Accounting Transfer Project Progress Report-Draft 6/1/05

Accounting Transfer Project Progress Report-Draft 6/1/05

Accounting Transfer Project – Progress Report

Draft June 1, 2005

Larry R. Selin, PhD

Project Coordinator

Office of the Chancellor

Jerry J. Johnson, EdD

Vice President, Learning and Academic Innovation

Hennepin Technical College

(Formerly, System Director, Program Collaboration and Transfer)

Table of Contents

Accounting Transfer Project Progress Report 3

Background 3

Overview 4

Transfer Oversight Committee 4

Announcement 4

Participants 5

Process 5

Outcomes 6

Follow-through 6

Recommended next steps 6

Appendices 7

Appendix A: Announcement Letter to CAOs, Fall 2004 8

Appendix B: Project Participants 10

Appendix C: Call for proposals to the colleges, 2-16-05 11

Appendix D: Report of the proposal review meeting, 4-22-05 13

Accounting Transfer Project Progress Report

The Accounting Transfer Project built on and extended longtime interests in improving transfer practice and outcomes for students and programs across the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System. The project took initial form from a steering committee meeting in September 2004 and was shaped throughout by university and college faculty members and administrators. Coordination and support from the Chancellor’s Office was provided by System Director Jerry Johnson and project coordinator Larry Selin.

Focus was on review of two-year accounting program courses proposed as equivalent to Principles of Accounting I & II (aka Financial and Managerial Accounting) courses at the seven state universities. These two courses are required for most baccalaureate business programs and include content commonly addressed in college accounting programs. Therefore, establishing and documenting these course equivalencies will clarify transfer alternatives for many students and ease the transfer process for students, student services personnel, and accounting faculty members.

Through the project, many new course equivalency agreements were approved and new ground was broken in developing a system-wide process for establishing new course equivalencies. At the time of this writing, new course equivalencies were being added to the DARS/CAS system, so this new information could be available to students and advisors across the state. Accordingly, students and college and university accounting programs may now benefit from increased student flow based on this new public information.

College accounting faculty members expressed appreciation for the opportunity to establish course equivalency agreements with all universities through one process. Likewise, the university accounting representatives commended the group process for the efficiency of being able to review many proposals at one time and the likely increased quality of decisions based on the group’s collective knowledge of the college programs across the state.

Recommendations were made to repeat a streamlined, refined second round of course reviews during Fall 2005 for re-submitted proposals and new proposals from other colleges. An adaptation of the process used herein may have value for other discipline areas with the potential to improve transfer practice and outcomes for many students.

This report continues with project background, overview of the process, and recommended next steps.

Background

The project started with and extended the work of the Faculty Accounting Discipline Committee that submitted its final report in May 2003.[1] That report included descriptions of the two first-year accounting courses and the criteria university representatives reported using for evaluating whether credits awarded from a 2-year college would be accepted. Several of the college and university faculty members who were leaders in the previous project were leaders in this project as well.

This project was also informed by surveys of college and university accounting faculty members conducted by the Chancellor’s office of Program Collaboration and Transfer during Fall 2003. Faculty members identified areas of concern and opportunities for improvement from their institutional perspectives.

During 2004, university initiatives added impetus for the project. Accounting transfer guidelines were drafted by Metropolitan State University for review by other institutions and Minnesota State University – Mankato offered to host a “transfer summit” conference on transfer issues and solutions. A confluence of factors served as the groundwork and impetus for this significant system-wide effort.

Overview

Moving beyond previous projects that yielded information and increased understandings, this present project developed and implemented a process that led to valued outcomes for students and accounting programs: new equivalency agreements and a process that can be refined and used again. Despite some notable differences among their programs, the university accounting program representatives emphasized common ground to create standard guidelines for proposals from college accounting programs. This overview highlights key components of the project’s process.

