his article summarizes a qualitative study conducted as one phase of a dissertation titled "An Historical Case Study on the Illinois Articulation Initiative." As part of her doctoral thesis, Sack studied the Illinois Articulation Initiative (IAI) and its relationship to student success, especially as it relates to transfer and the rate of baccalaureate degree attainment. Her research findings were based on 13 interviews of higher education professionals who worked extensively on the development of the IAI agreement, as well as other primary and secondary resources. Sack recently completed her Ed.D. in the Community College Executive Leadership specialization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Steven Aragon, Associate Professor of Human Resource Education, directed her dissertation research.

In 1992 the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) introduced an option for transferring courses from one institution to another within the state called the Illinois Articulation Initiative (IAI). Technically, IAI is an outgrowth of the IBHE’s original 1970 era policy on Transfer and Articulation known as the General Education Compact Agreement. Under the Compact Agreement, students transferring to a 4-year institution in Illinois with an associate degree from an in-state junior or community college were to be considered juniors in good standing having completed their general education requirements. Essentially, the purpose of the IAI was to enhance the earlier Compact Agreement by smoothing the transfer of courses so that the time-to-degree would be shortened and students would have better opportunities of attaining a baccalaureate degree (IBHE, 1998). By 1997, IBHE had approved the third and final amendment to the original Compact Agreement and implemented new IAI practices in transfer and articulation across Illinois.

Throughout the history of junior and community colleges, a number of complicated issues have been associated with transfer and articulation policies and procedures. In reviewing the literature, I observed the reoccurring question related to how courses from 2-year institutions are accepted at senior colleges and universities. As is customary of higher education policy, the 1997 IAI had taken years to develop, going through multiple phases. The aim of IAI as it emerged seemed to be directed to achieving a comprehensive and consistent framework for articulation and transfer that would address barriers to student degree completion within the state.

The first phase of IAI development involved determining a statewide general education core curriculum that would be acceptable at transfer institutions to satisfy general education requirements. The second phase of IAI dealt with comparability among major disciplinary programs and courses. Although some courses and programs received approval for transfer, I found much of this part of the policy development process was hampered by struggles to find common ground among a diverse array of institutions and programs. The third phase of IAI policy development incorporated a five-year curriculum review, and the fourth phase involved an evaluation of policy and process.

Recently, Kelly and Lach (2006) released their evaluation of the fourth developmental phase of the IAI plan. Although their evaluation included a comprehensive list of recommendations for potential improvements to enhance institutional effectiveness of IAI, the evaluation fell short of collecting longitudinal data on the rate of baccalaureate degree attainment during the 8-year time span since IAI implementation.

Throughout the 1980s, Illinois community colleges enrolled a preponderance of the state’s minority students in higher education (IBHE, 1992a). Also during that time budgetary constraints prompted the IBHE to address issues of access, education quality, faculty recruitment, and learning environments, while exploring ways to maintain or improve programs without additional state resources or increased tuition (IBHE, 1990b). Early in the 1990s, the IBHE conducted an evaluation study on transfer and articulation that indicated a disproportionately low percentage of minority students were attaining baccalaureate degrees (IBHE, 1990a, 1992a). These studies also indicated that students transferring to 4-year institutions were taking more time-to-degree than the students who started college at 4-year institutions (IBHE, 1990a, 1992b). Many of these same students were categorized as under-prepared and/or from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The report’s findings substantiated anecdotal evidence that under the original Compact Agreement many transfer students found it necessary to repeat requirements or take additional general education courses at 4-year institutions in spite of previously completing associate degrees. The evidence indicated to me that the original articulation agreements were not functioning consistently, which prompted IBHE to review the Compact Agreement and the entire articulation process. About this same time period, the focus of IBHE turned toward accountability to the taxpayers, prompting the IBHE’s demand for transfer problems to be addressed. Accordingly, IBHE and the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) sought a collaborative approach to attend to the issue of improving the Compact Agreement, resulting in the IAI.

The 1997 IAI agreement reflected three major additions to the original Compact Agreement: 1) “associate and baccalaureate degree-granting institutions are equal partners in providing the first two years of baccalaureate degree programs in Illinois”; 2) “associate and baccalaureate degree-granting institutions should work together to expand opportunities for students to complete baccalaureate degrees,” which involves faculty taking primary responsibility for articulation; and 3) “institutions are expected to work together to assure that lower-division baccalaureate programs are comparable in scope, quality, and intellectual rigor” (IBHE, 2003, p. 5), According to an ICCB official that I interviewed, these three provisions were key to guiding continued development of the new IAI. An IBHE official agreed, indicating the goal of the IBHE and ICCB was to produce a plan that would be agreeable among the state’s higher education administrators, faculty, and students, as well as 4-year public and private institutions.

