Story By Dottie Witter
OSU News Bureau
email; dottie@okstate.edu

OSU, NOC Sign Academic Agreements for Career and Technical Education Program

Beginning with the Spring 2005 semester, OSU-Oklahoma City and Northern Oklahoma College students will find it easier to turn their technical associate degrees into bachelor's of education degrees from OSU-Stillwater.

OSU System CEO and President David J. Schmidly, OSU-OKC President Jerry Carroll and NOC President Joe Kinzer met Dec. 13 in Stillwater to sign memorandums of understanding with the School of Teaching and Curriculum Leadership in OSU’s College of Education. These academic agreements will make it easier for the two-year graduates to transfer their credits to OSU-Stillwater to earn bachelor’s degrees in Career and Technical Education to teach technical subjects.

“These cooperative agreements will greatly benefit students by providing for a smooth transition from OSU-OKC or NOC to complete their degrees in Career and Technical Education at OSU-Stillwater and by providing new options within that degree area,” said Dr. Pamela Fry, interim dean of the OSU College of Education.

The articulation agreements will provide the model for future expansion to offer the opportunity for other Oklahoma two-year institutions to fashion similar pathways for their students, according to Dr. Reynaldo Martinez, coordinator of OSU’s Occupational Education Studies. “These changes indicate a willingness on the parts of President Joe Kinzer of NOC and President Jerry Carroll of OSU-OKC to make a smooth pathway from their institutions to OSU-Stillwater,” he said.

Martinez, who has worked on the agreement program with OSU-OKC and NOC for almost two years, said the degree program was approved by the regents last spring, and it takes one year to officially offer the new certification programs.

The agreement came about because of a need for career and technical teacher preparation programs in Oklahoma, Martinez said, since many programs have been discontinued at regional universities during the past 10 years.

“This has meant that teachers had to be hired through alternative certification, which does not contain strong teacher preparation,” he said.

Under the new agreements, students who matriculate could earn a bachelor's degree in Career and Technical Education as well as be recommended for credentials to teach technical subjects in Oklahoma junior high schools, high schools, and career technology centers. The new areas of certification will be in health occupations, technology education, marketing education, and business and information technology education.

Martinez praised the administrations of the two-year schools for their willingness to modify their current associate degree programs to strengthen the academic requirements so that transferring students have to take fewer general education courses at OSU.

OSU-OKC, for example, anticipates having a new associate of applied technology degree with specific options to match the four areas of certification. NOC has modified its technical associate degree programs to add more academic general education courses so that students will have to take fewer credits upon transferring to OSU-Stillwater.

“These new areas of certification are tied to the modified undergraduate degree that is now entitled Career and Technical Education, which was formerly the bachelor’s in Technical and Industrial Education,” Martinez said. Master's and doctoral degrees are also available with an option in Occupational Education Studies.

Martinez expects to see a substantial growth in OSU-Stillwater’s undergraduate programs because of these agreements, and said he conservatively expects between 20 and 30 students to matriculate each year from each school.

“The same programs are available for all four years at OSU-Stillwater,” he said. “This is just a different pathway for students who wish to start at other schools.”

OSU Occupational Education Studies faculty Dr. Brian Sanford, Dr. Lynna Ausburn, Dr. Mary Jo Self, and Dr. Reynaldo Martinez.

Photo by Bret Bradford

Witnessing the signing the of the memorandums of understanding for the bachelor’s degree in Career and Technical Education are, seated from left: Dr. Pamela Fry, interim dean for the OSU College of Education; Dr. Roger Stacy, NOC vice president for academic affairs; Dr. Joe Kinzer, president of Northern Oklahoma College; Dr. David J. Schmidly, OSU System CEO and president; Dr. Jerry Carroll, president of OSU-OKC; Dr. Larry Edwards, OSU-OKC vice president for academic affairs; and Dr. Marlene Strathe, OSU provost and senior vice president; and standing, Dr. Neal Willison, OSU-OKC division head of engineering; Dr. Reynaldo L. Martinez Jr., OSU occupational education studies coordinator; Dr. Margaret Scott, interim head of the OSU School of Teaching and Curriculum Leadership; and Dr. Phil Berkenbile, state director for the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education.