Effective Practices for Local Implementation of TMCs - An Academic Senate White Paper

In 2010, Senate Bill 1440 (Padilla) authorized and set the parameters for the creation of transfer-focused associate degrees within the California community colleges. Follow-up legislation in 2013 (Senate Bill 440, Padilla) established additional mandates regarding these degrees. Designing degrees that are consistent with SB 1440 and that fulfill the mandates of SB 440 requires the involvement of discipline faculty, curriculum chairs, articulation officers, and counselors as well as other college personnel who play a role in ensuring that the students of the California Community Colleges (CCCs) are well-served. The process of creating an Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT), begins with developing a structure for the central component (i.e., major or area of emphasis) of an associate degree. This faculty-developed structure, known as a Transfer Model Curriculum (TMC), is vetted intersegmentally and adopted statewide and is then used by the CCC Chancellor’s Office to create a template (Chancellor’s Office Template or COT) that local colleges complete when submitting their TMC-aligned degrees to the Chancellor’s Office for approval. Thus, the process begins with statewide faculty development of a TMC and ends with the local implementation of that TMC in the form of an ADT. Local faculty engagement is critical to the overall success of the process, beginning with ensuring that the TMC will serve students across the state well and ending with the creation of a degree intended to meet the needs of each college and its population.