Transferring credit hours proves challenging for transfer students, because they must meet general education requirements, along with having enough credits to have progress toward a degree.
Senior baseball pitcher Chris Caudle, who transferred to UCA from Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri, said he was a few credits shy of completing his general education requirements when he initially transferred to UCA.
“My biggest challenge was trying to have enough credits to have progress toward a degree,” Caudle said. “I came in with a few hours short of finishing my [general education requirements].”
The Arkansas Course Transfer System, which can be viewed online at acts.adhe.edu, contains information about the transferability of courses within Arkansas state colleges.
It does not include the transferability of courses within Arkansas private colleges.
UCA works to streamline transfers from in-state two-year programs.
“Students that come over here with an associate degree don’t have to take any of our [general education requirements],” UCA Academic Advising Director Leigh Ann DenHartog said. “We do have a new position in admissions, Brian Corbin, who is in charge of articulation agreements with two -year institutions.”
UCA has a working agreement with Arkansas State University in Beebe.
“We have one that is already in progress with Beebe, and it is our environmental science [program],” DenHartog said. “We’re going to try to get every single discipline that way with every single two-year institution. We started last summer, but that is the goal.”
Streamlining the transfer process from two-year colleges requires cooperation between corresponding academic departments.
“It’s an articulation between the two colleges,” she said. “It’s also an articulation between the two departments.”
Freshmen transfers must complete UCA’s general education requirements if they do not already have an associate degree.
“If they don’t have that, they have to go off our [general education]list and our requirements,” DenHartog said. “There are some classes that don’t match up apples to apples. Sometimes you’ll have an apple and an orange.”
However, that’s not to say transfer students are out of options, she said.
“A lot of times, I’ll ask that student to maybe get special permission to have that class count for [a general education class],” DenHartog said. “The adviser helps them through that, and the student has to email and get permission through the person that is in charge of [general educational]courses and the chair of that department.”
Summer courses also provide an opportunity for transfer students who are short on credits.
“They at least need to go to summer school to get help and get caught up,” DenHartog said.
Incoming transfer students should provide UCA with a syllabus and course description of the course they intend to transfer.
“The one thing that we cannot work with is when you have required courses that you have to have in your discipline that you do not come over with,” she said.
Late transfers take extra time to process and overload advisers with last minute details before a new semester starts.
“The biggest problem we have with transfer students is when they apply late,” Transfer Coordinator Mike Isom said. “They don’t get into the classes they want and it takes time to get transcripts and other documents through. It lengthens the process.”
