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PCC Ranks Number One in Associate Degree for Transfers Awarded

Published on Monday, January 12, 2015 | 10:59 am
 

More students at Pasadena City College graduated last year with an Associate Degree for Transfer than at any other community college in the state, according to data compiled by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

For the 2013-2014 academic year, the college awarded 435 ADTs – a number that places PCC atop the 113-member California Community Colleges system in conferring ADTs.

“I am extremely grateful and proud of our faculty, staff, and managers for the manner in which they responded to this challenge,” said Dr. Robert Miller, PCC interim superintendent-president. “I am particularly proud of our students for their great accomplishment. They are extraordinary in many, many ways.”

Dubbed “A Degree a Guarantee,” an ADT is comprised of Associate in Arts and Associate in Science for Transfer degrees. Both were formed in 2011 after the passage of Senate Bill 1440, the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act that gives students with an ADT priority admission with junior standing to any California State University campus.

The ranking serves as a milestone for PCC’s implementation of SB1440, a vast undertaking initiated three years ago. The process involved multiple areas within the campus, namely the Academic Senate, Counseling, faculty, the College Council, Admissions and Records, and the Board of Trustees.

“PCC’s success in the area of degree completion and transfer is the result of campus-wide collaboration and hard work,” said Dr. Kathleen Scott, PCC associate vice president of Academic Affairs. “Our faculty, staff, and managers are committed to our students’ success and are gratified to see the results.”

After the passage of SB1440, the Chancellor’s Office set a statewide goal for each campus in ADT target-certified offerings by Fall 2014. PCC’s group effort resulted in the creation of 17 active ADT disciplines, which meets the Chancellor’s target goal by 100 percent.

“It was a concentrated effort that resulted in great rewards: a record number of degrees awarded to our PCC students,” said Dr. Cynthia Olivo, associate vice president of Student Services. “We should be very proud.”

Roughly 50,000 community college students transfer annually to the CSU system. Historically, most students transferred with an average of 80 semester units when only 60 are required. Then, upon arrival at a CSU, students often take excess units to make up for courses that did not transfer from their community college.

The ADT program was created to streamline the process and create a direct pathway into the CSU system.

“The program is great because it motivates students to head into the direction they need to go,” said Glycell Robledo, a PCC freshman from Pasadena High School who plans to transfer to a CSU. “It provides a clear path.”

Samuel Hernandez, a PCC sophomore, will be graduating this summer with an AS-T degree in Administration of Justice. “When I started here, the counselors gave me a basic outline in what classes I needed to take to transfer,” he said. “It was a lot of hard work. But coming to PCC made it a lot easier to achieve my goal than if I had gone somewhere else.”

This fall, Hernandez plans to transfer to Cal State Los Angeles where his sister, Priscilla, attended. Priscilla graduated from PCC with an AA-T degree in Psychology in 2012 and now has a bachelor’s degree from CSULA.

“I made the right choice in going to PCC,” Priscilla said. “It’s a great school.”

Since 2011, more than 1,600 new transfer degrees have been developed by California community colleges, according to the Chancellor’s Office. For the 2013-2014 academic year, 11,839 ADTs were conferred – more than double the amount from the previous year.

“This has been an extremely successful undertaking and will be a tremendous benefit to students in the future,” Chancellor Brice W. Harris said in a memorandum to all community colleges in December.

For more information about PCC’s ADT program, please visit www.pasadena.edu/academicprograms/transfer-degree.cfm.

 

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