De-Segregation: A Five Year Retrospective

Libero Ficocelli and David Gregg

Grande Prairie Regional College

ABSTRACT

The generally accepted model of education in Alberta is one which stratifies students into either university or technical diploma streams.  Limited transferability of courses from diploma programs into relevant university programs (or vice versa) restricts a student's ability to make career changes in mid-stream or even after having attained a credential.  This paradigm severely restricts a student's ability to modify their overall educational goals- a significant barrier to student satisfaction and overall success in the pursuit of life long learning.   

This paper examines the curriculum adopted at Grande Prairie Regional College, which specifically addressed the issue of how to minimize loss of credits when transferring between programs or when laddering from a diploma to a university degree program.   Prior to the transition to the new syllabus, GPRC was a prime example of the inflexibility inherent in such a segregated model.  The two computing sciences programs (diploma and university) were not only in separate departments, they had no courses and no faculty in common.  The student cohorts from each program were in fact mutually exclusive (even social activities were distinct).  In an attempt to mitigate these shortcomings, a core curriculum was developed which permitted the integration of students from both the CST diploma and CS University transfer areas.  

Outcomes for various stakeholder groups: students, faculty, and administration are identified and examined.  An analysis of the status of CST diploma graduates, specifically with regards to subsequent educational pursuits, confirms the authors initial suspicions about the need for laddering options, transferability of courses and flexibility in curriculum design .

 

Keywords: Diploma, CST, Computing, Laddering, Transfer, Education, Curriculum, Associate-degree, Graduates

1 Introduction

A number of years ago while attending a provincial meeting of computer science educators from both University and College Diploma programs, a request for transfer credit was put forth by some of the Technical institutes.  Specifically, that the Universities be more lenient with regards to transferability of Computer Science diploma courses to comparable courses at the university level. The issue was, students who had already completed a two year diploma were still being required to take an additional four years of study at the university level in order to complete their degree —essentially putting them back to square one.  The implication being: two-year programs were terminal!  If you wished to further (begin) your studies towards a degree, the diploma would amount to a complete waste of time and money.  The representatives from some diploma programs felt it was unnecessary for students to repeat material that had already been taught.  Although the universities seemed sympathetic, needless to say, they were less than enthusiastic about relaxing their transfer guidelines (including curriculum and faculty credentials).  One of the CS department undergraduate faculty advisors even stated that it was not a major concern (for them) and if students should desire to transfer, they would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.  Our limited experience with those cases invariably translated into 0 transfer credits.

We took the request to heart, primarily because our own students had voiced the same kinds of concerns regarding laddering into a degree program.  Rather, than passively doing nothing and hoping that the universities would eventually change their minds, we decided to take a proactive approach and attempt a radically different solution.  (Interestingly enough, what we thought was a radical departure from the norm, is now being espoused by both the ACM and the IEEE [1].)  More specifically, rather than ask the universities to “lower their standards”, we decided to streamline and modify our CST diploma curriculum in order to maximize the number of transferable courses. 

As a consequence we were faced with the very serious issue of whether it would be viable to merge the existing two-year diploma program with its counter part computing science program in the university transfer area.  Although we realized that this approach was fraught with some potentially serious problems, we decided to go forth with the necessary changes to the program in order to meet this goal.

2 An overview of the Alberta system

In Alberta the typical post secondary education institution model is that students choose to follow either a fast track 2-year program, yielding a College Diploma or students can follow the 4-year path, which leads to a University degree.  During the past five years the department of Learning and Education has introduced the Campus Alberta Initiative [2].  One of the fundamental concepts of this campaign is to encourage institutions to help students complete their educational goals by being as flexible as possible with regards transfer of credits between institutions. 

To date only the University of Lethbridge and Athabasca University have addressed the issue of two-year block transfers, and is currently accepting CST diploma graduates (with specified minimum GPA’s) into the third year of their programs.

At about the same time the Minister of Alberta Learning introduced the applied degree credential.  This has also provided CST students, who were in terminal programs, the opportunity to ladder into degree programs and pursue educational goals beyond the diploma level. 

