UH Hilo Chancellor Rose Tseng and Hawai‘i Community College Chancellor Rockne Freitas sign the articulation agreement between the two campuses. The agreement ensures a student-friendly, virtually seamless process for transferring credit for courses taken at HCC to the UHH. Photo by William Ing/Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald covers the signing of the articulation agreement that will move university toward seamless transfer of students from the community college to UH Hilo four-year degree.

Summary:

Chancellors of Hilo’s community college and university signed an agreement Wednesday that’s designed to ease student transfers between the two centers of learning.

The agreement calls on faculty, advisors and department chairs to coordinate undergraduate courses so that students who transfer from Hawai‘i Community College to the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo will already be set on a course to graduation, rather than finding that courses they took at HCC don’t meet UHH degree requirements.

“Students who get an associate’s degree with us will know they won’t have to retake anything at the UHH. They’ll be full-fledged juniors,” said HCC Chancellor Rockne Freitas. “Our students will now have the confidence that the credits they completed and degree they earned will count.”

Chancellors signed the agreement during a traditional Hawaiian ceremony at the HCC campus.

The Degree Pathways Partnership Program will spell out the courses that students must take for a seamless transfer to the UHH College of Business and Economics and other programs. The agreement between the UHH College of Business and the HCC — the first to be signed — goes into effect this fall.

Articulation agreements for other programs are in the works. Faculty from Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies at the two campuses will meet to discuss expectations for first and second-year language courses so students transferring to the UHH will be able to go directly into junior-level course work. Another partnership is being discussed between the UH Hilo College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resource Management and HCC’s forestry program, with an eye to getting students on the way to a bachelor of science degree in forestry.

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