Academic degree requires revisions.

Byline: James Fritz For The Register-Guard

During this graduation season, thousands of community college students across Oregon will earn an associate's degree. But thousands more, equally as gifted, will not. A silent bureaucratic tragedy plays out each year in our state, penalizing and disaffecting more than 100,000 community college students over the last 10 years. Yet professional pride, jealousy and benign neglect prevent those who could fix the problem from acting.

The low graduation rate of Oregon's community colleges is not a fault of students. The quality of the courses they take is not to blame. It is the fault of a higher education system that continues to work at cross-purposes instead of pulling together in a coordinated, unified manner. Community college students hoping to transfer to universities are asked to do too much, and after they transfer, their work is valued too little.

About 24 years ago, people representing the two separate systems of Oregon higher education - the 17 Oregon community colleges and the seven schools of the Oregon University System - got together in a group called the Joint Boards Articulation Commission to discuss the creation of an associate's degree that would ease the transfer of community college students to universities in Oregon.

This transfer degree, called the Associate of Arts/Oregon Transfer, was created in 1991 after 10 years of negotiation. All OUS schools had different core curricula, and none wanted to compromise to accommodate the community colleges. The AA/OT degree evolved as the lowest common denominator that would satisfy all the universities.

The AA/OT degree is a 90-credit degree, which students should ideally obtain after two years of study - 15 credits a term, three terms a year. Under the AA/OT transfer guidelines, students take 55 credits of prescribed coursework. The balance of 35 credits is electives.

The power to approve curriculum for colleges rests with the faculty. State guidelines call for a minimum number of credits in various academic areas. Seeing the word "minimum," many faculties around the state couldn't resist: They knew they could improve on state minimums.

Some faculty viewed the AA/OT more as a terminal degree than a transfer degree leading to further education at a university. Their concern was that if students didn't study certain subjects at the community college, they would never be exposed to instruction in these subjects again. Others wanted to add requirements for health, physical education, computer science, foreign languages, English literature, diversity, etc. Whatever the case, the faculties at each school increased requirements to improve the degree.

In 1992, Southwestern implemented an AA/OT with 76 required credits instead of 55. The AA/OT was suddenly super-sized, making it impossible for most students to finish in two years. In fact, the average time it currently takes students to complete the AA/OT degree requirements in Oregon is four years.

Over the past 12 years, core requirements at Oregon's universities have been decreasing from 55 to an average of 45 credits. One factor is the threat of competition from community colleges for students.

Universities addressed this threat by streamlining requirements and generally reducing the number of required 100- and 200-level courses in most majors (many were shifted to 300-level courses). This helped to undermine the AA/OT degree by making more of its coursework irrelevant for a bachelor's degree.

During this period, community colleges also revised their requirements, but they remain in the 60- to 65-credit range. At first, this might seem like a good thing: Oregon community college students should be better educated than university freshmen and sophomores. But that's true only if they actually finish all those requirements - which they don't.

Faculty implementation of the AA/OT degree was an attempt to distinguish community colleges as promoting high academic standards of depth, breadth and rigor. Unfortunately, community colleges don't have the power or prestige in the higher education system to be true defenders of the faith. Universities set the standards for bachelor's degrees, and in essence determine requirements statewide. Community colleges' aspiration for a higher standard than the universities is a case of the tail trying to wag the dog.

Many students are unwilling to attend community college for three or more years. Instead, they "direct-transfer" to a university without completing the AA/OT degree. At the university, the student's transcript is "unwrapped." Many courses are not accepted as transferable unless they come bundled in the block transfer degree. Yet students direct-transfer because AA/OT degree requirements are out of proportion for an associate's-level degree and out of line with Oregon University System requirements.

Several years ago, Southwestern had a valedictorian candidate with a 4.0 grade point average. At the end of her second year, she was within 10 credits of graduation and decided to forego the AA/OT degree rather than return for a third year. She direct-trans- ferred to a university, majored in veterinary science, and is now a successful veterinarian.

But instead of being considered a success story, the student is considered a non-completer at the community college because she didn't finish the AA/OT degree. Also, some of the courses in which she earned an A were unwrapped and didn't transfer to the university!

In practice, how successful is the AA/OT degree? According to the Joint Boards Articulation Commission:

Statewide, 8 percent to 12 percent of students declaring an intent to obtain an AA/OT actually complete the degree.

The average time it takes to complete the AA/OT degree is four to five years.

Thirty percent of students transferring from an Oregon community college to a university complete an associate's degree.

Fifty percent of students transferring from an Oregon community college to a university direct-transfer without completing a community college degree.

At Southwestern, 12 percent of our students complete 81 or more credits with an average grade-point average of 2.9, yet do not complete the degree!

These statistics contradict nationwide research on the value of a community college education. There is a correlation between the completion of an associate's degree or certificate at the community college and future academic success at the university. Research in community college education indicates early academic achievement is important to long-term academic success.

The AA/OT degree is an opportunity for students to gain access to higher education through achievement of moderate and appropriately proportioned challenges. I recommend revising Southwestern's AA/OT program to conform to the state guidelines. To ask more is to micromanage educational exploration at the freshman and sophomore level.

I further encourage Gov. Ted Kulongoski and the state Board of Higher Education to revise the Oregon higher education system, including:

Create a uniform core curriculum for the Oregon University System schools. Doing so would truly coordinate the higher education system instead of the hodgepodge that currently exists. Uniform standards would, in turn, help facilitate seamless transfer from any community college to any university in the state and create a truly functional system of higher education.

Revise the single AA/OT degree into three degree pathways. Retain the current pathway for undecided students who want to develop skills sets across the curriculum. Create two more block-transfer degrees that track toward either a bachelor of arts or a bachelor of science degree.

Remove the word "minimum" from AA/OT degree guidelines.

The one-size-fits-all degree has been a failure for community colleges and for tens of thousands of students. We must revise the AA/OT to facilitate seamless transfer to universities rather than continuing to work at cross- purposes.

James Fritz is an associate professor of art at Southwestern Oregon Community College in Coos Bay.