In 1995, the government of British Columbia passed legislation to enable colleges to undergraduate degree programs [3].  Alberta has recently decided to follow suit.  During the current sitting of the Alberta Legislature, there is a bill before the house, which has provisions to selectively confer degree-granting status to specific programs in non-university institutions.  This will further enhance opportunities for laddering.

What has happened in Alberta and British Columbia is not unique to the educational scene, other Governments [4,5,6], both in Canada and the U.S., have begun to acknowledge the fact that “laddering”[7] is an essential component of a modern educational system. Students want and need options! Given the fact that the majority of diploma students are interested in continuing their education [6,8], seamless transfer will be an important factor in helping students choose where they wish to attend and which programs they are likely to enroll in.

3 Computing programs at GPRC

The accepted model in Alberta was, and still is, that the technical programs are delivered separately from the university transfer programs.  This was certainly the case at Grande Prairie Regional College where the two-year diploma in computer systems technology (CST) was offered to different students and in separate departments from those in the university transfer program (to the University of Alberta) in computing science (UT CS).  In fact, the only common resource was shared computing labs.

Before we made changes to the programs, the UT program and the CST diploma program were as follows: 

The CST diploma curriculum was made up of five computing, four business and one mathematics course in the first year and eight computing courses, one business and one mathematics course in second year.  The UT CS students were required to take three computing science courses, one full course in English, three mathematics courses, and two additional science courses in year one.   As there were no second year UT CS courses, students could remain for a second year, but they were restricted to taking Arts, Science and Mathematics option courses.  This was not a very appealing or productive alternative. 

At this point in time there were no courses in common, no faculty in common, and none of the CST diploma courses were transferable to any university.

4 Changing the status quo

In the past, we had considered the possibility of merging the faculty into one department, without merging the students, but the advantages from such as merger were not sufficient to warrant such changes.  However, when we considered the additional benefits that could be realized by developing common core courses it became obvious that perhaps this was a viable option that should be pursued.

Our major goal became one of maximizing the transferability of CST courses to our primary transfer institution, thus minimizing a significant barrier to student success and continuing life long learning.  In order to achieve our stated goal, we needed to break the de-facto standard model.  Our first step was to develop a common set of CS courses for students in both the CST diploma and CS UT programs.  

The common core for all first year students became: three Computing Science courses and one Mathematics course.  Furthermore, we required the CST diploma students to take three UT courses as substitutions for existing diploma courses, for a total of seven year one UT transfer courses.   In latter years this evolved to four Computing Science courses, one Mathematics course, one English course, and two UT courses for a total of nine first year UT transfer courses.  Currently the only real difference between year-one UT CS and CST is a single calculus course (which is not included as part of the recommended curriculum [1]).

Modifications to the second year of the CST diploma were not as extensive. Since our primary transfer institution had only four CS courses in its second year, we made these courses mandatory for the CST program.  Of the four courses, two of them, were nearly identical in content to the courses they replaced.  Since then, changes to the UT CS program have resulted in an additional second year course being made available.  This course is optional for CST students.

The consequences of these combined changes are that current CST diploma graduates receive direct transfer of up to fourteen courses toward their degree at the University of Alberta. 

In order to minimize timetabling difficulties and maximize coordination of faculty workloads, the CST diploma program and faculty were merged with the Department of Science, which at the time was responsible for offering the UT CS program.

5 Outcomes

Although we would like to believe that our actions had only beneficial consequences, in order to be fair and objective we will examine both positive and negative aspects of the changes made.  We will examine issues and consequences that were the fallout of adopting this new model, some of which were considered prior to committing to the changes, and others, which only became apparent after the fact. 

We have categorized our observations with respect to students, faculty, and administrative stakeholders.  

