Joint WEAC/AFT-WI Survey:
AAS Restructuring and Statewide Curriculum

Background
In early to mid-January, WEAC and AFT-WI faculty bargaining unit presidents distributed email invitations to take online survey.

To date, 959 respondents completed the 17-question survey.

Total respondents in each district numbered in the double-digits. There was a high of 157 respondents at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

A total of 320 individuals provided responses of varying lengths to the survey’s open-ended question, which asked respondents for their comments on the AAS restructuring and implementation of statewide common curriculum.

Preliminary Results
Of respondents who expressed an opinion:

70.4 percent either strongly opposed or opposed the AAS restructuring plan (calculation excludes 283 respondents who answered ‘No Opinion’).

64.9 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed that ALL WTCS’s AAS students be REQUIRED to take ‘baccalaureate rigor’ general education coursework (calculation excludes 67 respondents who answered ‘No Opinion’).

78.8 percent agreed or strongly agreed that the system should offer general education courses at various levels of rigor and allow student to choose which levels best meet their individual educational objectives (calculation excludes 47 respondents who answered ‘No Opinion’).

63.5 percent opposed or strongly opposed conversion of associate degree programs into technical diplomas (calculation excludes 161 respondents that answered ‘No Opinion’).

86.5 percent opposed or strongly opposed the 68 credit maximum and general education minimum IF these changes were to result in the elimination of occupation and technical coursework (calculation excludes 108 respondents that answered ‘No Opinion’).

89.4 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed that they had been “sufficiently and meaningfully involved in the decisions related to the restructuring of the AAS degree” (calculation excludes 134 respondents that answered ‘No Opinion’).

96.9 percent agreed or strongly agreed that statewide curriculum projects should allow individual programs the flexibility necessary to respond to unique district needs and advisory committee input while allowing faculty the flexibility to meet student needs (calculation excludes 24 respondents that answered ‘No Opinion’).

87.1 percent agreed or strongly agreed that they could “support statewide curriculum projects if standardization was limited only to the implementation of statewide competencies, leaving professional faculty the discretion to design the learning activities they feel most appropriate” (calculation excludes 75 respondents that answered ‘No Opinion’).

Related Links:
MATC Student Editorial Opposes Redesign of AAS Degree