Bill allows new credit transferals

College students across Indiana will be able to transfer credits between colleges more easily if Gov. Frank O'Bannon signs a bill designed to align courses among two-year and four-year institutions.\nIndiana House Bill 1209, authored by State Rep. Ron Herrell (D- Kokomo), requires a statewide committee to develop agreements between state universities for the transfer of common undergraduate courses. The committee will also develop standards between two-year and four-year colleges for associate's of arts and sciences bachelor's degrees.\nAccording to the original version of this bill, if a multicampus university such as IU entered into transfer agreements with any other university, then all campuses of IU would have to accept the agreement. \nIU opposed the original bill because it thought transfer credits would cheapen the value of an IU degree. The bill now before Gov. O'Bannon is a compromised version.\n"We give our campuses a lot of autonomy to adjust to their particular mission and student needs," Bloomington Chancellor Sharon Brehm said. "If every agreement they had to enter into affected us, that would require us to centralize, so we opposed that bill and working together with many other colleges, ended up with 1209."\nThe new regulations will encourage students to further their education, Herrell said, and help students to graduate from four-year universities like IU.\n"A person at a two-year college with a two-year degree could possibly go to a four-year college to get a higher degree without having to repeat courses," said Herrell. "That could open them to more opportunities. We're talking about a better educated workforce as one benefit."\nOnce people began to approach him about transfer, Herrell said he decided to look into the issue.\n"I found out no reporting mechanism to the legislature about how colleges are doing in (transferring)," Herrel said. "Since we vote on budgets, it's only behooving to know how colleges are doing in that area."\nThe bill doesn't only concern students who have already received associate's degrees in two-year programs but would be open to students at all class levels, Herrell said.\nDetermining what those students experience in those class levels is the goal of the transfer committee, Brehm said.\n"It's very, very important that you not assume classes are the same," she said. "It's important that if you transfer in from one level of coursework that you are prepared for the next level of coursework at that university."\nThe Office of Admissions must evaluate course content to determine whether the courses are similar enough to transfer, but sometimes the decision is left to certain programs, which may continue to fall outside of the bill, said Mary Ellen Anderson, the office's director.\n"For example, when the admission office evaluates credit for fine arts courses, we have to classify that as undistributed credit until the fine arts programs evaluate that course as it compares to courses in the fine arts program," Anderson said.\nFor most courses, the issue is the level of mastery a student has achieved as it compares to another university's standards, she said.\n"The bottom line is that regardless of where a student has taken a course, has the course sufficiently covered the required content for a student to achieve mastery and be prepared to go on to the next level?" she said. "Naturally, if a student has mastered the course and the course has been taught sufficiently, it wouldn't make sense to repeat that course."\nIf the bill passes, Anderson said she wouldn't predict a rapid influx of students.\n"I would imagine that there will be number of students for various reasons who will decide to start coursework at a school such as Ivy Tech and for a variety of reasons, decide to transfer," she said. "At some schools, different types of timing for courses are offered. Some have more evening courses, which appeal to work-oriented students. Still, the alignment is probably a very good idea."\nBrehm agreed, giving her support to the bill.\n"IUB wants to be a part of this and have the ability to admit students that are well-qualified, and transfer courses so they can stay on target," she said. "This is a rational and collaborative approach"