The purpose of my dissertation study was to examine these three key concepts and determine how the IAI policy impacted student degree completion, using personal interviews, extant records and reports, and archival data. A brief summary of the three concepts of equal partnership, faculty responsibility, and comparable courses follows.

Equal Partnership: In one form or another the terms commitment, collaboration, communication, and cooperation can readily be found in articulation literature as imperatives for higher education policy (Donaldson & Kozoll, 1999; Kintzer, 1996; Knoell, 1990; Palmer, 1996). Data in Illinois have tended to show that students who transferred from community colleges with an associate degree performed as well academically and in persistence-to-degree as native baccalaureate students (IBHE, 1992). On the surface, collaboration among colleges and universities appears to be mutually beneficial to all institutions as well as to students. But, according to Ignash (1992), even though community colleges excel in the area of transfer, no topic exemplifies the imbalance between 2-year and 4-year institutions more than articulation policy. Ignash argued that 4-year institutions typically dominate decisions regarding transfer policy and are therefore unlikely to voluntarily relinquish control. I observed this dynamic in the development of IAI. Faculty representing the various higher education institutions in the state participated in the development of IAI policy by determining guidelines for articulation of general education requirements and course content. Even after such input, the language in the 1997 IAI agreement turned out to be as open to subjective interpretation as the earlier Compact Agreement.

My research suggests community college representatives felt their course content was being dictated by 4-year institutions. To some, the transferability of courses was held hostage at community colleges that failed to adjust their curriculum according to the standards of the 4-year institutions. The 4-year colleges and universities, on the other hand, were requested to voluntarily comply with the agreement (IBHE, 1994), demonstrating the imbalance in accountability between the two different parts of the system. Kelly and Lach (2006) noted that continued cooperation on the part of community colleges was most likely due to a belief that the 1997 IAI agreement was the best available solution to transfer problems. In effect, the dynamics of the policy negotiation process led to an IAI agreement that did not represent an equal partnership but incongruent representation of interests between 2-year and 4-year institutions, creating an unstable foundation for IAI from the start.

Faculty Responsibility: According to a former executive director of IBHE, prior to the development of the 1997 IAI agreement, transfer and articulation activities had not been clearly focused on curriculum because of minimal faculty involvement. One official and others that I interviewed believed that, in order to have successful agreements, all sectors of all institutions needed good faculty representation and strong leadership involved in articulation effects. Affirming the value of faculty participation, Palmer (1996) claimed that moving students among the colleges in the state required collaboration between the 2-year and 4-year college faculty. Such participation would allow for clarification in performance expectations by both types of institutions and ensure that students were not faced with unintended barriers to the transfer experience.

As a statewide agreement, IAI allows for discussions on curriculum among faculty members from public and private 2-year and 4-year institutions. Unfortunately, these discussions have been hampered by constant changes in faculty membership, relative infrequency of meetings, and uncertainty of purpose. An alternative process that might have proven to be more effective would be to allow continuing members who were aware of the fundamental purpose and process of the IAI agreement to initiate new members. For example, at one state-wide meeting, new panel members were instructed that the intent of IAI was not to negatively judge course syllabi, but to raise the standards of curriculum in the state. This example is indicative of how the original IAI goals of improving baccalaureate rates became blurred and distorted over the course of policy development.

The IBHE was committed to addressing the minority student transfer and graduation rate. Because baccalaureate degree attainment was higher for transfer students who had earned an associate degree, effective articulation of general education courses would potentially support the transfer process for minority students from community colleges while also facilitating their engagement and success at 4-year transfer institutions. An effective IAI policy should increase minority students’ chances of persisting to graduation, but I believe this goal became subverted as the discussions shifted to curriculum standards. In order to achieve buy-in from the 4-year institutions, curriculum standards were allowed a central place in discussions. In an attempt to mollify all institutions, the IBHE merged the initial goals of improving minority success with 4-year institution interest in providing program quality.

Comparable in Scope, Quality, and Intellectual Rigor: As IBHE was resurrecting former discussions on the state’s transfer and articulation problems, the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges (AACJC) Board of Directors declared 1990 as the “Year of the Transfer.” Almost 25 years later, Holaday and McCauley’s 2004 study found the overall articulation process was still characterized by a high degree of subjectivity and inconsistency in application among institutions. Sullivan (2005) identified this problem as stemming from time consuming maintenance issues that drain the resources of both 4-year and 2-year institutions. In addition, he claimed poorly executed articulation procedures are costly to students. The aforementioned researchers recommended improved communication as one way to address such problems.

