and receiving institutions

9. Recognize issues arising when a large number of courses within an “area of emphasis” are transferred to a “major” program at a receiving institution. 

• Two-year institutions to recognize that four-year institutions may have concerns regarding this process undermining the integrity of the core curriculum of a particular psychology department.

Ongoing

Sending and receiving institutions

Strategy Two:

Recognize, respect, and preserve the organic nature of existing articulation agreements by communicating the explicit structures that already exist while also encouraging additional agreement development.

Action Item

Timeline*

Who is Responsible

1. Review articulation agreements currently in place.

Ongoing

Sending institution Advisors / Transfer Specialists

2. Regional meetings of in-field faculties to encourage and realize further individual and regional articulation agreements as necessary.  (Encourage the inclusion of all faculty, this includes full time as well as adjunct faculty.)

Ongoing

Scheduled by MnSCU Office of Program Collaboration and Transfer or by affected institutions

3. Utilize articulation templates when feasible.

Ongoing

Sending and receiving institutions

Strategy Three:

Develop a central contact for collecting and reporting transfer problems.

Action Item

Timeline*

Who is Responsible

1. Continue to identify a contact person at MnSCU who is currently assigned the responsibility to serve as a “transfer liaison” handling individual issues and appeals as well as providing motivation for future compromise and change.

Ongoing

MnSCU Office of Program Collaboration and Transfer