Reading an ASSIST Articulation Agreement

Hundreds of thousands of students use the articulation agreements in ASSIST every year. This article will help you understand the agreements and be better prepared to meet with your advisors.

When a course or sequence from one campus is accepted in place of a course or sequence at another campus, they are said to be articulated. An articulation agreement is a document that specifies these articulated courses. Articulation agreements are official documents that are created and maintained by each university campus. These documents are made available at www.assist.org, a site that allows access to all of the articulation agreements at one location.

Never assume that two courses are articulated based on their course number or their course title. Always refer to an official, published articulation agreement.

(There is a small amount of university-to-university articulation in ASSIST, but the main intent of ASSIST is to support transfer from a California Community College to a UC or CSU campus, so this article will generally refer to transfer from a community college to a university campus.)

Choosing an Agreement
You can choose either the community college or the university campus first when you're looking for an articulation agreement. You also should pay attention to the academic year of the agreement. In most cases, you can use the most current agreement.

By Major or By Department
Each university campus enters and maintains its own articulation in ASSIST. Universities can publish articulation by major and/or by department.

By Major
If you are researching the courses needed to complete the lower-division requirements for your major before you transfer, you should choose articulation by major when it's available. Articulation by major usually lists the lower-division courses required by the major and the community college courses that can be used in place of those university courses. Many majors require courses from different departments; for example, articulation for the Biological Sciences major will probably include chemistry and mathematics requirements. Selecting articulation by major lets you see all of the requirements, even courses from other departments.

By Department
If you are looking for articulation for a specific course, it may be best to look at articulation by department. Articulation by department lists all courses in a single department and the community college courses that are accepted in their place. For example, articulation for the Biological Sciences department would list a number of biology courses, but would not include any chemistry or mathematics courses.

Header Information
Make sure that you're looking at the right agreement. You can see the kind of agreement you chose (major or department), the two schools, and the year of the agreement (some agreements are good for two years). You should choose either the current year or the year you took your courses.

Left Side/Right Side
The major or department you chose is shown just below the header. Then, on most articulation agreements, you'll see courses listed in two columns. The left column lists university courses, and the right column lists community college courses. These are the community college courses that are accepted in place of (articulated with) the university courses.

ANDs, &s, and ORs
It's important to pay careful attention to how courses are grouped on both sides of the agreement. Many courses are part of sequences, and it may be that all of the courses in a sequence need to be completed to receive major preparation credit. The combinations of "ands" and "ors" can be a little confusing, so be sure you take the time to work out what is really meant.

In the example above, one of the requirements for CSUSB's BS in Biology is the BIOL 200-201-202 sequence. This requirement can be completed by taking the articulated sequence at Crafton Hills (BIOL 130 & 131). This does not say that BIOL 130 is a substitute for BIOL 200, & BIOL 131 is a substitute for BIOL 202. It's clear from the &s and the dotted lines that separate this "instance" of articulation that the sequences are articulated, not the individual courses.

In this example from the Communication major...

...you see that either ENGL 120 OR JOUR 120 at Crafton would be accepted in place of COMM 240.

Here's another OR example that shows two possible ways to complete a Physics requirement at UCR. Notice that there's articulation at Crafton Hills for only one of the possibilities.

The combinations of ANDs and ORs can get complicated. Be sure to look at them carefully and talk to your counselor or a departmental advisor at the university if you have questions.

Footnotes
Here's an example with an OR that also includes a footnote.

Footnotes appear at the bottom of a major or department agreement, and contain critical information. In this case, the footnote indicates that the community college course must be completed with a grade of C or better.

Read EVERYTHING
It's tempting to skip over any text and only focus on the side-by-side comparison of the courses. Don't do it! Read every word on the articulation agreement. There are often critical details about selection, eligibility, general education or admission in the text. Many universities also provide additional contact information, like phone numbers or Web site addresses, so you have someone to contact if you have questions. This example from UC Riverside's agreement with Crafton Hills College contains vital information.

Here's another example of critical text in the articulation. This comment about a grade requirement is in the CSUSB/Crafton Hills articulation for the Music major.

Not Every Course is Articulated
Not every university course is articulated. In this example, you can see several CSUSB courses that do not have comparable courses at Crafton Hills.

Since the CSUSB courses are lower-division requirements for the Computer Engineering major, you would need to either complete the courses after you transfer, or find articulated courses at a different community college. There are a number of reasons that a university course may not be articulated at a particular community college: the college may not have a similar program or offer a comparable course, the college may not have submitted a course for consideration, or the university course may be so specific in its nature that students are expected to take it at the university.

University-to-University Articulation Is Not Reciprocal
It's important to know that articulation between universities is not automatically two way. A n example is the articulation between CSU San Bernardino and UC Riverside. If we look at the articulation To: CSUSB and From: UCR for the Art major, you'll see that CSUSB accepts UCR's ART 7 (Intro to Digital Photography) in place of CSUSB's ART 123 (Introduction to Art and Technology).

If you look at the articulation below From: CSUSB and To: UCR, you see that UCR does not accept CSUSB's ART 123 in place of ART 7.

Although this overview will help you to better read and understand articulation agreements, you should always get the help of your community college counselor when you are planning courses. They have a wealth of experience and training and access to the details of your individual situation that will help you develop a successful education plan. You should also talk to other academic advisors, especially admissions and departmental advisors at the university, when choosing your courses.

