UNION COUNTY, NJ — Kean University has bolstered its longtime relationship with Union County College through the signing of a joint admissions agreement that will ease the transition to the four-year institution in Union from the two-year school.
“Union County College is an important education partner for Kean University, and this agreement continues that strong tradition,” Kean University President Dawood Farahi said in a recent press release. “With these additional direct transfer programs, we are making it easier for Union graduates to pursue their educational goals and attain Kean’s world-class and affordable education.”
The arrangement will allow students pursuing certain degrees at UCC to be provisionally admitted to Kean.
After achieving a two-year associate’s degree at UCC, graduates will be accepted to Kean without an application review and be given full status as juniors upon transfer to Kean.
Credits will be transferred upon admission to undergraduate programs at Kean, including those in chemistry, criminal justice, early childhood and elementary education, history and theater.
According to Kean, the number of credits transferred cannot exceed 50 percent of the bachelor’s degree requirements, and the transfer of courses will be subject to Kean’s program requirements.
Additional courses and those required for a major will be taken at Kean.
And for credits to transfer, students must have achieved a grade of at least a 2.0.
The agreement essentially works to save transfer students time and money by equating courses at UCC to those at Kean, according to Kean spokeswoman Margaret McCorry in a Nov. 6 email to LocalSource.
“From their first year at Union, students know the course requirements for their field of study and can keep themselves on track and moving toward a Kean University four-year bachelor’s degree,” she said.
UCC President Margaret McMenamin also noted the benefit for UCC students.
“We are excited that this agreement strengthens our already existing relationship and helps our students,” McMenamin said.
During the past two years, Kean was named to the Phi Kappa Theta college honor society’s transfer honor roll for its cooperation arrangements with community colleges.
The new agreement is only the latest in joint admissions agreements between the two institutions, and marks the second joint admissions agreement Kean has signed with a local community college in the past few months.
In early October, Kean and Middlesex County College reached a similar deal to allow the transfer of students from that school in various degree programs, including: biology, psychology, accounting and business.
Three years ago, UCC chose to partner with Kean in promoting the retention, graduation and transfer rates of Hispanic and low-income students.
UCC is a federally designated Hispanic-serving institution or HSI, and because of that designation, the school received a five-year, $3.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
The grant allowed for the opportunity of partnership between UCC and Kean to push and support HSI eligible students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, commonly known as STEM.
“The funding will be used to develop a multifaceted program focusing on increasing the success rates of Hispanic college students in STEM,” McMenamin said in a 2014 press release.
“Union selected Kean University as its four-year college partner to implement this program based on the two institutions’ dynamic ability to serve this unique population through this grant and other initiatives.”