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NEWS
| April 22
Admissions
TCC to sign agreement with UTA
The schools will sign the 5-year
memorandum, which will ease the transfer process. TCC will also
begin to encourage students to attend UTA.
By Danny
Woodward
Contributor to The Shorthorn
When she left Tarrant County College last
spring, Angela Cowin came to school here because it was “an
obvious choice.”
Were she leaving TCC now, however, Cowin might be pushed here because
of an agreement the two institutions will enact next week.
On April 29, administrators from UTA and TCC will sign a so-called
“memorandum of understanding.” Under the agreement, counselors
at the junior college will steer outgoing students toward UTA, while
admissions representatives here will visit TCC campuses more regularly.
“It makes really good sense,” said Cowin, an English junior.
“I think most advisers [at TCC] base their decision on what
to recommend on the individual student.”
The five-year agreement will change that: The junior college will
encourage those completing associate degrees to enroll here as quickly
as possible.
Also, UTA recruiters will visit TCC campuses at least once per semester
to distribute information, including transfer scholarships. The
institutions will also exchange student data to streamline the transfer
process and minimize the loss of credit hours. And both schools
will rely on the Internet to enhance advising.
Mark Escamilla, the associate director of student enrollment services
at TCC, said the junior college will tailor its curriculum to better
fit UTA’s basic course load.
That’s been going on all along, he said, but next week’s
agreement is “a broader agreement between the schools in the
transfer of courses.”
Interim President Charles Sorber said he hopes the plan will mean
more transfer students here.
Last fall, 787 students from TCC transferred here, which is a quarter
of UTA’s total transfer population and the largest matriculation
of TCC students to any four-year university. Tarrant County College
is UTA’s nearest junior college neighbor, with two campuses
in Fort Worth and one in both Arlington and Hurst.
“We’re talking about a very substantial number of our
students who are going to UTA,” Escamilla said. “And so
there’s obviously very substantial relationships between the
two institutions. It’s very important that both institutions
really work together to enhance opportunities for students on both
sides.”
There’s a history of cooperation between the county’s
only public higher-education institutions. In February 2002, officials
here announced an agreement with the state’s three largest
junior college systems, including TCC, that allows students with
associate of applied science degrees to transfer as many as 24 hours
of technical coursework toward a bachelor’s in interdisciplinary
studies.
The new understanding coincides with the Closing the Gap initiative,
a state-instituted plan aimed at enhancing opportunities at Texas’
public universities for students with two-year degrees.
— Staff writer Brad Rollins contributed to this report.
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