Becoming a Georgetown graduate is now a very real opportunity for local community college students.
The university’s School of Continuing Studies reached an agreement earlier this month with Prince George’s Community College, located in Largo, Md., that makes it easier for PGCC students to enter Georgetown’s Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies program.
Under the new agreement – signed on Nov. 15 – Georgetown will provide academic advising to PGCC students, focusing on which courses students should take for a smooth transfer of credits to Georgetown’s BALS program. The agreement became effective immediately.
The BALS program, which is run by the SCS, provides students with the ability to study one out of a possible 17 areas of concentration, including social and public policy and international affairs.
Robert Manuel, SCS dean, said that the new agreement would make students more aware of their options, with the goal that students could better plan their schedules if they intend to continue their studies after PGCC.
“This partnership is one opportunity to connect the educational attainment pipeline and to provide a Georgetown education to a greater number of students,” he said. “The articulation agreement allows the students at PGCC to see how they can accomplish their dream of earning a bachelor’s degree. It removes some administrative obstacles to their ultimate goal of earning a degree.”
Students who successfully earn a two-year associates degree from PGCC would be able complete to complete their bachelor’s degree if accepted into the program.
Vincent Kiernan, an assistant dean in the SCS who oversees the BALS program, said that in recent months administrators from both Georgetown and PGCC determined which classes transfer from PGCC to Georgetown, as not every course at PGCC counts toward degree credit at Georgetown.
“We approached PGCC to see if they would be interested in this kind of partnership and they were very receptive. We negotiated terms over a period of two or three months,” Kiernan said.
There are already around a dozen graduates from PGCC who have decided to pursue a BALS at Georgetown, Kiernan said.
Georgetown also created, as part of the agreement, an annual scholarship that will be provided to a PGCC student to pursue a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies. Seon Wilburg, who graduated from PGCC in May, was named the first recipient of the scholarship – the John Lafarge Scholarship.
Kiernan said that while there are other similar agreements around the US between universities and local community colleges, this partnership is the first of its kind at Georgetown.
“We do hope to develop future relationships with nearby schools, but we are just in the starting phase now,” he said.
Manuel said that the agreement will further SCS’s mission of providing outreach to local students who are older than traditional students.
“The mission is to serve nontraditional learners in the D.C. area. SCS’s mission is to take the heritage and traditions of Georgetown and infuse them into all of our academic programming,” he said.
