Students in Catholic Pacific College’s (CPC) new liberal arts diploma will now be able to transfer their credentials to UFV to finish a bachelor’s degree.
“It’s a block transfer agreement for students from Catholic Pacific College’s liberal arts diploma to transfer to UFV’s bachelor of arts or our bachelor of general studies,” Alisa Webb, UFV associate dean of students, college of arts, said.
The agreement will allow students in CPC’s program transfer to UFV either halfway through their program after their first year, or after completing the two-year program.
“The agreement includes course-to-course articulation so they can bring those courses into the program, or they can finish there and then come here for their last two years,” Webb explained.
Students don’t need to be in a university that has a block transfer agreement to apply to transfer to UFV, but Webb said that the agreements streamline an otherwise daunting process.
“All of this is currently possible, it’s just so much more work,” she said. “If it’s not within the B.C. public school system then that students has to provide a course syllabus, for example, to have their courses evaluated. So it makes it a very onerous process for students to get credit for the work they’ve done.”
The block agreement isn’t UFV’s first, and a similar one was put in place last year with Columbia Bible College, but as a new college, this is the first agreement for CPC. CPC is a partner of Trinity Western University and this is the first year the liberal arts diploma program has been offered.
“They came looking for partners where they could send their students other than just Trinity Western, and approached UFV,” Webb explained. “They had spoken with the president and the vice president a couple years ago and then met with myself and our associate vice president academic and I started working on the agreement.”
Webb noted that CPC’s program aligned with UFV’s recent revisions to the bachelor of arts.
“The liberal arts diploma at CPC really mirrors the direction we’ve taken the BA in: a lot of emphasis on community engagement, intercultural, critical thinking,” she said. “It’s a lovely program: quantitative and scientific literacy, philosophy, lots on English literature, media and communications. It’s a really exciting diploma so it fits well with what is here.”
Since the program is currently wrapping up its first year, students from CPC will be able to transfer starting in September.
“They’re in their first year so we would just be seeing the first crop that might want to transfer early, otherwise next year will be the big push,” Webb said. “What this does is it ensures the courses that they’ve already taken are recognized within the system.”
