Articulation Committees
The primary purpose of articulation committees is to facilitate student mobility and credit transfer by maintaining collaborative relationships among disciplinary colleagues throughout the system. Members normally meet once each year to share information on (for example): curricular matters, course content, student evaluation, teaching methodologies, program changes, course equivalencies, and transfer relationships among member institutions.
Articulation committees have a responsibility to maintain contact with BCCAT, to report changes in their leadership structure, to meet regularly, and to submit meeting minutes in a timely fashion. In 2009-10, 79% of approved articulation committees submitted meeting minutes and 70% reported their meeting dates and/or changes in leadership. In 2010-11 these percentages increased to 87% and 85% respectively.
There are 68 articulation committees currently approved by the Transfer and Articulation Committee (TAC) and operating under the sponsorship of BCCAT. The Articulation Coordinator, Raili McIvor, assumes general responsibility for these committees, including communicating with their chairs/co-chairs, disseminating information, and ensuring they have the support and resources they require to operate effectively.
Staff members attended 20 articulation committee meetings this year and also responded to requests for information and support from many others. Minutes submitted for the 2010 meetings can be found on the committee web pages.
PROFILE:Mathematics/Statistics Articulation CommitteeMany committees existed long before BCCAT assumed oversight of them in 1989. The Mathematics/Statistics articulation committee (also called the British Columbia Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics and Statistics, or BCcupms) had its first meeting in 1967 where six BC institutions were represented. Now the membership includes representatives from about 30 of the BC Transfer System’s 39 member institutions as well as from BC secondary schools. The committee also includes representatives from the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, the BC Association of Mathematics Teachers, the Ministry of Education, and the ABE Mathematics Articulation Committee. As one of the largest and longest-serving articulation committees, Mathematics/Statistics has completed several BCCAT-sponsored projects to address transfer issues in its discipline. In 2002 the committee published the First-Year Core Calculus report which was intended to address challenges in transferring calculus courses within and between BC institutions. Differences in entry requirements, topic sequence, and topic placement made it difficult for students to transfer or apply credit for calculus courses. To facilitate transferability in this area, a subcommittee developed a core curriculum for each of two first-year calculus streams, Science Calculus and Social Science/Business Calculus, which was adopted unanimously by the BCcupms. Mathematics/Statistics was also one of the first articulation committees to explore the development of a Flexible Pre-Major; the final report Mathematics Flexible Pre-Major Analysis Project was published in 2006 and updated in 2008. Full reports of their BCCAT-sponsored projects, committee meeting minutes, and contact information is on BCCAT’s articulation committee web pages. The Mathematics/Statistics articulation committee has also completed a number of projects outside of the sponsorship of BCCAT’s Transfer Innovations fund. All are devoted to promoting articulation and best practice in the discipline. Examples include Necessary Skills for First-Year Math Courses, Math for Elementary Educators, and the Shared Calculus Readiness Exam. Project reports and other information are maintained on the Mathematics/ Statistics committee’s own web site at bccupms.ca. |
