Jr College / Xfers Credit Hours

[OC Mustang]

A discussion:

I want to go deeper into the JUCO/Transfer hours issue:
What is the problem?
My take:

JUCO classes taken on quarterly system do not xfer cleanly to semester hours. Classes do not cover the same material as classes at SMU (important for classes that build on previous classes), or they do not cover material at same pace or depth such that it is easy to xfer, or the classes simply do not have corresponding counterparts at SMU.
Any of the above would cause a problem.

I was in a university Academic Affairs meeting some years ago. A dude named Stanley Katz, a lifelong educator, writer, and academic with a penchant for being a real horse's a--, mentioned transfer policy vis-a-vis another discussion of whether credit hours should be offered in wellness (i.e. phys ed.) classes. It was pointed out as an aside that transfer hours often had difficulty being matched with corresponding SMU hours. So I am taking liberty with that line of reasoning by suggesting that the issue may actually be rather tactical rather than strategic.

I agree with needing to loosen the noose, strategically speaking... something gotta get done about this. But tactically, I am at a loss as to how that might be done, and griping about it isn't going to make the issue less complicated. SMU does not want to water down a degree by allowing any old class to transfer over. And they don't want to place a student at a disadvantage class-wise by admitting him without adequate credit hours such that he can't graduate within the confines of the scholarship. For all we love football, these kids gotta live life afterwards.

Does that mean that SMU creates a couple of "athletic majors"? Perhaps, but what if a guy wants to major in Biology, or perhaps in History? They shouldn't be forced into something else, should they?

This isn't as easy as it sounds. I know that other schools might not have this issue, but I would be interested to know what they do differently.

[mrydel]

I certainly have no knowledge or idea on how the system works, but considering that 95% of the other universities in the United States seem to be able to accomplish getting students into school where we can not, and noticing that we do not stand head and shoulders above all of these schools in academic standing, I would think someone in the loop could maybe pick up the phone and say " uh.......uh......whacha doin that we are not?" and then, and this is the importent part, listen to the answer.

[tmustangp]

i am very confused myself about the juco transfer hours.. but here are some real life examples that i have come across. although they are not athletic examples they are transfering juco hour examples.

1.my mom is a professor at northlake and has been for 30 years.. every year smu gives a scholarship to a northlake student.. my mom is on the decision making process for that student b/c she got her masters from smu and my dad went and coached at smu. now i understand there is a big difference between awarding a well deserving student w/ a scholarship and giving a football player an scholarship... but smu does transfer their hours.. so why can't they transfer an athletes hours?

2. when i graduated 1.5 yrs ago, I was 6 hours short and needed to spanish classes to graduate.. i did not want to pay an extra 5 or 6 grand when i could have paid 500 at UTA or even less at a junior college.. after speaking w/ the head of the department several times, they were adament that they could not accept community college hours...

Unfortunately, smu has many guidelines for transferring community college hours.. the only exception is the meadows department.. so if we can find a stud football player who wants to major in art or music, we are set.. haha

[tmustangp]

i am very confused myself about the juco transfer hours.. but here are some real life examples that i have come across. although they are not athletic examples they are transfering juco hour examples.

1.my mom is a professor at northlake and has been for 30 years.. every year smu gives a scholarship to a northlake student.. my mom is on the decision making process for that student b/c she got her masters from smu and my dad went and coached at smu. now i understand there is a big difference between awarding a well deserving student w/ a scholarship and giving a football player an scholarship... but smu does transfer their hours.. so why can't they transfer an athletes hours?

2. when i graduated 1.5 yrs ago, I was 6 hours short and needed two spanish classes to graduate.. i did not want to pay an extra 5 or 6 grand when i could have paid 500 at UTA or even less at a junior college.. after speaking w/ the head of the department several times, they were adament that they could not accept community college hours...

Unfortunately, smu has many guidelines for transferring community college hours.. the only exception is the meadows department.. so if we can find a stud football player who wants to major in art or music, we are set.. haha

[SMU Football Blog]

Very good thread. I have some thoughts but have to prepare for a meeting. Be back later. I hope Stallion adds his comments. Same goes for anyone else with knowledge.

