Even with hundreds of transfer agreements signed between Chattanooga State and UTC and a state law mandating student transfers, Chattanooga State officials say UTC still hasn’t fully committed to protecting two-year transfer students from having to repeat classes.
So Chattanooga State Community College President Jim Catanzaro is pushing for a new agreement. This one, he says, could end more than a decade of disputes between the two schools and silence some University of Tennessee at Chattanooga faculty who have fought against crediting some community college classes they consider subpar.
“I think (this agreement) will be the critical milestone,” Dr. Catanzaro said. “This will allow us to have a relationship that we haven’t had historically.”
The agreement, yet to be signed by UTC officials, effectively would force the four-year school to accept all the premajor classes students earned at Chattanooga State, allowing them to enter individual majors as full-fledged juniors.
That would mean that UTC programs such as art, which traditionally have required students transferring from Chattanooga State to backtrack and take sophomore-level classes, would have to change their requirements.
But some faculty say the two schools don’t need to sign another piece of paper. They need to agree on standards, specifically in skilled-based programs such as art and foreign language, that will bring programs in step with one another, said Victoria Steinberg, UTC faculty Senate president.
“I think having a blanket admission policy would pose some problems,” Dr. Steinberg said. “The preparation, while legitimate, might not be targeted to the same goals that we would have for our rising juniors. I think that is where the rub comes.”
Chattanooga State students make up only one-third of UTC’s transfer population, but UTC officials said they want to do all they can to create a seamless transition from school to school.
Still, they said they are waiting before they make another agreement with Chattanooga State. Higher education officials statewide have been meeting to form comprehensive agreements on pre-major requirements in business, psychology and communications.
“It is premature for us to sign an institution-to-institution agreement until we know more about how the entire state is moving forward together,” UTC Chancellor Roger Brown said.
In the meantime, Dr. Catanzaro said students at Chattanooga State are left with uncertainty about what premajor requirements will be credited to students who make the move to UTC.
Waiting for a statewide plan is delaying what is right for students, he said.
“We have had systemwide agreements in the past that haven’t changed the on-the-ground relationships,” Dr. Catanzaro said. “I think something specific is required here.”
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