Transfer Oversight Committee

September 2004, needs for the accounting transfer project were discussed by a subset of the Transfer Oversight Committee that included faculty leadership from the Minnesota State College Faculty (MSCF) and Inter Faculty Association (IFO), and academic administrators[2]. After substantial sharing of information, endorsements were given to moving ahead with a project based on friendly amendments to a plan prepared by staff members of the Chancellor’s Office. MSCF and IFO leaders helped identify faculty participants.

In addition, MSCF President Larry Oveson conducted a survey of college accounting faculty members to solicit perspectives on whether the same accounting courses could both meet the needs of students focused on entering the workforce as “preparers” of financial documents and the needs of students in other business fields who would be “users” of the financial documents for analysis and decision-making. While faculty respondents were on both sides of the issue, many believed that both learning needs could be met by the same courses.

Announcement

October 2004, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs Linda Baer announced the project to all the college and university chief academic officers and presidents (Appendix A). Soliciting their leadership and support, she emphasized that “working to improve transfer between and among post-secondary colleges and universities remains one of the highest priorities for the Board of Trustees and our presidents.” The two-fold project purpose was expressed as:

1.  For institutions: To encourage/facilitate effective transfer agreements and practices among state colleges and universities—by improving clarity about accounting courses intended for transfer to four-year programs and about courses focused on immediate job skills and employment.

2.  For students and transfer advisors: To improve the accessibility and clarity of information about transfer options and how to exercise them.

Two weeks later, Jerry Johnson and Larry Selin conducted an informational session on Advancing Accounting Discipline Transfer Practices at the Fall retreat for academic and student affairs administrators (10/24/2004). Once again, need for such a project was broadly endorsed.

Participants

The primary project participants were university and college accounting faculty members from across the System. University accounting chairs performed lead roles because they typically are the evaluators of accounting course transfer requests for their respective campuses. They consulted and collaborated with college accounting faculty members who contributed historical perspectives on this project and practical experience teaching relevant college counterpart courses. Several academic administrators also contributed to the project. (Appendix B)

Process

Three project working meetings were conducted:

1. The first meeting (12/7/2004)[3] included representatives from each of the seven university accounting programs plus college accounting faculty members and academic administrators. Draft guideline for each of the first two accounting courses were developed for review and refinement by other accounting faculty members.
2. The second meeting (1/25/2005)[4] included additional college accounting faculty members for review of the course guidelines and information sharing. A third guidelines document was reviewed for Metropolitan State University, which has a different approach to their second course than the other universities. Timing for announcement of a call for course-equivalency proposals and for a review session was established.
3. April 4, 2005 – submission deadline for proposals
4. April 22, 2005 – work session to review proposals

February 2005, a call for proposals was distributed to all of the colleges (Appendix C), along with the revised course guidelines. All of the proposals and supporting materials were placed online for convenient access by the university reviewers.[5]

March 2005, project faculty members and coordinators Jerry Johnson and Larry Selin conducted an informational session for accounting faculty members at the Realizing Student Potential conference.

1. The third meeting (4/22/2005; Appendix D) was a work session for the university representatives to review proposals. The seven program representatives reviewed 37 course-equivalency proposals from 17 colleges, requiring 222 decisions.

Outcomes

The outcomes of the April 22 review session were that…

§  Of the 222 proposal decisions made by the program representatives, 182 (82%) proposals were approved; 40 (18%) proposals were not approved.

§  Of the 40 unapproved proposals, almost half (19) were associated with an approved variation on the original proposal such as approval of two college courses as equivalent to one university course or approval of two college courses as equivalent to two university courses.

§  Only 21 (9%) of the proposals were not approved in any way at this time. Resubmissions were anticipated.

Follow-through

After the review meeting, a summary table (Appendix D) of the approvals was broadly distributed and specific written comments from the reviewers were returned to those who submitted proposals. An opportunity for submission of revised proposals and new proposals from nonparticipating colleges was indicated.

To complete this chapter of the project, university accounting department chairs and institutional transfer specialists were encouraged to record the new equivalency agreements in the DARS/CAS system, so all students and advisors will have access to this new information.

Likewise, college accounting programs were encouraged to establish formal equivalencies with the applicable university and college courses.