[ponyboy]

noticing that we do not stand head and shoulders above all of these schools in academic standing

Academic standing, however measured, has nothing to do with this issue. It's a function of matching x course at the junior college to y course at SMU. We need to do a better job of that.

[mrydel]

That was the gist of my post. It is not like we are saying "the way we stay so far above all other schools academically is by not allowing classes of x-nature into our curriculum." It is apparently that we just refuse to put in the time and effort to see what is necessary to do to make courses able to transfer. Other schools do it every day, all day long. It can be done.

[PK]

...they were adament that they could not accept community college hours...

"could not" or "would not"???

[tmustangp]

...they were adament that they could not accept community college hours...

"could not" or "would not"???

would not

[OC Mustang]

It may well be a lack of institutional will on SMU's part to instruct the admissions office that they should resolve this issue. Part of that "institutional will" is most certainly snobbery (after all, we are dealing with academics here...among the most snobbish group of people alive, according to former business Dean David Blake).

Another part may simply be accounting...less xfer hours over the general population means more credit hours ($$$) for SMU. Yet another part (and I do suspect this to be the case) is indeed laziness on the part of admissions (backed up by the accounting thing).

Finally, I think one can not discount that different parts of the university attempt to function independently at times, which would explain why my two JUCO history classes that I took during high school xferred while a buddy's same two classes didn't. Hmm. I made A's too. He didn't. Makes one wonder if they treat grades similarly to AP or CLEP credit. The better one does, the more likely the grade is to accept.

I guess this was my point in digging deeper. If one is to address the issue properly, not to mention build a compelling case for improving xfer conditions and thereby improving xfers, one better have some idea of a) how this all really works and b) how it can be tweaked or wholesale revised to accomplish said goal.

A farmer once came across a neighbor standing next to his flooded fields.
"Wha'cha doing?" He asked.
"Watching."
"Watching what."
"Fields are flooding."
"Why?"
"Hole in the levy."
"Can you fix the levy?"
"Sure."
"So why don't you fix it?"
" 'Cause I'm here with you watching my fields flood."

So, in that light, does anyone here know how other schools administratively handle transfer hours? I currently do not, but you bet I am going to find out.

[JasonB]

It isn't laziness, it is about school policy.

I ran across these types of issues when I was a co-op student one semester and wanted to take a class at night at a community college. There were strict rules of what could be transferred, and what couldn't be. For example, I could take a basic electrical engineering class, but foreign languages wouldn't transfer. Neither would technical writing. It seemed like most of the liberal arts stuff doesn't transfer unless from a top tier university (I got Psych and art history to transfer from UC Berkeley).

[EastStang]

To make matters more complicated, you get the story about the Northwestern QB who thought about transferring to SMU but found that a number of his hours wouldn't transfer, so he stayed put. We're talking about Northwestern not Last Rites Community College. So, clearly there is a problem that needs to be reviewed by those at higher levels than we are.

[Stallion]

to be even more precise-its an NCAA Rule that requires the university to follow its own school policy on transferrable hours. There is no curriculm at SMU which would allow SMU to accept these hours like there is at most Division 1A schools.

[JasonB]

to be even more precise-its an NCAA Rule that requires the university to follow its own school policy on transferrable hours. There is no curriculm at SMU which would allow SMU to accept these hours like there is at most Division 1A schools.

I guess what I was saying in my post above, is that the problem at SMU runs beyond curriculum. I had problems getting normal classes to transfer from a great university. SMU's policy in general is that you have to check with them before taking classes anywhere else. If you want classes elsewhere to actually apply to your major, that is even more difficult.

They have issues with a PE course covering the wellness requirement; it would probably be even more difficult to transfer in if we had a kinesiology department. This isn't about choices in majors or anything like that. It is a school wide policy that is overly strict.

[mrydel]

Which is why I would like the Administration to explain the benefit of doing this. It does not enhance our school any academically and it punishes us from an athletic standpoint. If they only understand the aspect of getting extra $$s for additional courses, maybe they need to be introduced to the $$s available in the college bowl system, especially if you could develope a program that could get you into a BCS bowl.