By Cole Hatcher
Exciting news this week in higher education in Ohio!
Ohio Wesleyan University is part of a new consortium that will bring together 14 independent colleges and universities and 10 community colleges across Ohio to create pathways for community college students to earn four-year bachelor’s degrees in English, psychology, and biology.
The new “Ohio Consortium for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts” is being created with leadership from The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and The Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges (OFIC) and funded with a newly awarded grant from the Teagle Foundation and Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
In announcing the grant, CIC President Richard Ekman said: “Private colleges and universities offer community college students a proven pathway to successfully completing bachelor’s degrees. CIC’s member institutions are proud to contribute to the national priority of increasing degree completion rates for students who begin their academic careers at community colleges.”
Project Director Winnie Gerhardt said the Ohio Consortium for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts will build on a solid foundation for community college transfer in the state.
“A strength of the transfer landscape in Ohio is the commitment of community colleges to helping their students transition to baccalaureate degrees and the many individual partnerships and articulation agreements they have forged with independent colleges and universities to achieve this goal,” Gerhardt said.
To create the new consortium, CIC and OFIC will draw on the existing relationships and mutual trust among participating institutions to design clear, consistent pathways to a bachelor’s degree at any of the participating institutions. It will work to address current issues, including a need for comprehensive advising and for smoother credit transfer among the two- and four-year institutions.
Ohio Wesleyan is pleased to join the new consortium to continue to support community college students seeking to transfer to OWU to earn their bachelor’s degrees, said Provost Karlyn Crowley.
“We want the transfer process to be as seamless as possible for students and for them to be confident they will be able to thrive at Ohio Wesleyan and achieve their goals,” Crowley said.
Ohio Wesleyan already has an admission counselor dedicated to working with transfer students and a 2+2 program with Columbus State University that includes established pathways in 15 academic areas ranging from accounting to English to psychology.
Learn more about transferring to Ohio Wesleyan at owu.edu/transfer and more about the new Ohio Consortium for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts, including a complete participant list, at www.ofic.org/news/transfer-pathways.
