CUNY may cut Tier III minor requirements at Baruch

A proposal that is being drafted with the intention of improving transferability for students within the CUNY network may effectively eliminate the need for the Tier III Minor requirement within Baruch's curriculum.

Students often transfer to help complete their higher education. However, some face complications and hindrances. The biggest concern for any student who seeks to transfer, other than acceptance to the school in mind, is how well their current credits will transfer over.

Poor transferability can force a student to have to take additional credits in order to make up for the classes that are not accepted by their senior college, which can result in a delay in graduation.

Students can better plan their academic careers in a fashion that would minimize the impact of their transfer by working closely with an advisor and utilizing CUNY's Transfer Information & Program Planning System (TIPPS). But even with the information and guidance provided by such resources, the loss of credits is still felt heavily by students across the board.

According to Executive Vice Chancellor and Academic Officer Lexa Logue, CUNY believes students are being significantly penalized when they transfer from one college to another within CUNY.

She stated that students get credit for a course if the "sending" college can match a course to those offered at the "receiving" college; if there is no match, the student does not get credit, and since there is no clear definition of what a match is, students end up not receiving credit more often than not, hence the need for adjustment.

For students as well as faculty within the CUNY system alike, this has been an issue without any simple solution, so much so that the topic has recently made its way onto the agenda for the Faculty Senate Plenary Meeting that was held at the beginning of this month.

In Oct. 2010, Associate University Provost, Dr. Julia Wrigley, published a report titled ‘Improving Student Transfer at CUNY,' in which she outlined various problems, as well as potential solutions, in regards to transferability between CUNY colleges. Following the report's release, a subsequent proposal, which has yet to be finalized, was drawn up and released in January this year in an attempt to remedy the hardships students must bear by transferring between colleges.

The proposal resolves that a maximum of 36 credits of lower-division general education courses will become universal among CUNY, with baccalaureate programs able to add up to six additional credits at their own discretion.

This would make the maximum general education credits required by a senior CUNY college only 42 credits. Baruch historically requires approximately 62 general education credits depending upon a student's major.

Associate Professor of Computer Information Sciences at Baruch, William Ferns, wrote in an e-mail, "the draft proposal does not spell out its implications for the curriculum at Baruch or other CUNY campuses, but obviously, when one cuts down a general education core from 62 credits to 42 credits, 20 credits worth of curricular requirements go out the window."

Based on the minutes recorded from the Faculty Senate Plenary Meeting, Chairperson of the Faculty Senate, Professor Terrence Martell, stated that the proposal will have a noticeable impact on the Tier III minor, because by the proposal's definitions, there will not be room for it.