5.1 A Student’s Perspective—the good

• Transfer from our diploma to a university CS program has minimized the number of credits lost.
• Students transferring out of province have an easier time getting credit for courses, because courses that already appear in the Alberta provincial guide are easier to pair with similar out of province courses.
• Students who initially enrolled in the UT CS program and subsequently change their career goals have viable exit option with the diploma.
• CST students feel empowered because they take courses, which are not “dummied down”.
• More uniform development of student’s skill set.
• Faculty don’t treat students differently.
• Students have a larger pool of friends and acquaintances with which to share knowledge, ideas and job contacts.
• CST students have more course choices.  Even UT students often take non-transferable diploma courses (because they want to learn the material).
• Students have a seamless transfer into our Athabasca University Collaborative program

5.2 A Student’s Perspective—the bad

• The students have to work harder, because the transfer courses have a more rigorous treatment, as they must conform to an external standard.
• Students have to take some courses, which they would not have been required to in their original program.  For example, the University of Alberta has a theoretical formal systems course, which is a pre-requisite for some second year core courses.  This type of course is not normally required for a technical diploma.
• Entrance requirements may preclude some students from admittance into the program.  Both the English and Mathematics requirements were changed from English 33 to English 30 and Math 33 to Math 30. Bridging courses may be required, before formal admittance into the program.

5.3 Faculty Perspective—the good

• Wider selection of courses to deliver
• Prospect for faculty to deliver more courses in the same field, providing more of an opportunity to specialize in their area of interest.   (i.e. communications, hardware, graphics,…)
• Cross-pollination of instructional ideas amongst faculty.
• Eliminate the perception (by some) that UT faculty are more prestigious.

5.4 Faculty Perspective—the bad

• Need a minimum of a Masters Degree in Computing Science
• Fear of job redundancy
• Loss of autonomy.
• Less flexibility on the part of faculty to improvise course content which would compromise transferability.
• Less opportunity to tailor CST curriculum to local employer needs.
• Changes at the University impact our curriculum in both programs.

5.5 Administrative Perspective—the good

• Efficiencies of scale (one department instead of two, one common course in lieu of two similar courses).
• Dollar savings provide the potential for more diverse course offerings.
• Scarce faculty can be used to optimal advantage.
• Common focus on broader issues rather than program specific goals.
• Better planning pertaining to long-term issues.
• A larger student base of CS students provides the institution an opportunity to introduce a wider variety of programs.  For example we were able to introduce the second year of the 4 year UT CS, developed a new three + 1 Collaborative B.Sc. CSIS Degree with Athabasca University, provided a number of additional course offerings for the second year Engineering program at GPRC.

5.6 Administrative Perspective—the bad

• Tracking of students is harder (KPI – key performance indicators).  Because students are not really worried about program streams (they can transfer between programs with minimal or no penalty) they are not eager to rush off and change program classification even if they have switched programs.  This has had funding implications.
• Advising can become significantly more complicated, especially when a student is confused and trying to keep as many doors open as possible.
• Cohort ties become weaker, which can impact timetabling, and course offerings.
• Less flexibility when revamping programs and courses, cross-institutional approvals take more time.
• Concern that the loss of some “job skills courses” which were replaced by more “academic” options courses would compromise the diploma student in the workplace.

Most of the observations presented above, with respect to individual stakeholder groups are primarily anecdotal observations, which are difficult to quantify.  As faculty, we certainly know how we feel about the changes.  From an administrative perspective, the points noted were a direct consequence of the changes made.

In an attempt to quantify the impact of the new curriculum, we collated data regarding graduates from the CST diploma during the years 1985 to 2002.  The changes were instituted in 1995 with the first graduates, completing under the new model, in 1997.  The data is presented in two major groupings; these are listed as pre-program changes (1985 to 1996) and post-program changes (1997 to 2002).  We compiled a list of students, and based on our personal knowledge of their educational pursuits, we generated the statistics contained in Table 1.

Table 1-Status of CST Graduates Post Diploma

We use the term continuing to indicate those students who enrolled in programs beyond the diploma level.   Even a cursory examination of the data clearly reveals that students were very enthusiastic about taking advantage of the new transferability of courses.  The number of students transferring went from 2% prior to the changes to a significantly different 67% after the changes.  This certainly affirms our suspicions that students were serious about wanting an opportunity to further their education.