Additional “follow-through” activities take the form of recommendations for next steps.

Recommended next steps

Coming out of the review process, the university faculty representatives recommended two next steps to facilitate additional course equivalencies and strengthened professional relationships among college and university accounting faculty members.

§  Faculty reviewers recommended that resubmitted proposals and proposals from additional colleges be scheduled for submission and review during October and November 2005. The reviewers reported that the group review process yielded efficiency in accomplishing many reviews in a concentrated period of time and yielded better decisions based on the knowledge of courses and programs contained within the review group.

§  Faculty reviewers suggested that the Chancellor’s Office coordinate a MnSCU-only pre-session to the annual Spring statewide conference for accounting educators. Such a session could allow college and university accounting faculty members to advance mutual understandings of their respective program goals and practices, and advance effective working relationships.

Moreover, as valued as increased numbers of course equivalencies and other agreements are, such opportunities must be communicated clearly for students and advisors to know about and take advantage of them. Therefore, …

§  It is recommended that websites managed by the Chancellor’s Office and institutions be reviewed for opportunities to improve clarity and ease of access to information about transferability of courses--using accounting courses for testing promising improvements. Of special interest is the possibility of adding links to transfer information from the institutional listings of course information.

Finally,

§  It is recommended that the approaches developed and used in this project be considered for use with other discipline areas warranting special attention—adapted, customized, and streamlined as appropriate.

Appendices

June 2005 Page 8 of 8

Accounting Transfer Project Progress Report-Draft 6/1/05

1. Announcement Letter to CAOs, Fall 2004
2. Project Participants
3. Call for proposals to the colleges, 2-16-05
4. Report of the proposal review meeting, 4-22-05

Appendix A: Announcement Letter to CAOs, Fall 2004

June 2005 Page 8 of 8

Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

MEMORANDUM

DATE: October 12, 2004

TO: Chief Academic Officers, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

FROM: Linda Baer, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Students Affairs

SUBJECT: Accounting Transfer Issues Project

This memorandum and the attached project plan is sent for the purpose of gaining increased administrative and faculty involvement and leadership in advancing transfer practices across the system. As you may know, working to improve transfer between and among post-secondary colleges and universities remains one of the highest priorities for the Board of Trustees and our presidents. We have committed resources both at the system level and at the college and university levels to support continuing focused discussions across disciplines. These efforts include specific discipline meetings, focused discussions during faculty development days, transfer specialist meetings, and a host of other efforts coordinated by the Program Collaboration and Transfer Office and the Center for Teaching and Learning which involves our statewide faculty leadership. These efforts underscore a philosophy that we can continue to improve transfer working in collaboration to identify and resolve issues. I know that our Chief Academic Officers play a key role in these efforts.

I also recognize that one of our ongoing challenges is the effort to improve transfer between and among our accounting programs. I am seeking your contributions and support for the Accounting Transfer Issues project being coordinated through the Program Collaboration and Transfer Office. The project team is composed of System Director Jerry Johnson, Program Manager Linda Lade, and consultant Larry Selin as project researcher and coordinator. The project will build on and extend the work of the previous accounting discipline committees. Guidance is provided by a Steering Committee composed of faculty association and academic administration representatives.

The project purpose is two-fold:

¨  For institutions: To encourage/facilitate effective transfer agreements and practices among state colleges and universities—by improving clarity about accounting courses intended for transfer to four-year programs and about courses focused on immediate job skills and employment.

¨  For students and transfer advisors: To improve the accessibility and clarity of information about transfer options and how to exercise them.

A primary project goal is to clarify expectations for first-year accounting courses acceptable for transfer to state university accounting and business programs. To the extent possible, the project will yield guidelines to aid state colleges in meeting the expectations of all seven state universities. Exceptions and special requirements will be documented. New transfer guideline information will be developed for accounting students, transfer specialists and advisors.

Jerry or Larry will be communicating more about the project shortly. Questions and suggestions should be directed to: Jerry Johnson, (651) 649-5987, ; Larry Selin, (651) 773-0333, .