Background
The Intersegmental Major Preparation Articulated Curriculum (IMPAC) Project originated
in the Intersegmental Committee of Statewide Academic Senates (ICAS) of the California
Community College (CCC), University of California (UC), and California State University
(CSU) systems. IMPAC is a unique faculty project designed to assist the student transfer
process from the community colleges to the UC and CSU systems in their chosen major.
The project is funded by a $2.75 million grant that supports for five years the development
of an infrastructure for faculty from the three higher education systems to meet
regionally at regular intervals to discuss issues, concerns, and academic procedures
that impinge upon the transfer process for students between the community college
and the UC and CSU systems. Specifically, the grant funds faculty discipline and
interdiscipline dialogues that address prerequisite and lower division courses students
must complete prior to transfer to either the CSU or UC systems.
Goals and Purposes of the Project
IMPAC is expected to continue as long as articulation is needed among the higher
education systems. The goal of IMPAC is for faculty in the disciplines, through regional
and statewide meetings, to come to a common understanding of lower-division, major
preparation that serve as prerequisites to upper-division work at UC and CSU campuses.
Faculty review, revise and update prerequisite and lower-division course requirements
for the major and seek to define the content areas, competencies, skills, and experiences
transferring students must have to compete successfully at the upper division level.
Resultant course descriptions will serve as the basis for articulation among UC,
CSU, CCC and other institutions so that students may smoothly transfer in a manner
that assures both full preparation and complete credit for courses completed. The
goals of the IMPAC project include:
- Reaching intersegmental consensus
on the required elements to be included in the lower division preparation for the
major;
- Working with other intersegmental
transfer efforts: the California Articulation Numbering (CAN) project, Articulation
System Stimulating Interinstitutional Student Transfer (ASSIST), Intersegmental General
Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC), GE-Breadth/IGETC, the CSU Regional Core Alignment
Project, and the community college organizations of counselors, articulation officers,
and transfer center coordinators;
- Increasing transferability of
students between system campuses and between the three higher education systems,
and
- Decreasing the time to degree
for students.
IMPAC also seeks to increase intersegmental
faculty collaboration, strengthen the alignment of curriculum and the rigor of its
delivery, build trust among faculty of the three segments, and better serve students
whose education is a shared mission of both the sending and receiving institutions.
As a result of IMPAC, ICAS hopes to improve student transfer through increased awareness
and involvement of faculty and ensure that all students are well prepared for upper-division
work. Students should be able to avoid unnecessary course work prior to transfer,
assure that all required courses are taken before transfer, and not have to repeat
courses taken successfully at the community college in preparation for the major.
Process
The IMPAC project over the next five years will create an effective infrastructure
within and between academic disciplines. IMPAC has grouped the range of available
transfer majors into five broad areas or "clusters" of disciplines. These
five discipline areas are listed below. Each year additional disciplines will be
added until all disciplines are included. These grouped clusters of disciplines generally
reflect the overlap of prerequisites for a given major. Thus, in Science Cluster
1, students majoring in physics commonly will need pre-transfer work in mathematics
to be eligible for the major. Biology majors need mathematics, as well as some chemistry
and physics, to be successful as biology majors. Majors in Applied Sciences (Cluster
2) build upon the core courses of Cluster 2. Thus, the interdisciplinary discussions
cross clusters as well as disciplines.
2000 Sciences (Cluster 1): biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
2001 Applied Sciences (Cluster 2): agriculture, computer science, earth sciences,
food science/nutrition, and nursing.
2002 Business and Government (Cluster 3): computer information systems, criminal
justice, business, economics, and political science. In addition, the Steering Committee
has determined that the engineering and geography disciplines should commence discussions
in year 2002.
2003 Social & Behavioral (Cluster 4): anthropology, geography, history, psychology
(including human development), and sociology.
2004 Language (Cluster 4): English, ESL, foreign languages, communications/ speech,
and journalism.
2005 Arts & Humanities (Cluster 5): art/fashion/interior design, theater arts,
humanities, music, and philosophy.