Unfortunately, there are a number of confounding variables introduced over the course of several years, which have had an impact:

1)     Two-year block transfer of CST courses to Applied Degree at other institutions in the province.

2)     Two-year block transfer of CST courses to the University of Lethbridge’s B.Sc. In Computing Science.

3)     A collaborative 3+1 B.Sc. in Computing and Information Systems with Athabasca University.

When we made these modifications the intent was that students would transfer to a traditional university Baccalaureate degree program.  Table 2 specifies what degree programs the CST students transferred into after graduation.  The table indicates that the university programs were preferred over the applied degree programs (6 versus 32).   The fact that the on-campus collaborative degree permitted students to complete 33 of 40 courses at GPRC may have skewed our statistics upwards for the number of students pursing the degree option (students are obviously attracted by the opportunity to complete a degree program close to home).  Nevertheless, 7 of 57 graduates (12%) did follow in the traditional transfer scenario (previously only 2%), see Figure 1.

Table 2-Student’s choice of Degree Programs after Graduation

Figure 1 – Status of CST Graduates Post Diploma

6 Conclusion

On the whole, we are pleased with the changes that have been made. With regards to faculty and administrative issues, although some might still argue that the merger was not appropriate, by and large the benefits have by far out weighed the drawbacks.   In fact we are in an ideal position to capitalize on the Campus Alberta policy, which encourages universities to consider block transfers between diploma and degree programs in Alberta.  In our case we were several years ahead of the pack.  Furthermore, with the new government initiative to award degree granting status to colleges in specific programs, we feel that our approach will give us the inside track (as we have already established credibility for at least 2 years worth of curriculum transfer with 3 Alberta universities and 3+ years with Athabasca University).

The major impact of our changes was most relevant to student stakeholders (as it should be).  They are working harder but find that the benefits accrued far surpass the price they pay in toil. Admittedly, some of the weaker students have struggled or failed with the new curriculum. We can only speculate that perhaps they would have been more successful under the old model.   During a recent informal reevaluation of the program, we explicitly asked students if they would have preferred a lighter load: the answer almost unanimously was no!  They are happy with the intensive program that has been developed. 

Students have, for the most part taken advantage of the flexibility afforded by the common core of courses.  Nearly seamless transfer has given them the ability to modify life goals with minimal sacrifices. For those who wish to pursue education beyond what would normally have been a terminal program the benefits are significant, saving both time and money.  Diploma graduates who would not have considered furthering their education now give serious consideration to pursuing a degree.  Conversely we have observed that some students in the UT CS stream have opted for a CST diploma instead of the degree.  In general, all these types of choices have resulted in happier and more successful students.

Nice to see that we are not as radical as we once believed!

References

[1] R. D. Campbell, et al, “Guidelines for Associate Degree Programs in Computer Science”, Produced by the ACM Two-year College Education Committee, January 2002

[2] “Campus Alberta—A Policy Framework”, Alberta Learning, April 2002

[3] B. Carr, “The University College System in British Columbia, Canada”, CCBA Beacon, Vol. 2 No. 1, Winter 2001

[4] “Florida Legislature Passes Bill”, CCBA Beacon, Vol. 2 No. 2, Summer 2001

[5] “Building Bridges Not Barriers: Public Policies that Support Seamless K-16 Education”, Education Commission of the States, Policy Brief P-16, October 2000

[6] “Access to Baccalaureate Degree Instruction in Florida”, Background Paper for the Florida Board of Education, February 13, 2002

[7] W. Norton Grubb. “Edging Toward Effectiveness: Examining Postsecondary Occupational Education”, Independent Advisory Panel Meeting. National Assessment of Vocational Education, May 6-7, 1999

[8] Kenneth P. Walker, “The Case for the Community College Baccalaureate Degree”, U.S. Society and Values, June 2002

Libero Ficocelli and David Gregg
Department of Computing, Mathematics, and Statistical Sciences
Grande Prairie Regional College
10726 106 Avenue, Grande Prairie, Alberta, T8V 4C4
libero@gprc.ab.ca    gregg@gprc.ab.ca