Communication was a top priority for IAI during policy negotiation and early execution. Those involved in planning saw great value in bringing 4-year and 2-year institutions to the table to discuss curriculum comparability and acceptability. The intended impact was to eliminate poor practices in a number of institutions, according to an IBHE official who I interviewed. In addition, a problem emerged involving inconsistent policy application and execution among some universities with regard to general education programs. In some cases, institutional philosophies hindered practical application of the articulation agreement. The aim of IAI was to promote a grouping of general education courses that would be acceptable to every participating institution. Once again this same IBHE official noted that, given the magnitude of curricular diversity state-wide, compromise might result in the articulation of courses that would not necessarily replicate the curriculum in place at specific institutions.

In my experience as a community college practitioner, course comparability has always been an issue for community college administrators, faculty, and students. In spite of data showing high rates of success for community college transfer students (Glass & Harrington, 2002), my study revealed that transfer students from 4-year institutions were viewed more positively at receiving 4-year institutions than were community college students. As noted by Grossbach (1991), university faculty members at specific institutions have been known to impose transfer agendas over and above official articulation agreements because the faculty do not trust the quality of courses from the community college. This happens most frequently for general education programs. On the other hand faculty members at 4-year institutions have a vested interest in the content of community college courses. Transfer courses at community colleges provide incoming students with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed at 4-year institutions. Within disciplines transfer courses introduce students to a particular field. Success or failure in introductory courses in the major may determine whether a student will persist to complete a degree in that discipline. Transfer of credit becomes more complex when levels of rigor in course content differ and are aggregated into academic credentials prior to being received by the institution from which the student plans to graduate (Sullivan, 2005).

The level of academic rigor in course content at community colleges has been an issue for receiving institutions like the University of Illinois. The University viewed IAI guidelines as posing a potential risk for “lowering the bar” on their quality of education. One U of I official reported to me that the University initially believed goals for the new IAI policy included raising state curriculum standards, assuming the university could be assured that community college course content was equivalent in nature, content, and level to a University course. IAI guidelines, as set by the Illinois Community College Admission and Records Officers Organization (ICCAROO), did not consider this a requisite characteristic for articulation. My research suggests that, to date, the university continues to utilize an internal articulation guideline instead of accepting transfer courses in accordance with the statewide IAI agreement.

Once the concept of IAI was endorsed by 4-year institutions, those institutions were given broad representation on IAI faculty panels determining course comparability. This granted 4-year institutions powerful influence in determining course comparability with regard to academic scope, quality, and intellectual rigor.

Community colleges also had broad representation on faculty panels and their role necessitated remaining responsive to the dictates of 4-year institutions with regard to achieving course comparability through modification of scope, quality, and academic rigor of transferable courses. The IAI is an ongoing transfer policy and the relationship between the two types of institutions continues to reflect this issue. As the community colleges adjust, improve, restructure, amend, and incorporate new standards of curriculum according to the IAI guidelines, 4-year institutions adhere to internal institutional policy for course content. This study noted that even after community colleges comply with course content requirements established by 4-year institutions, the “senior” institutions have not been required to accept the resulting articulation as an equivalent for transfer.

This study illuminates problems dealing with the development and early implementation of IAI as a statewide policy. The initial impetus to create an effective statewide transfer and articulation policy was due to a general belief that sound transfer policies could improve baccalaureate degree attainment for students who start at a community college and transfer to a 4-year institution. Because community colleges provide the first two years of college for most minorities who seek higher education, improvements in the Compact Agreement were expected to increase enrollments of underrepresented groups at 4-year institutions. During the policy development phase of IAI, interest in upgrading state curricular standards became a focus. IAI has been perceived as the vehicle that moved better prepared community college students to the 4-year institutions but the question of impact on the ability of students to transfer remains unanswered.

In this article, I have identified a problem that developed during IAI policy formulation. The original goals for improving the effectiveness of articulation and eliminating barriers to transfer to reduce time-to-degree and offer students better opportunities for attaining a baccalaureate were allowed to waver. Achieving equal partnerships, faculty responsibility, and comparable courses, although valuable in guiding the initiative forward, proved to be difficult to sustain. The absence of quantitative data related to graduation rates post-IAI is perplexing. Fifteen years were dedicated to developing the IAI; it is time to measure the effects it has on student transfer processes and completion rates.

Why is an evaluation so important? On a larger scale, the Commission on the Future of Higher Education has held a series of meetings in the interest of developing a national strategy for higher education that will have an impact on the next 20 years (Cohen, 2006). So far, they have looked at cost, quality, and accountability, but their top priority is increasing college access and success for low-income minority students. The history of IAI reveals that IBHE was years ahead in addressing these issues. If, however, IBHE is still interested in improving baccalaureate degree attainment rates, then an evaluation of IAI benefits, strengths, and weaknesses should be the next step. Such information is imperative for bringing the initiative back to its intended purpose.

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Jane Sack is a counselor at Illinois Valley Community College. Readers with questions or comments regarding this article can reach the author at jane_sack@ivcc.edu.