Making a smooth transition

Students who take business courses at Laramie County Community College now have the assurance that those courses will meet requirements for two specific bachelor’s degrees in business at the University of Wyoming, as a result of new articulation agreements between the two institutions.

The agreements between LCCC and the UW College of Business are the first of many program-level plans they expect to be struck as part of a concerted statewide effort to ease the transition for students moving from community colleges to the university.

“Faculty members at both our institution and the university are working diligently to keep students first,” said Dr. Jose Fierro, LCCC’s vice president for academic affairs.

The two new agreements are for UW bachelor’s degrees in accounting and business administration, though UW College of Business Interim Dean Dr. John Mittelstaedt said LCCC transfers pursuing degrees in management, marketing and finance also will benefit.

“For a student transferring from LCCC to UW, it will cut anywhere from a semester to a year from what it has been taking to complete a bachelor’s degree,” Mittelstaedt said.

The new agreements “level the playing field,” Fierro said, as students taking prescribed courses at LCCC now will see those courses count toward UW degree requirements.

“Our transfer students will finish at the same time as UW native students for years one through four,” Fierro said.

“It truly is a collaborative effort, and LCCC is a great partner to work with,” Mittelstaedt said. “Their faculty had been revising their curriculum, and it lined up really nicely with us.”

Fierro said UW and LCCC are just scratching the surface with the new agreements on two business degrees. He said that faculty members from both institutions are working closely to move additional agreements forward.

“This is an important thing to do for students, the state and our economy,” he said.

-Thank you to the University of Wyoming for help with the content of this article