{"id":7441,"date":"2014-06-04T10:25:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T10:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/04\/michigan-transf\/"},"modified":"2014-06-04T10:25:31","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T10:25:31","slug":"michigan-transf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/04\/michigan-transf\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Transfer Agreement (MTA)"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 5<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

A few weeks ago, I attended a “Regional Faculty Conversation” about the new Michigan Transfer Agreement (MTA), an effort to update and improve seamless transfer among Michigan’s community colleges and public colleges and universities. There were three such conversations across the state in three days. I attended the four-hour get-together at Washtenaw Community College along with approximately 50 faculty and administrators from other programs in SE Michigan (e.g., Jackson College, Schoolcraft, Washtenaw CC, Henry Ford, Wayne State, Saginaw Valley State, UM-Dearborn, and EMU). The new MTA is an update to MACRAO, which has been the acronym used to name a comparable agreement initiated 42 years ago (though not updated since) and also for the Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars & Admissions Officers.<\/p>\n

The MTA was approved by the state-wide Council of Presidents last September, and it is scheduled to begin this fall. According to those who led the conversation, the state legislature prompted the update to MACROA in 2011. Generally, the agreement is a good idea<\/em>. It is student-friendly and it stands to encourage efforts across two- and four-year colleges to make sure their lower division courses bear family resemblance. It brings Michigan into alignment with comparable efforts in other states. And it is long overdue. Forty-two years should not pass without such an agreement being revisited, but that’s the sort of thick-crust stagnation that becomes possible absent any high education authority in the state.<\/p>\n

I’m writing a bit about MTA, though, and translating my notes into this entry, because the agreement includes a significant change related to writing. This slide sums up that change. Additional materials from the meeting are available at the Michigan Center for Student Success website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Essentially, the highlighted lines indicate that the old agreement, MACRAO, required students to complete a two-course sequence in writing. MACRAO is clear about this point: students had to complete six credit hours in English Composition. The MTA, however, allows students to satisfy the agreement (and therefore, to become eligible for a full general education waiver) with one<\/em> composition course and a second course in composition or speech. The new requirement requires less<\/em> writing, and yet we are at the same time hearing continued pleas for more writing<\/em> on all sides, particularly among campus stakeholders.<\/p>\n

It might not seem like much, but this change creates conditions at odds with the design of first-year writing programs premised on a Comp I and Comp II sequence, in which Comp I offers foundational experience with writing in college and Comp II builds upon and extends those experiences to include research-based academic writing. The new MTA appears to create a path into the university along which students could satisfy general education never<\/em> having explicit, direct experience with research-based academic writing. Stop for a moment to consider this. I mean this as a fair characterization of what the MTA sets up, and I would urge caution before weighing in with axiological conclusions, tempting though they might be. Late last summer, Michigan WPAs wrote, signed, and sent a letter expressing concerns about this change, but the Council of Presidents approved the MTA and assented to its Fall 2014 implementation in spite of the request for more consideration of the change to writing and input from faculty colleagues with expertise, training, and experience in rhetoric\/composition\/writing studies and writing program administration.<\/p>\n

This preamble should be enough to catch others up on a few of the concerns that continuing faculty conversations might address.<\/p>\n