The Wisconsin Technical College System Board has approved Chippewa Valley Technical College’s proposed addition of a two-year liberal arts program, bringing the district one step closer to offering an Associate of Arts/Sciences transfer degree.

By state statute, the University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents also must give its approval before a technical college district is able to establish a collegiate transfer program. CVTC would be free to implement its proposed degree upon the approval of the Regents. It would be the first expansion of the technical college’s liberal arts transfer programming in decades.

The State Board had maintained a longstanding policy that prohibited expansion of collegiate transfer degrees beyond the three districts ( Milwaukee, Madison and Nicolet) allowed to offer liberal arts programming.

However, legislative action forced the State Board to revise its policy.

Representatives Jeff Wood and Senator Ron Brown introduced legislation in the summer of 2005 that would have resulted in the expansion of liberal arts transfer programs offered by technical college districts. The bill would have required the WTCS State Board to approve a liberal arts transfer program in any technical college district that does not have a UW two-year college within its boundaries. Three districts – Chippewa Valley, Gateway, and Western Wisconsin – have no UW two-year college within their boundaries.

The legislation did not pass. However, it did cause the State Board to re-examine its policies on collegiate transfer degrees. In late 2005, the State Board adopted a series of policy changes that cleared the way for all 16 technical college districts to offer collegiate transfer programs – pending State Board and UW Board of Regent approval. Chippewa Valley is the first district to bring a new collegiate transfer program forward.

It should be noted that state law requires that collegiate transfer credit hours can make up no more than 25% of the total credit hours offered by a technical college, thus capping the number of collegiate transfer credits a districts like Madison, Milwaukee, Nicolet – and now possibly Chippewa Valley – can offer.

The Associate of Liberal Arts/Sciences degree is akin to the first two years of a baccalaureate degree. It differs from the technical colleges’ main program degree – the Associate of Applied Sciences (AAS) – in that it typically requires at least 90% of coursework be in general education. The AAS degree has a much more significant emphasis on occupational and technical programming.

The Board of Regents is expected to act on the proposal in the near future.