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ASSIST in the Classroom

ASSIST is an important tool for students who are planning to transfer from a California community college to a California university. It's only useful, however, if students are aware of ASSIST, recognize the significance of the information it provides, and can make sense of that information. It turns out that many California community colleges agree and are helping out.

We recently asked community colleges if they teach a course in college success that includes information about ASSIST and transferring to a university. A number of colleges responded. Most colleges discuss transfer in several class periods. All of the classes include instruction, demonstration, and hands-on practice using ASSIST to research majors and transfer requirements. This turns out to be extremely important for students because all of those who responded to our casual survey said that most students have little to no knowledge of, or experience with, ASSIST at the beginning of the class.

An important activity in these classes is hands-on experience with ASSIST. After explaining the kinds of information that are available in ASSIST and then demonstrating how to find information about majors and transfer, students are asked to look up articulation agreements and identify how specific courses transfer. "Students find ASSIST to be very accessible," according to Rick Ramirez at American River College. Brian Jensen of Columbia College agrees, "Usually, they find the information relatively easily, once they get to the Web site." So, once they know what to look for and where to find it, it appears that students are able to get the transfer information they need.  

Introducing students to ASSIST early in their college careers gives them a very practical tool that is one step in successfully navigating their way down the college path. For students who are undecided about their majors, ASSIST's Exploring Majors feature helps them learn about university majors, find specific majors in disciplines in which they are interested, and learn about transferring from a community college to a university to achieve their goal. Students who have already chosen a major can go directly to Explore Transfer Information in ASSIST to see how courses from their community college can be used when they transfer to a university.

Thanks to the community colleges who are introducing students to this valuable resource and taking every opportunity to help students succeed. As Glyn Bongolan of Palomar College said, "They love ASSIST, and so do I. It makes their lives easier and gives them assurance that they are taking the correct courses and are on the right path."

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On Campus

The "On Campus" feature looks at transfer programs and practices at colleges and universities throughout the state. Each issue of the ASSIST Transfer Channel focuses on a different college or university. In this edition, Susan Fauroat talks about articulation news at the University of California, Merced.

Susan Fauroat worked for many years in admissions, articulation, and transfer services at UC Santa Barbara. She is currently the Associate Director of Admissions at UC Merced, overseeing application processing and articulation.

Greetings from the University of California’s new campus in Merced! I am delighted to seize this opportunity to wish you all a happy New Year and provide you with an update on the progress of articulation at our beautiful new campus. If you haven’t seen our Web site lately, check us out at www.ucmerced.edu.

First, some important updates for applicants for academic year 2007-08. UC Merced faculty approved three new, popular majors at the end of fall semester. Economics, History, and Political Science majors are now available to your students. On-time applicants for fall 2007 received a notice in January informing them of the new majors and how to select one, if desired. Another major, Literature and Cultures, was added during the first week in February and is also available for fall 2007. Students who already applied for admission can download and complete our “Request to Change Major” form, then mail or fax it to the Admissions office. The form is available online at admissions.ucmerced.edu/ (click on future students).

UC Merced will continue to accept late applications for fall 2007 until further notice. Late applications must be submitted on paper using the downloadable form at universityofcalifornia.edu/apply and available at our Web site, admissions.ucmerced.edu. Late applicants interested in the new majors are advised to indicate the major code 7535 “Undeclared in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts” when they send their application to the University of California Application Processor. They can then send the completed “Request to Change Major” form directly to the Admissions office via fax or U.S. Postal Service.

All majors available to transfer students at UC Merced are currently accepting students who meet the published requirements for admission to the University of California. This may change in the future. For now, students planning to major in engineering need to know that we recommend completion of general chemistry and calculus, including multivariate calculus, prior to transfer. For majors in biological sciences, we recommend that students focus on general chemistry and, at minimum, the first semester of calculus for mathematics and science majors.

The articulation effort at UC Merced experienced a hiatus when staffing changes occurred in the office of Admissions/Relations with Schools Colleges last fall. We hope to be back in production mode soon. New staff members have been hired and are currently in training. Our new articulation liaison will be on board for the CIAC meeting in April. Faculty at Merced provided us with curriculum updates for the Management and Bioengineering majors, available to transfer students in fall 2007. These and other updates will be entered to 2006-07 agreements in ASSIST and as many colleges as possible will be published soon. New agreements and majors will be added to the 2007-08 articulation agreements this summer. So, between now and the end of April, please send articulation questions, requests, and catalogs to yours truly, Susan Fauroat.

We look forward to working with your students!

Susan Fauroat.
Admissions/Relations with Schools Colleges

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ASSIST Use Climbs

From the early days of ASSIST, there has been a steady increase in the number of people visiting the site and viewing articulation reports. The graph below shows the steady rise in ASSIST reports viewed by users from 1999 to 2006.

The rise in numbers, of course, indicates a significant rise in visitors to the site as well. The graph below shows the increase in the number of unique visitors to ASSIST each year from 1999 through 2006.

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Subscribe

Subscribing to the ASSIST Transfer Channel is easy. Click this link and fill in your
e-mail address and a password. That's all there is to it. Look for next edition of the ASSIST Transfer Channel in September, 2007.

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