The Tie That Binds: Exploring Community College Curriculum Design

More students are beginning their college careers at community colleges before completing degrees at four-year institutions. As enrollments swell at these two-year institutions, issues surrounding transfer and articulation agreements are increasingly important, and two-and four-year institutions must work together on the recruitment, retention, and transition of political science majors. Central to this collaboration is the curriculum. Building on conclusions from the 2011 Leadership Collaborative Core Curriculum and General Education track regarding a common curriculum in the discipline, this article examines the political science curriculum using data from 47 two-year colleges with separate political science departments. We examined similarities and differences among these programs and found sufficient commonality in curriculum to allow students to transfer credits to four-year institutions. The article also offers community colleges an indication of common curricular features and informs the wider profession about community college curriculum design.