IU, Ivy Tech make good deal for Hoosiers
 
Herald-Times Editorial

An agreement announced Thursday that lets students move directly from a two-year degree at Ivy Tech Community College to a four-year program at Indiana University is good news for many reasons.

Months if not years of work and negotiations have led to this "articulation agreement," which applies to degrees in general studies. Officials at both IU and Ivy Tech expressed hope this is just the first of many such agreements and other joint projects.

Outgoing IU Chancellor Sharon Brehm and Ivy Tech Chancellor John Whikehart were instrumental in putting the deal together. It wasn't an easy task, although the outcome was logical and precedents existed. Other IU campuses have had degree articulation agreements with Ivy Tech campuses, but no such agreement existed in Bloomington - mainly because IU Bloomington faculty members were concerned that Ivy Tech courses might not be as rigorous as similar courses at IU.

Now, students who earn Ivy Tech's new associate of science degree in general studies will be able to transfer course credits toward a bachelor of science degree in general studies at Indiana University.

Ivy Tech wins, because its students will now be better able to use that school as a place to launch a four-year college education.

IU stands to win because it will have a new pool of serious students from which to draw, and because it can overcome some hard feelings in the General Assembly from legislators who have thought IU's resistance to such agreements in Bloomington were unreasonable and elitist.

As Brehm said, it is now important to evaluate the performance of Ivy Tech students who move on to IU to make sure they have been well prepared for success. We're confident they will be.

The biggest winners of all are the people of south-central Indiana, who now have easier access to higher education and more options for preparing themselves for a changing world.

IU and Ivy Tech clearly have different missions, but the more they can work together the better they can serve Hoosiers.